Sixty years of recollections. Translated, with notes

SIXTY YEARS OF RECOLLECTIONS

SIXTY YEARS

OF

RECOLLECTIONS

M. ERNEST LEGOUV&

Of thf Acadimie-Franiaise

TRANSLATED, WITH NOTES, BY

ALBERT D. VANDA.M

The Editor of An Englishman in .'

IN TWO VOLUMES

VOL. II

EDEN, KKMINGTON & CO.
LONDON AND SYDNEY

1893

ALL HK.IITS IIKKBKVKK

L

\

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

M. Legouve's first Play. How the Idea of it was conceived. The
Development of it. Prosper Goubaux, the author of ' Trente Ans
ou la Vie d'un Joueur' and ' Richard Darlington.' Goubaux 'col-
laborates' with M. Legouve. M. Legouve"'s First Appearance
before the Reading Committee of the Comedie-Francaise. The
Committee declines the Play. The Manager of the Vaudeville
accepts it. The Casting of the Play. At the Dress Rehearsal the
Authors conclude that the Play is worthless. M. Legouve writes
to that effect to the Manager, asking him to withdraw the Play.
The Servant forgets to deliver the Letter. The Piece produced
and its Failure. The Author promises himself to redeem his Name
as a Dramatist. Prosper Goubaux, the Founder of the System of
Professional Education in France. The Pension Saint- Victor.
Goubaux's Money Trials. His Interview with M. Laffitte. An
Insight into a French School. Goubaux's Pupils. Whj he wrote
' Trente Ans ou la Vie d'un Joueur.' A Corneille of Melodrama.
The Success of Goubaux's Play. He writes another in con-
junction with Alexandre Dumas. A Glimpse of the Author of
'The Three Musketeers.' Frederic Lemaitre. His Suggestions
to Authors. The Difference between Frederic Lemaitre and
Talma. A Portrait of Lemaitre. Lemaitre and Casimir Dela-
. Goubaux's Career as a Tutor. His Final Victory. His
:d at the Hands of the State, i

CHAPTER II

A digression on Dramatic Collaboration. Mme. Legouve* tells a Story
Her Husband tees the subject of a Comedy in it. He seta to
work at once to draw the Plan. Opportune arrival of Goubaux.
They make up their minds to [collaborate once more. A few
:ices of Collaboration. II -\ M. Lcgouve and Prosper
Goubaux wrote 'Louise de Lignerolles.' A French Interior.
The Authors are stopped by a difficulty. How Authors find their

vi Contents

Sensational Effects and Denouements. How M. Legouve found
his. A true Story. M. Legouve finds a Letter relating to it among
his papers and at the same time finds his Denouement. A peep at
the National Guards in the late Thirties. The Dress Rehearsals
of ' Louise de Lignerolles.' The Premiere. Success, . . 46

CHAPTER III

The four Principal Interpreters of ' Louise de Lignerolles ' ; Mdlle.
Mars, Firmin, and Geffroy Joanny. The combined Ages of the
two Lovers. Firmin. Firmin compared to his Successor ; De-
launay. Firmin's Appearance and Gait. His Style as compared
to that of Delaunay. The Byplay in Love. Avowals Then and
Now. No more Kneeling at the beloved Woman's feet. Firmin's
Want of Memory. His Devices to minimise the evil effects of it.
His last Years and Death. Joanny. His Peculiarities. His
Punctuality. Expects the same from his Fellow- Actors. ' I have
a Chicken for Dinner which cannot wait, etc.' His Ante-Theatrical
Career. His magnificent Style. His Politeness. Geffroy. M.
Legouve selects him to play a part in his Piece in preference to
his older and more experienced fellow-actors. He becomes
Famous in one evening. Mdlle. Mars. 'Was she Pretty?'
' Am I Pretty ? 'Beauty On and Off the Stage. Refuses to play
any but Young Girl's Parts. Her Reasons. Her Artistic Merits.
Her Love Affairs. An Anecdote of her Early Life. Mdlle.
Contat and the Black Thread. The Use of Slang on the con-
temporary stage. Sardou's first Attempt to introduce it. Mdlle.
Mars as a Dramatic Adviser. The Success of ' Louise de Ligne-
rolles.' Mdlle. Mars afraid of Mdlle. Rachel. Her reluctance to
tell her Age. Her last Years. Her Deathbed. Exit. 'The
Ruling Passion strong in Death,' 74

CHAPTER IV

Eugene Scribe. The beginning of my friendship with him. A Letter
to him and his answer. Scribe's Birth and Parentage. His School-
days and College Chums. His beginnings as a Dramatist. A
strange Collaborates. A scene from 'She Stoops to Conquer' in
real life. How Scribe became the owner of Sericourt. My success
with ' Louise de Lignerolles.' A Piece on an Episode in the Life of
General Lamarque. -A qualified success. The balls of the Due de
Nemours. Court Dress in the forties. Scribe wants to write a
modern play for Rachel. I find the subject. Scribe at work.
An Essay on Scribe as a Dramatist. Scribe as a Librettist. A pre-
dicament of Dr Ve'ron. Scribe converts a dull tragedy into a
sparkling comedy. Scribe's Stage Tricks. His Denouements.

Contents vii

His reconstruction of two of Moliere's denouements. Scribe as a
Stage-Manager. Scribe and Louis-Philippe. Scribe as a Friend
and as a Man. Scribe and his Love-Affairs. ' How happy could
be with either,' etc. A Last Love. His Death, . . 102

CHAPTER V

Rachel. Why ' Adrienne Lerouvreur ' was written. Rachel changes her
mind ; the Piece declined by the Committee of the Comedie
Franchise. The Race of Managers to get hold of the Play. M.
Legouve's determination to impose the Play upon Rachel. His
success. Rachel at Rehearsal. An evil foreboding. Rachel asks
M. Legouve for another Piece. He writes it. The result. Rachel
as a Dramatic Adviser. Rachel in her True Character. Her last
Days, 172

CHAPTER VI

A Portrait-Gallery. Samuel Hahnemann, the Inventor of Homoepathy.
How I became acquainted with him. Hahnemann and his Wife
at my little Daughter's Bedside. A physical Portrait. His Direc-
tions. ' Throw Physic to the Dogs." He predicts the Crisis to a
Minute. He saves my Daughter's Life. The Paris Faculty of
Medicine disgusted. A Doctor a la Moliere. It would have been
better that this little girl should have died. The Origin of Hahne-
mann's System. His Language. His religious Belief. The Sen-
tence under my Daughter's Portrait. Madame Hahnemann. Her
History. Her Faith in her Husband. Hahnemann's Dietary. His
Death at eighty-three. Chretien Urhari. An ascetic Musician.
His physical Portrait. How he reconciled his Religion with his
Art. He gets a Dispensation from the Archbishop of Paris to
play in the Orchestra of the OpeYa. How he did play. A
and what came of it. His Visits to my Wife. A Lesson to a
Lady of Title. His Reverence for the Composer's Idea. He i;t
. es Schubert to Frenchmen. Jean-Jacques Ampere. Jean
Jacques' Father. Absentmindedness of the Father and Son
Ampere's personal Belongings. The Difference between the
Father and Son intellectually, 205

CHAPTER VII

The Portrait-Gallery continued. Two Dramatic Counsellors.

constitute^ Counsellor ? Germain Delavigne. A

Trio of Sue kin^ ins. Scribe and the two Del.ivignes at

wnrk. -Their 'I :, I >inners. V ^e of Subjects. A

Witticism of Louis Philippe. M. Muhciauh. Dramatic Coun-

viii Contents

seller and Art Collector. M. MaheVault's one Client. M. Maher-
ault's Father. The Origin of the Comedie-Frangaise of To-day.
The Actors of the old Comedie-Fransaise during the Reign of
Terror. The Difficulties of constituting the Comedie-Francaise.
Council's Opinion. The Way it is Received. Virgil's Timidity.
A French Counterpart of Sir Fretful Plagiary. Scribe's Way of
accepting Advice. An Anecdote of Gouvion Saint-Cyr. How the
Abbe was introduced into 'Adrienne Lecouvreur.' Maherault's
Passion for the Drama. Mahdrault as an Art Collector. The Sale
of his Collection. c If after Death the Shades can feel,' . 231

CHAPTER VIII

The Portrait Gallery continued. M. Etienne de Jouy, the Father of
the Parisian Chronique. The Salon of M. de Jouy. M. de Jouy
as a Benedict. Mdlle. de Jouy, afterwards Mme. Boudonville.
M. de Jouy's Guests. M. de Jouy's Talent for Parody. M. de
Jouy as a Librettist and Dramatist. A Glimpse of Talma. The
Libretto of ' La Vestale.' A First Glimpse of Meyerbeer. The
Libretto of 'Guillaume Tell' suggested by Mme. Boudonville.
Intended for Meyerbeer A Silhouette of Rossini, . . 257

CHAPTER IX

The Portrait Gallery continued. Lamartine. Lamartine's Pride.
His Manias. Lamartine's opinion of himself and of La Fontaine.
His opinion of Rossini. Beranger's opinion of one of Lamartine's
Poems. Lamartine's kindness. As a Statesman. His first
appearance in the Chamber. His wonderful capacity for grasping
a Subject. His hatred of the Napoleonic Legend. His Prophecy
with regard to the ultimate result of it. Lamartine and an Anecdote
of Turner, the Painter. How ' 1'Histoire des Girondins' was com-
posed. Lamartine goes to see an old Member of the Convention.
Lamartine's Impecuniosity. The Revolution of '48. A Glimpse of
a Revolutionary. Lamartine at the Hotel-de-Ville. Lamartine
misjudged. Madame de Lamartine. Her Devotion. Lamartine's
Funeral, 273

CHAPTER X

The Portrait-Gallery continued. Beranger My first meeting with him.
His position in the World of Letters. His moral courage. The
Atheism of the XVII Ith century and ours. Beranger's Religious
Sentiments. His admiration for the Literature of Greece. His
influence over Great Men. Whence it sprang. His Wit. His
love of poor people and of young people. Three Letters, . 309

SIXTY YEARS OF RECOLLECTIONS

CHAPTER I

M. Legouve's first Play. How the Idea of it was conceived. The
Development of it. Prosper Goubaux, the author of ' Trente Ans
ou la Vie d'un Joueur' and 'Richard Darlington.' Goubaux 'col-
laborates' with M. Legouve. M. Legouvd's First Appearance
before the Reading Committee of the Comedie-Franc.aise. The
Committee declines the Play. The Manager of the Vaudeville
accepts it. The Casting of the Play. At the Dress Rehearsal the
Authors conclude that the Play is worthless. M. Legouve writes
to that effect to the Manager, asking him to withdraw the Play.
The Servant forgets to deliver the Letter. The Piece produced
and its Failure. The Author promises himself to redeem his Name
as a Dramatist. Prosper Goubaux, the Founder of the System of
Professional Education in France. The Pension Saint- Victor.
Goubaux's Money Trials. His Interview with M. Laffitte. An
Insight into a French School. Goubaux's Pupils. Whj he wrote
' Trente Ans ou la Vie d'un Joueur.' A Corneille of Melodrama.
The Success of Goubaux's Play. He writes another in con-
junction with Alexandre Dumas. A Glimpse of the Author of
'The Three Musketeers.' Frederic Lemattre. His Suggestions
to Authors. The Difference between FredeYic Lemattre and
Talma. A Portrait of Lemaltre. Lemattre and Casimir Dela-
vigne. Goubaux's Career as a Tutor. His Final Victory. His
Reward at the Hands of the State.

I

morning while we were' , in tin- oumtry

Lfl taking a stroll with my \\itr and one of my
VOL. II A

2 Sixty Years of Recollections

dearest friends, Prosper Goubaux, the author of
' Richard Darlington/ and ' T rente Ans ou la Vie
d'un Joueur,' when all of a sudden there flashed upon
me a title which seemed to me to contain a fit subject
for a comedy : ' La Marche d'un Secret.'

I had no intention of imitating La Fontaine in
showing a secret travelling from mouth to mouth and
getting magnified in its progress. Not at all. I was
tempted by a more profound idea ; I wanted to de-
velop the * physiology of indiscretion,' I wanted to
dramatise the various motives which cause us to dis-
close a secret that has been confided to us.

The action of the piece was laid in the Pyrenees.
It began with the conversation of two young fellows
of twenty. One of these has just returned from his
first appointment with a married woman ; his happiness
positively chokes him ; he confides everything to his
friend, because he finds it impossible to hold his
tongue, because every young fellow of twenty who is
in love or thinks he is must necessarily have a con-
fidant ; it is the * indiscretion of love and youth.'

As a matter of course, his friend has sworn to keep
the secret. Unfortunately the friend is also in love,
but with a widow who keeps him at arm's length.
She has got scent of the affair and wants to know all
about it and insists upon her admirer telling her.
He objects ... he knows nothing about it, but she
becomes very pressing. He refuses to surrender.
She sulks or pretends to sulk.

Years of Recollections 3

' You do not care for me,' she says ; * if you did, you
would tell me everything ; if you did tell me, it would
prove your faith in me, and who knows but that I
might be grateful in my own way.'

The bait held out is too tempting, the young
fellow loses his head and tells her everything. It is
the ' indescretion of egoism.' The young fellow tells
the secret confided to him. I had conceived a rather
pretty ending to that scene. As soon as the young
fellow had parted with the whole of the secret, the
charming widow was supposed to rise from her seat
and dismiss him with a smile, saying, ' My dear sir,
heaven preserve me from entrusting my honour to
a mm who cannot keep the secret of a freind.'

Third stage. What will the widow do with the
secret she has dragged from the young fellow? It is
delightful weather and all the rest of the visitors at
('auterets are out in the open air and enjoying them-
She is alone with a gouty uncle who is some-
what deaf besides. I low is she to spend her day, how
ie to get through the wearisome hours? ' If I
told the story to my uncle? No, no, that would be too
bad of me. Still, it might amuse him. Besides, I can
easily keep back the names, I can even say that it
happened at B 1 of at Cauterets. Upon

my word, I fail to see the harm of it, and I must do
:hing to amuse the poor old man.' She tells him
,d the third phase of the play is ' indN-

all tin- vis

4 Sixty Years of Recollections

have come back to Cauterets, they are assembled at
the Casino in the reading and drawing-room, and, as a
matter of course, there is a good deal of desultory
conversation. ' I think I must tell you a story,' says
the uncle all of a sudden. In vain does the niece tug
at the skirt of his coat to make him hold his tongue.
' Don't worry yourself/ he answers in a low voice.
' I'll veil the story carefully.' And so well does he
veil it that after five minutes everyone has recognised
the hero of the tale, and one of his listeners gets up
saying : * Allow me to remind you, monsieur, that you
have forgotten the most essential thing in your story
the name of the husband. I am the husband.'

Goubaux was delighted with the subject. We
drew out the plan of the piece during the evening, I
wrote it during the night and next morning we wrote
to the Comedie-Fran^aise, asking leave to read to the
Committee a piece in one act, entitled, ' Le Soleil
Couchant.'

A few weeks later we are in the presence of that
terrible Committee which at that time was not what
it is to-day, a kind of council of ten stolid and mute-
like judges, making the author feel like a prisoner on
his trial. The actresses, even the young ones, were
present and their being there, threw a cheerful note
into the proceedings. They laughed at % the comic
scenes, they wept at the pathetic ones, the brilliant
passages of a play were applauded, in short it was a
kind of ' undress ' rehearsal which enlightened the

Sixty Years of Recollections 5

author with regard to the weak or strong points of
his piece, even the silence that fell upon the listeners
now and then served as a lesson. I am bound to say
that during the reading of that particular piece it was
the only lesson conveyed to me. It lasted for an
hour during which I read with all the warmth, with
all the conviction of an author of twenty-nine. I
failed to produce a single effect, not one, and the
final result was twelve black balls. The piece was
refused unanimously. I had gone back to the
country, and was trying to get over my failure as
best I could when I received a short note from
Goubaux.

' The Committee of the Com&die- Franchise does
not know what it is about. I have read our piece to
Etienne Arago, the clever manager of the Vaudeville.
He thinks it very amusing. He is going to put it
into rehearsal immediately; he is going to cast it
with the best of his company ; Bardou, that excellent
Bardou, will play the uncle, pretty Mme. Th6nard, the
widow, and for one of the lovers, he is going to engage
-i young fellow on whom he builds great hopes. 1 1 is
name is Brindeau, and I am told that he is very
good-looking and has a nice voice. I'll write him a
song for his first entrance, it will set him off all the
better. Does that suit you?' If it suited me?
Thru weeks Liter I came up from the country to be
at the final rehearsal. In those days the
Vaudeville theatre- was in the Rue de Cha

6 .SV.r/r ]'t'(?rs of Recollections

rehearsal begins, the chief of the claqueurs was seated
next to me. When the rehearsal was over, he said,
' It is not very strong, your piece, but we may manage
to pick two or three good things out of it.' I leave
the theatre, and in the middle of the Place du Palais
Royal, Goubaux, a friend whom he had brought to
the rehearsal and I stand stock still and stare fixedly
at one another.

' What do you think of it ? ' I ask.

' What do I think of it/ exclaims Goubaux. ' I
think it abominable.'

1 That's what I think.'

' And I too,' adds the friend. ' If I had had a key
handy, I would have used it as a catcall. Don't let
them play the piece if you can help it.'

' He is right,' says Goubaux.

' Well, I'll take it upon myself to go and see Arago
and to tell him that we withdraw the piece.'

Next morning at ten I rang the bell at Arago's ;
it was the cook who opened the door.

' Monsieur has gone to take a bath,' she says.

* Can I write to him ? '

' Monsieur will find pen and paper on that table.'

I wrote to Arago as follows

' MY DEAR DIRECTOR, This letter will show you what you have
probably never met with in the course of your management, namely :
two authors who found their piece so utterly bad at rehearsal that they
prefer to withdraw it. Pray consider our "Soleil Couchant"(" Setting
Sun"), as a "Soleil Couche" ("A Sun that has set"), Sincerely
Yours,

'E. LEGOUVE.'

Sixty Years of Recollections 7

Having written which, I repair to Goubaux's as fast
as my legs will carry me, and we rush into one
another's arms like people who have just awakened
from a nightmare.

The second day after that I leave home at eleven

in the morning and while strolling along, happen to

my eye on a play bill stuck against a wall. Ye

'To-night, First Performance of."Le Soleil

Couchant." '

If a hundred thousand candles had suddenly been
lighted, nay, if the sun himself had concentrated all his
beams on me, I could not have felt more dazed. Of
course there and then I rush to Arago's. The same
cook opens the door and utters a loud cry on seeing
me. * Great heavens ! ' she exclaimed, * I forgot,
monsieur, to give your letter. There it is, monsieur.
Don't tell master, monsieur, I'd get such a scolding.'
The mischief had been done, there seemed to be a
kind of fate about it; the best thing was to let matters
take their course and to wait. In the evening I go
and hide myself in a box on the third tier while
Goubaux bravely goes down to the stage to support
our troops. The first scene, that between the young
fcllo\\s confiding their love affairs to one another,
went very well. Knc<>uraged by this favourable be-
I also go down to the Bardou ' was

iblic laugh at some of his lines and when
comes off,' he say-: ' It' .lit, my laU, I've

got my public in hand.' At the selfsame mom*

8 Sixty Years of Recollections

faint, though strident sound, for which I can find no
name, falls upon my ear.

( What's that ? ' I ask.

' That/ replies Goubaux, ' that's a catcall.'

4 Is it?'

The sound had been provoked by Brindeau's song.
He was singing out of tune and they were hissing
him. I immediately disappeared and went back to
my box. I did not go down again, but from that
moment the hissing went on uninterruptedly. I have
never heard the like in my life. There were regular
dialogues between the actors and the public. One of
the latter had a newspaper in his hand. ' Give us the
news from Spain,' they cried from the pit. Goubaux's
three daughters were in an open box and simply
shrieked with laughter. In about twenty minutes
I turned tail in the most cowardly fashion. Goubaux
stood at the wings, waiting for the actors to come off,
and holding out his arms to them, like they carry the
wounded off the battle-field. * My dear, good friends,
my dear, good friends,' he said to each and all, * we
really beg your pardon for having given you such ex-
ecrable parts.' ' I wish someone would get me some-
thing to drink/ said Bardou ; c The piece is over their
heads/ murmured Mdlle. Thenard. Over their heads
or not, the curtain had to be let down in the middle
of it

The papers said that the piece was by two men of
wit, who would assuredly take their revenge on some

Sixty Years of Recollections 9

future occasion. I received seven francs, fifty cen-
times for my author's fees. Next morning I said to
Goubaux : ' The next time I am knocked about like
that, my dear fellow, it will be at the Comedie-Fran-
gaise, and with a five-act piece.'

Two years later, on the 6th of June, 1838, the cur-
tain rose upon ' Louise de Lignerolles,' by Goubaux
and myself. Mdlle. Mars was the chief interpreter
and the piece brought me more than seven francs
fifty centimes.

x

II

The reader has already been enabled to judge
Goubaux, from the scene at the wings of the Vaude-
ville Theatre. A dramatic author who in the midst
of a failure pities his interpreters instead of reproach-
ing them, tries to comfort instead of accusing them,
and apologises for having given them bad parts, an
author who does all that, paints as it were his own
portrait, without the help of anyone else. Neverthe-
this is only a profile, for Goubaux had two pro-
two professions so utterly opposed to one
to exclude apparently the possibility of
their ever going hand in hand, yet, he proved hir
::iincnt in both as if he had exercised but one.
was a dramatic author and a tutor. As a dra-
iithor he ranks fore-most among original
As a professor he ranks among the public
indebted to him fur a new

IO St.vS)' Years of Recollections

system of education. Yet, of this dual existence, so
fruitful in results, what does there remain ? Not even
a name, and scarcely a recollection. His dramas are
published under a pseudonym of two syllables, the
last of which only belongs to him ; (Dinaux). His
educational work bears another name than his. He
ought to have been doubly famous, he is unknown.

It is this unknown man whom I would like the
reader to know ; it is this richly endowed and power-
fully organised being in his fifty years' struggle with
evil fortune I would like to sketch. Few men have
been more richly endowed by nature, and worse
treated by fate than Prosper Goubaux. The one
bestowed lavishly, the other grudged everything
most persistently. The most cruel trials, the most
insuperable obstacles uprose before him at every step.
Well, it seems scarcely credible, but when endeavour-
ing to place my finger upon the most characteristic
trait of this man who laboured and suffered so much,
I can only find it in that line of La Fontaine

'Et le don d'agreer infus avec la vie.'

Without a doubt his manly qualities were to the full
as great as those merely calculated to please. In
addition to his innate grace he possessed energy,
perseverance, an indomitable faith ; nevertheless, with
him the power to please made itself felt beyond
everything, clothed everything, mingled with every-
thing and finally determined everything. Whence

s of Recollections \ I

sprang that power to please? From his face? \ 4

at all. From his general appearance ? By no means.

He had a thick-shaped nose, a rather large mouth,

small eyes, round, rosy cheeks like a child's, a good,

but somewhat heavy figure ; a head that had been

1 from his very youth and the hair of which

nted by a chestnut silky fringe in the

nape of the neck; but the forehead, the look, the ti

ed so much goodness, cheerfulness, kindness,
erity and sympathy that a mere glance at them
bred the desire to hug him.

Such was the man : here is his life.

There are certain writers whose moral worth is

inferior to that of their works. ' How,' it will be

d, 'can the fruit of a tree be better than the tree

itself? ' I am unable to say, but it is a fact, neverthe-

if not with regard to the tree, at any rate with

.rd to certain writers. Favourable circumstances,

the choice of a happy subject, sometimes due to mere

chance, a good position in society, a certain strength

of character, capable of concentrating all its faculties

on one point, or even a certain narrowness of intellect

which allows them to confine themselves to

ted order of ideas, all these enable a few men to
invent the fruit of their intellect at the rate of a
hundred per cent. Their hooks contain all that is
in them, their inferior qualities are Carefully ex-
Tom them ; a lucky accident does the ivst and
often meets with people

1 2 Si.vty Years of Recollections

who are within an ace of being famous and who on
closer examination turn out to be almost mediocre.

Altogether different is a certain order of intellects,
which, like the sun on certain days, rise upon the
horizon bereft of their halo and which shed more heat
than light. Those who only know them by their
works, only know them partly, for the real book in
which to read them is their mind, their heart, their
conversation, their life. What then has prevented
them giving the world their whole measure, what
have been their defects? The defect was that they
had a few good qualities too many. God endowed
them with too liberal a hand ; they were too fond of
too many things, they were apt at too many things.
Their almost universal aptitude constantly impelled
them to undertake different works, the public gasped
for breath in trying to follow them ; in some in-
stances they, the intellects, were weighed down by the
sombre motto of Bernard Palissey : ' Poverty prevents
great minds from getting on.'

Such was Goubaux.

He was of most humble extraction. His mother
kept a mercer's shop in the Rue du Rempart, close to
the Theatre-Frangais and which street has since then
disappeared. His childhood was more than beset
with trials, it was absolutely unhappy; a harsh and
even cruel stepfather wielded his parental authority
tyranically, and converted it into a martyrdom to the
child who suffered from it, though wonderful to re-

Sixty Years of Recollections 13

late, neither his heart nor mind was affected by it.
For six years he was maltreated without becoming
ill-natured himself; for six years he bent to the storm
without becoming weak ; for six years he trembled
without becoming a coward. His first mental victory
.1 wonderful exploit in itself. He was more than
nine years old, I believe, and he scarcely knew his
alphabet ; he refused to learn to read. His mother
resorted to a very ingenious trick to make him. She
took a volume of stories and began to read him one.
The ardent imagination of the child was delighted
with that beginning, but all at once, in the middle
of the story, when the mother had her small listener,
the playwright that was to be, under her spell, she
closed the book, saying : ' If you wish to know the
rest, you'll have to read it for yourself.' Eleven
days afterwards he read it.

Having entered college on an exhibition, he made

such brilliant progress as to attain in his own form

an honour, shared about the same time by two men

who have become eminent, M. Cousin and M. Ville-

main. In the absence of the professor, Goubaux

his chair now and then, and became the

her of his fellow pupils. From that moment he

ived a dual quality rarely to be met with. He

as fit to teach as to learn. That universal

: Marvellous lucid:'
v.-hich made the study of langu
to him as that of

14 \/.r/r Years of Recollections

history as well as of music, all these were imported
by him into his system of teaching. A born teacher
as it were, he taught so naturally, with so little effort,
and with such genuine eloquence that the same
faculty showed itself in his pupils ; they could not
very well pretend to a difficulty to understand that
which he explained with so little difficulty. The
clearness of intellect assumed with him the character-
istic which seems solely reserved for kindness, it
became contagious. In addition to this, he dearly
loved everything that could be taught, he dearly
loved all those to whom he could teach something.
It was difficult to resist him. One becomes forcibly
a good pupil when the heart of a friend obviously
hovers on the lips of a teacher.

He was fortunate in getting a number of lessons,
for at nineteen he was a married man, and at twenty
a father. He has often told me that, in order to in-
crease his modest budget, he went several times a
month to look after the books of a lottery agency
whence he returned at two in the morning, singing
and clanking his stick on the flagstones with a con-
quering air, he had earned two francs and his supper.

Nevertheless, a few years later, he was indebted to
that intellect, which, without exaggeration, might be
termed marvellous, for a proposal which was almost
equivalent to a fortune. A clever business man called
upon him. ' Monsieur,' he said, ' you have a great
deal of learning and I happen to have none at all ;

Sixty Years of Recollections 1 5

but you have no money whatever, and I happen to
have some. Suppose we were to enact Florian in prose,
suppose we were to realise the fable of the Blind and
the Halt. Let us go into partnership and open a
boarding-school. Each will bring his own capital to
the concern you, your intelligence I my money, and
we'll share the profits. The offer was eagerly ac-
cepted, and the St- Victor boarding school opened to
the delight of the young professor, who found himself
at the head of an important establishment. Never-
theless, the purchase of the furniture and the house
f had run away with a great deal of money, an-
other partner had to be called in, and as a la*t pay-
ment, a bill of 45,000 francs at six months had to be
given. There were* two signatories to it, though, in
reality, only one was responsible, and Goubaux was
highly amused at having to give his signature ; he
felt rather pleased than otherwise at the idea that his
name wa- supposed to be worth 45,000 francs, it gave
him an air of commercial importance which flattered
his sense of dignity.

the end of the six months, on the eve of the bill

becoming due, lv >ry disappeared and the

young fellow had to face that enormous debt, without

my to meet it. I lis state of mind may easi 1

ined. though he himself failed to grasp at first

it of his misfortune, for these 45,000 fr,;
the bane of his whole after life. A d
45,OOO fr es not seem very formidable; in

1 6 Si.vfy Years of Recollections

reality, it may mean a burden of two, three or four-
hundred thousand francs; it is an unholy pact with
usury ; I have known Goubaux to borrow money at
1 8 per cent It means days and prodigious mental
efforts spent in renewing a bill, it means a superior
intellect, intended for better things, draining its ener-
gies in order to exorcise the law official armed with
a stamped document, in order to escape from some
brutal threat, in order to substitute one creditor for
another; it means a constant and ever increasing
terror at the approach of the last day of the month,
it means the necessity of having to break one's
promise a score of times; it means constant re-
proaches from some quarter or other, sleepless nights,
desperate combinations, it means, in one word, the
worst and most horrible slavery the servitude of debt.
No doubt, Goubaux might, like many others and
with greater justification, have filed his petition, for
he was being punished while perfectly innocent But
he was five-and-twenty, chivalrous and honourable to
a degree; he felt confident of his strength and intelli-
gence and he had signed his name. Hence, he took
an oath to himself that he would pay and pay he did,
but it took him forty-four years to pay those 45,000
francs, and when he died the last instalment of the
debt had only been discharged a few weeks.

The first crisis in that long struggle was terrible.
One day he thought himself lost; he had to pay
12,000 francs within the next twenty-four hours, and

Sixty Years of Recollections 1 7

he had not a louis towards them. That terrible
word bankruptcy, the very sound of which rent his
heart and made his lips grow pale, he would have
to utter it. He had taken refuge with some of his
relations in a room on a fifth story ; they were
simply dissolved in tears, and mad with despair.
He alone did not despair ; he was still devising
means to avert the crisis. At that very moment a
carriage passing below shook the windows of the
poorly furnished apartment. ' Oh, those carriage
>le, those rich egotists/ exclaims one of the
company, ' and to think that to the man who is
(1 in that carriage those 12,000 francs would
be a mere nothing, and yet, if we were to ask him
or his like to lend them to us, they would not lend
:oo francs.' At these words, Goubaux looks up.
Some one was preferring a charge against mankind
in general, and that seemed an injustice to him.
1 \Yhy should you censure that rich man who happens
>o passing below, and whom you do not know ? '
he replies. * How do you know but that he might
help me if he knew of my trouble?' 'That is ex-
actly like you and your unbearable optimism,' is the
' My optimism, as you choose to call it, is
nly so much equity or sound sense.' 'Sound sense,
you say. You have applied to a score of people,
y one of whom has refused you.' 'They could
help me.' 'Well, the one who drove by in his
'age could help you, just go and ask him to do

YM|.. II l;

1 8 Sixty Years of Recollections

so, and see what he'll say.' 'Very well,' exclaims
Goubaux, ' I'll go, if not to him ; at anyrate, to
someone who is as rich as he, and whom I know
no more than I know him, and who will not refuse
me.' ' You are mad.' ' We'll see about that'

With which he rushes home, snatches up a pen and
writes. To whom, do you think ? To M. Laffitte
whom he had never seen, and to whom he tells in a
few words .... But I had better give the letter
verbatim

* MONSIEUR, I am five-and-twenty, the father of three children.
I am an honest and honourable man and people have told me that I am
not without talent. My spotless name has been used as a means of
speculation, to found an establishment. I am being crushed by a debt
of twelve thousand francs and in three days I'll stand disgraced before
the world. When all appeal to one's fellow men has been in vain, one
generally appeals to Providence, I appeal to you. M. Delanneau who
has as it were adopted me, will tell you that a favour solicited so frankly
may be granted with confidence. It is the honourable poor man who
appeals to the honourable rich man.

' My fate depends on you. I am awaiting your answer in your ante-
chamber. My family is waiting some distance from here. Have I pre-
sumed too far ?

' I have the honour to be, etc.,

'P. GOUBAUX.'

M. Laffitte told the servant to show him in and care-
fully looked at his visitor whose letter had impressed
him. The unmistakable honesty of Goubaux's face
impressed him still more, and five minutes later the
principal of the boarding school was saved for the
time being.

Only for the time being, next day the struggle had
to be begun afresh, for, first of all, he had to pay

Sixty Years of Recollections 19

M. Laffitte. Next day, other debts, becoming urgent
in their turn, began to worry him like the first, next
morning, in short, he had to take up once more the
burden of the Saint-Victor Institute which had to be
kept going, a terrible burden, especially to him.
Goubaux had all the grand qualities of the professor.
Science, a natural talent for teaching, a fondness for
children, the art of managing them ; he was a match-
less teacher, unfortunately for him, there never was a
more execrable * Marchand de Soupe.' I am obliged
to employ the vulgar expression, for which there is
no synonym* Both his shortcomings and his good
qualities rendered him unfit for such a part, for it
requires three indispensable gifts, namely, 1st the
spirit of order ; 2nd economy ; 3rd authority. Gou-
baux was too embarrassed in circumstances to be
careful ; he was too generous to be economical ; he

too harrassed by impending bills to be master in
his own house. A sad but nevertheless charming
story will illustrate that struggle against his terrible
servitude from which he managed to extricate him-
self, as usual by his own seductive powers. One day

f his pupils enter his private room, crying both
with anger and pain. One of the masters had given
them a cruel thrashing. Goubaux, beside himself with

.nation, asks for his name, in order to dismiss him

* The term is applied by the French lad to the principal of a board-
ing school irrespective of the latter's liberal com-
i:it, just as the term 1 de SommeiP is applied by the
workman to his landlord.

2O Sixty Years of Recollections

ignominiously there and then. They tell him that it
is the assistant head-master, at which Goubaux turns
very pale and remains silent for a moment or so.
4 All right,' he says at last in a subdued tone which
betrays both his anger and confusion ; ' all right, go
back to the schoolroom, I will speak to him.'

Why this change of tone, why this sudden subsid-
ence, why this confusion ? Why? Because that man
was his creditor, who had lent him a considerable
sum of money at a critical moment and on the con-
dition of entering the establishment as assistant
head-master. And Goubaux had no right to dismiss
him. Goubaux was compelled to stifle his indigna-
tion, his kindness, his feeling of justice, his feeling of
duty. He was compelled to manage with fair words
this savage brute who was not only cruel but incap-
able besides. One may easily imagine Goubaux's
feelings under the circumstances.

But let us inquire for a moment what would have
been the result of a similar situation in another insti-
tution of the same kind ? What would have been
the feelings, the behaviour of the two pupils and their
fellows face to face with this denial of justice ? A
violent irritation, a feeling of indignation against the
head of the establishment, whom they would have
accused of cruelty and of weakness. What did Gou-
baux's pupils do ? They simply pitied him. One of
them who knew the position of affairs, who was aware
of his financial difficulties told the others, and their

Sixty Years of Recollections 2 i

anger changed into commiseration, they became if
possible, more affectionate towards him. * Poor man, 1
they said, * how he must suffer at not being able to
protect us, how it must grieve him to be able only to
defend us partly.' This seems so utterly incredible,
that I should have hesitated to repeat the words,
were I not in a position to name my informant. I
have them from the lips of one of Goubaux's old
pupils, from one of the two victims of the assistant
head-master's brutality, from one of our most brilliant
colleagues, M. Edmond Cottinet, who not only told
me the fact, but added some characteristic details.

' Surely,' he said, ' the Saint-Victor establishment
left much to desire, the food was indifferent, order and
discipline were conspicuous by their absence, the
masters were often harsh and unjust, but M. Goubaux
was there and his presence made up for everything.
\\uuld you believe, that on one occasion when my
mother, annoyed at something that had happened at
chool, wanted to take me away, I positively re-
1 to be taken. " It would grieve M. Goubaux," I
answered. Not once, but a hundred times, when our
discontent was at its highest and we were perfectly
ripe for resistance, our anger vanished at the mere
si^ht of his coming into the room to take the place of
the ordinary master. He spoke so well and had such
a fine voice. Everything he said went straigh

ut and mind. He could mak v or

laugh or think just as he liked. And when he was

22 Sixty Years of Recollections

gone, the memory of that hour was sufficient to make
us put up cheerfully for a week with bad food and
bad masters. Moreover, we were very proud of his
success as a playwright. At the premieres of his
pieces, there were always half-a-dozen of us on the
field of battle, applauding frantically. His triumphs
were virtually our own. In short, to this day, after
a lapse of forty years, it does me good to talk of M.
Goubaux, and I will tell you a story which will still
further prove the spell he exercised over everyone.
His eldest daughter had reached the age of twenty,
but she had no marriage portion. A distinguished
professor, and very well off to boot, asked for her
hand. Why ? Of course you would say because he
cared for her. That was no doubt one of the reasons ;
but the principal reason was his admiration for Gou-
baux. He married the daughter for the pleasure of
calling M. Goubaux " father-in-law." '

M. Cottinet's words have opportunely reminded me
of Goubaux's other profession, of his second self
which agreed so well with his first. I used to call
him jocularly ' Maitre Jacques.' * He often began
the scene of a drama on a sheet of paper headed
' Pension Saint-Victor ' ; he now and then replied
to a letter connected with his scholastic duties while
leaning against a wing, and his author's fees fre-

* The French equivalent for our * Jack of all trades,' though the de-
signation in French does not necessarily imply that the person thus
designated is ' master of none.' TR.

Sixty Years of Recollections 23

quently went to replenish the empty exchequer of the
schoolmaster. To whom did he owe the playwright's
talent? To one of those accidents of which hi>
istence was so full and which were at the same time
the work of Providence and of his own. Providence
afforded him the opportunity, he embraced it.

Ill

Goubaux loved almost everything, understood
even-thing, and felt an interest in everything ; hence
he felt an interest in the drama just as he felt an
interest in everything else ; I might say a greater
interest than he felt in anything else. A man gifted
with a fertile imagination like his has necessarily a
strong liking for works of fiction. One day when
dining with some friends, the conversation turned
on the drama. An animated discussion ensued
about the unities of time and place. One of the
.\\ uncompromising classicist, contended that
the principle of confining the action of a stage play
to a period of twenty-four hours was not due to the
mere whim of one literary legislator, that compliance
with this salutary injunction was one of the foremost
conditions of success. ' A piece, the action of which
would extend over a twelvemonth could not possibly
have any inti

'No interest,' replied Goubaux with that dash and
brilliancy which invested his conversation with such
a charm, 'no interest 1. it would extend

24 Sixty Years of Recollections

a twelvemonth ? Why, if it extended over thirty
twelvemonths it would be all the more interesting/

' Ha, ha, over thirty years/ exclaimed his inter-
locutor, ' it would be as Boileau says

' " Enfant au premier acte et barbon au dernier.'"

' Exactly ; a child in the first act, and an old man
in the last. That's exactly where the interest would
lie, in the change time works in all things human ;
in men's fortunes, in men's characters, in men's faces
and figures ; nay, even in men's souls, in the gradual
and quasi fatal evolution of the good and evil
passions.'

1 The theory sounds tempting enough ; what about
the practice ? '

1 The practice,' repeated the playwright that was to
be, getting on his mettle by being contradicted, ' I'll
wager to write a piece the action of which will ex-
tend over thirty years and which will make you
shudder and cry.'

' You write a piece. But you have never written a
piece in your life.'

' All the more reason to make a beginning.' And
a few months afterwards he read them the scenario
of what became the most popular drama of the
period. * Trente ans ou la vie d'un Joueur.* He had
written the piece as he would have done anything
else, because the opportunity for doing it presented

* The version best known in England is ' Rouge et Noir ' played by
the late M. Fechter during his lesseeship of the Lyceum Theatre. TK.

Years of Recollections

itself. The moment he was in need of a certain
talent, he had it, and there was an end of the
thing.

When the piece was finished, he had to find a
manager to play it. He was told to solicit the col-
laboration of Victor Ducange, one of the most famous
melodramatists of the time. One morning, therefore,
he calls upon the man, who nodded complacently,
and with a smile when they addressed him as the
Corneille of the Boulevards. 'The work shows the
hand of a novice,' says Ducange, after having heard
the play, but there are a good many interesting things
in it. What it really wants is a prologue, and I'll
look to that. It is not enough, young man, to be able
to cook a good dinner, one must also know how to
lay the cloth.'

A few days later Victor Ducange showed the pro-
logue to Goubaux, who as a university man and
professor could not help noticing sundry startling
liberties the author had taken with grammar and
syntax. He ventured to point them out in a timid

1 My dear monsieur, the fact that it is I who have
written this must and will suffice.' Goubaux did not
say another word.

The first performance produced a tremendous

t. All the former rules of dramatic composition

>ver like the walls of Jericho at the sound of

trumpet. A new road had been opened and

26 Sixty Years of Recollections

Goubaux, whose success had been, as it were, a re-
velation to himself, attempted a further step on
it.

The dramatist's talent is a very special and peculiar
gift. It is not necessarily related to any other intel-
lectual faculty. A man may have a great deal of wit
and cleverness, he may be a capital scholar and write
well, and yet be absolutely incapable of writing a
piece. I have seen men of great parts, cultured men of
letters bring me comedies and dramas which seemed
to have been written by a child. On the other hand,
I have had submitted to me, by people of very aver-
age intellect, stage plays in which there was a name-
less something which could not have been replaced
by no matter what, which was not acquired, of which
they would never get rid again and which unmistake-
ably stamped them as dramatic authors. In one word
it was the gift, and Goubaux had that gift to a
supreme degree. With him everything was inborn,
even skill ; everything was spontaneous, even experi-
ence. Furthermore, seeing that he was a thinker as
well as a dramatist, his taste led him to found his
dramas on a character or on a passion rather than on
a mere fact. After having written ' Trente ans ou la
vie d'un Joueur,' he conceived the idea of portraying
a life swayed by ambition * Richard Darlington's.'
This time, however, he invited the co-operation of a
real master of dramatic art Alexandre Dumas. The
share of each in that joint work has been set forth in

Sixty Years of Recollections 27

his 'Memoires' by Alexandra Dumas himself with
delightful sincerity and good-nature.

To Goubaux belongs the primary and fundamental
idea, the invention of the principal character, the very
original scene of the elections, the dramatic interview
between the King and Richard. To Dumas belongs
the prologue, a goodly number of the most dramatic
situations and the denouement.

That very denouement gave the collaborateurs a
good deal of trouble. The young wife of Richard
had to disappear, but how? One morning, Goubaux,
who was cudgelling his brains all the while, goes to
Dumas, he rings, enters the room; Dumas is still in
bed, but the moment he catches sight of Goubaux, he
stands up in his bed, his long black legs showing
under his white shirt He frantically waves his
hands and thunders, ' My boy, I chuck her out of the
window, I chuck her out of the window.' 'Her' was
Richard's wife, Jenny.* Those who were at the first
nuance still recollect the thrill of horror and
terror when Richard with livid face, came back to the
balcony whence he had flung his wife into the yawn-
ing chasm. True, it was Frederic Lemaitiv who
played Richard. The stage trick by which he
rendered that reappearance on the balcony more
terrible still, was not generally known in those days
and few of the public suspected it. It was carried

I have purposely made use of the word chuck instead of 'fling,'

h even the former scarcely renders the vigorous but not \
fined expression of Dumas. TK.

28 Sixty Years of Recollections

out by means of an apparatus in the wings which
threw a powerful ray of coloured light on his
face and made it look positively green. To com-
plete the effect he had arranged with the actress
who enacted the part of Jenny that, in rush-
ing away from him towards the balcony, she would
drop the muslin scarf she had round her head
and shoulders. The wrap was, as it were, staring
him in the face when he stepped from the balcony on
to the stage ; it was the spectre of his wife. Any one
else would have shuddered or started back, or have
resorted to an equally hackneyed device. He simply
bounded towards it and picked it up in the twinkling
of an eye, crammed it into his pocket like a handker-
chief, and his new father-in-law knocking at the door
at the same moment he went to open it with that
insolent, devil-may-care ease of which he seems to
have had the exclusive secret, while a bit of the white
material kept peeping from his pocket and flapping
against his coat. It was simply ghastly. Those were
the moments that revealed one of the most striking
traits of Frederic Lemaitre's talent: namely, the art
of ' individualising ' a scene and to double its effect by
some picturesque detail. Those who have seen him
in it will not easily forget the second act of ' La Vie
d'un Joueur ' when he wishes to obtain from his wife
the signature which means her ruin ; the way he
watched Mme. Dorval while she was hesitating to
give it; and his gloating, half-muttered cry of ' She is

Sixty Years of Recollections 29

going to sign,' while she took up the pen. \Yhat
after all, had he added to the text? A gesture,
nothing more. He simply took a pinch of snuff. He
gave the scene its tragic effect by dragging it down
to the * ruffian's ' level.

But the piece in which that talent verged on the
sublime was 'Les Mysteres de Paris.' Eugene Sue
had asked Goubaux to assist him in dramatising
his novel. Frederic Lemaitre played Jacques
I 'errand, the notary, the debauchee notary, the thief
who is looked upon as a saint in the neighbourhood.
The scene of the second act was laid in his office. A
poor ruined manufacturer came to solicit his aid ; the
office was full of people, the clerks were all at their
desks. Jacques Ferrand was to give that unhappy
and deserving petitioner a note of 500 francs. The
authors felt very pleased at having introduced
the incident of that well-bestowed gift, but Frederic
himself, in the course of the rehearsals, seemed
fidgetty and dissatisfied with the idea.

'What's the matter? That trait of hypocritical
generosity does not seem to strike you as true and
profound?' asked Goubaux.

' It's neither sufficiently hypocritical nor sufficiently

profound,' was the brusque reply. 'Jacqi: .md's

benevolence does, after all, not cost him very much.

Then- is not much merit in 500 francs when

has merely to take them out of on ibox.

it often borrows in order to give, I will

3O Sixty Years of Recollections

not have anything to do with your note of 500
francs.'

' In that case what shall we do and what will you
do?'

* This is how I would manage it if I were you.
When the poor fellow tells me of his misfortunes, I'll
run to my cashbox to get the money for which he
asks me. But my cashbox is being constantly drained
by my donations and only contains three hundred
francs in notes. I'll make up the sum with sixty
francs in five franc pieces, I'll even add some small
change, and finally finding that I am still short, borrow
the rest from my principal clerk. That's the thing to
do, for the affair is sure to be bruited about and make
a noise in the quarter. In that way I beat Saint-
Martin, seeing that I take even my neighbour's cloak
to clothe the poor. There is no doubt about my
being a Saint after that.'

In the fourth act he tried to introduce an effect of
a similar kind, but this time the authors did not think
it advisable to satisfy him. It was where Cicely, the
mulatto girl, for whom he has conceived a mad
passion, enters his room. At the sight of her, the
instincts of the brutal sensualist assert their sway and
lead to a scene between him and the girl in which
entreaties, threats, tears, protestations of love follow
one another in rapid succession. During one of the
final rehearsals, Frederic was perambulating the
stage like a wild beast in his cage.

Sixty Years of Recollections 3 1

1 What are you looking for now ? ' asked Sue
laughing. ,

' Is there no means of putting a truss of straw in
one of the corners, and so arouse a fear in the mind
of the public that I might fling her down ? ' he
answered.

Frederic had to do without his truss of straw, he
proved none the less terrible in the delineation of
Jacques Ferrand's brutal sensuality. On the first
night he was waiting for his cue at the wings, just
before that identical scene, when he suddenly turned
to Goubaux who was standing by his side, and in a
tone and accents which it would be impossible to
describe, said, ' And now, I am going to give them a
taste of my quality.'

People have often compared Frederic Lemaitre to
Talma. I once asked Goubaux who had known the
latter very well whether the comparison was justified
in any way, and he replied in the affirmative, ' for/
said he, ' the same word the word " genius " best
describes both their talent.' Were they equal to one
another? Perhaps, in virtue of the very difference
between them. Talma was the god of tragedy and
(Inn: leric was the demon of them. When

Talma spoke about his art, his features assumed a
kind of pensive though impassioned e <m of

mcholy which was still further increased by his
and in \eiy sentence of his

with a nameless something both poetical and pro-

32 A7.r/r Years of Recollections

found. Each of his remarks showed the incessant
pursuit of the ideal and the realistic, of the accuracy
of tone and the beauty of sound. The rhythm of the
line was one of his constant preoccupations. One
day he was talking to a friend about the two lines of
Hamlet to his mother.

' Votre crime est horrible, execrable, odieux,
Mais il n'est pas plus grand que la bonte des dieux ! '*

' I am pretty sure,' he said, * of never missing the
effect of these two lines. I have put notes to them ;
the first line is an ascending scale, the second a
descending scale.'

Fre"de"ric Lemaitre never troubled about that kind
of thing, and joining Goubaux's recollections to my
own I feel tempted to say that Frederic was essenti-
ally an artist of the earth earthly. What he invari-
ably looked for was the accent, truth, passion and
force. Added to this, he had some very grave and
almost unbearable defects, he droned, and whined and
ranted, when he became pathetic he became almost
ridiculous, but all this was redeemed by one immense
quality, the like of which I have never met with in
any actor, namely, power. No one ever ' filled ' the
stage, as he did. Then there was Jiis boldness of
gesture, of attitude, not to mention his bursts of anger
and indignation. His faculty for transformation was

* This, I believe, is Ducis' translation of the two lines

' Confess yourself to heaven ;
Repent what's past, avoid what is to come.' TR.

.'r Years of Recollections 33

ty well unique. It is worthy of remark that he
was equally magnificent in the part of Don Cesar de
Bazan and in that of Ruy-Blas. But the most striking
coincidence was that his features offered the same
antithesis as his talent. The grandiose and the
commonplace were inextricably mixed. Magnificent

, a forehead beaming with intelligence and a nose
which made you wonder how it could have come
there. A nose starting as a Greek one and ending up
like a trumpet ; a mobile, contractile mouth, equally
capable of expressing contempt and anger, with a
lower lip the corners of which were absolutely
commonplace and vulgar. Talma, away from the
theatre was simplicity and kindliness itself; Frederic
was always attudinising, always acting ; at times he

^ r gered like a swashbuckler, at others he swayed
about like a Bohemian ; in short, he was the
1 mummer ' in everything he did, in every word he-
uttered. When he came to Goubaux's school to see

sons, his arrival invariably caused a sensation.
With his hat 'stuck' on the back of his head and
striking the steps with his cane as he went, he inter-
pellated the servants at the top of his voice without
the least regard for the dignity of the place. ' You'll
tell M. Goubaux that there will be no rehearsal
to-da :, with all this, some amazing moments of

grandeur and self-respect. Casimir Delavi^ne had
entrusted to him the principal part in ' Marino
iy he comes to i J in a semi-

Vul.. II

34 Si.vty Years of Recollections

state of intoxication. The indignant author snatches
the part from his hands, saying, ' You'll not enact
my piece, monsieur.' His eyes flashing with anger,
he rushes towards the poet as if to strike him to the
earth. In fact, one blow from him would have been
sufficient, but Fre"de"ric stops midway and in a
subdued and trembling voice, says, * Monsieur
Delavigne, I thank you for having given me the
opportunity of showing you to what degree I respect
you.'

IV

My digression on Frederic Lemaitre is justified by
the fact of his having been indebted to Goubaux for
two of his best parts. But I am bound to remember
that in reality in Goubaux's life, the drama was only
an intermediate occupation, adding something to his
budget and to his fame, but for all that an inter-
mediate occupation. The true foundation and the
dominant interest of his life lay in that Saint- Victor
Institution to which we will return once again to leave
it no more, for it is there that we shall see Goubaux
accomplish his final solvency by a marvellous stroke
of pluck and invention.

Goubaux had with regard to public education ideas,
generally accepted to-day, but which were considered
very novel and daring when he had the courage to
formulate them for the first time. What struck him
most forcibly was the want of sympathy between the

.y Years of Recollections 35

education provided by the State and the spirit of
modern society. On the one side he beheld society
tending more and more towards industry, commerce,
agriculture, applied sciences. He heard fathers ex-
a wish for a professional education for their sons
and demand special teaching to that effect ; and at the
same time he was aware that collegiate or university
education in no way supplied that want Literature
was its sole object, there was no professional training.
This anomaly had the effect of shocking a mind
which was so essentially modern as Goubaux's ; that
want worried him, he had felt for many years that
something new should be attempted in that direction,
but how was he to attain his aim? There were
numberless obstacles in his way ; first, his own insti-
tution, the pupils at which attended the courses at the
I low was he to introduce the new system of
education in that establishment without ruining it,
and how was he to prevent its ruin? Furthermore,
how was he to overcome the preliminary and in-
superable difficulties? Would not the University
just this innovation? Would the
Minister of Public Instruction sanction it? In those

vere no ministers like M. Jules Simon
and M. Victor Duruy ; and M. Villemain had said to

;ich college in France! not whi!<- 1
Moreover, did not the air id with

number of -:it and

intellects who averred that to deprive education of

36 Sixty Years of Recollections

the solid and moral basis of classical tuition was
tantamount to decapitating the intellect. According
to them it was simply nothing less than materialising
the age, than making the earning of money the
sole aim of life. To all of which objections, Goubaux,
with the authority acquired by long experience, re-
plied : ' Why should that system of education be
less capable of elevating the mind and the heart?
Are we to take it that the Greek and Latin works
contain all the heroic examples, the lessons of
patriotism, the instances of strength of character,
and loftiness of soul ? Is there no poetry which
brings the ideal home to our lives and to our souls
outside the poetry contained in the works of Homer
and Virgil ? The world of science we wish to throw
open to young minds, that world which means
nothing less than the whole of the earth and the
heavens, is that world not as good, as a means of
education, as the study of some speeches by Livy
or Tacitus? Will the intelligent contemplation of
the grand work of creation and of all the conquests
achieved by created man be less conducive to the
knowledge of God to young men than the often
uncertain interpretation of the remains of a dead
language belonging to a vanished people, and will
that interpretation make better men of them than
that intelligent contemplation ? In short, does not
the study of France herself, of her language and
literature deserve to stand in the front rank of public

} 'cars of Recollections 37

education ? \Vhy then should there not be French
colleges in France ? '

These words had the effect of impressing a goodly
number of eminent men, but he was challenged to
make good his words by deeds. From that moment
his plan was virtually drawn up, in order to carry it
out, he resorted to heroic measures : heroism is often
synonymous with wisdom. His establishment held
about a hundred pupils ; he dismissed sixty, namely,
all those who attended the collegiate classes, and re-
mained with the few converts to the new method.
Apparently this was tantamount to committing
suicide. How was he to make both ends meet with
forty pupils when he had scarcely been able to do so
with a hundred ? The position was all the more
serious, seeing that his institution did not belong solely
to himself. His creditors had a lien on it. To send
away half of his pupils was to deprive them of half of
their security. It was not a question of asking them
for a delay or for a new loan, but he had to induce
them to sacrifice their guarantee. He was bound to
convert them to his ideas, to make them share his
hopes, to inspire them with his faith. Well, after an
hour's conversation they were not only won over, but
convinced. They were not only disarmed, but con-
verted. Thanks to his persuasive and spontaneous
eloquence, he transformed his creditors into lenders.
They not only did not ask him for money, but offered
him some. People who have twitted the ant with be-

38 Sixty Years of Recollections

ing a spendthrift vied with one another for the honour
and pleasure of affording him the time to await the
successful issue of his idea. But this honourable
competition to befriend him and this material assist-
ance were not sufficient. A great many arrears of
debt worried and hampered him, when, one morning,
as usual, there sprang from the earth or descended
from the sky a Deus ex viachina who intervened at
the critical moment and enabled him to pursue his
onward march. Truly, he was, as usual again, in-
debted in a great measure to himself, the miracle was
simply the harvest of what he had sown. On the
loth of June '1855, I received the following letter
from him

1 MY DEAR FRIEND, I have met with one of those pieces of good
fortune and spent an hour of unalloyed joy such as I have rarely, very
rarely had in my life. The joy was occasioned by the visit of one of
my former pupils who was kind enough to recollect a distant past and
to acknowledge a debt to which I had never given a moment's thought.
The piece of good fortune consists in my being freed for a twelvemonth
from all care and anxiety. Such a thing has not happened to me since
1820 ; my dear -friend Gilbert,* has drawn up an account between us
the elements of which had no existence save in his own affectionate
remembrance of me, because I never considered that he owed me a
penny. Yes, Gilbert brought me yesterday six thousand francs. It is
the first use he made of his recently acquired wealth.

' However unexpected and useful this timely assistance has been to
me, I was still more deeply touched by the act itself than by the money,
and the tears which welled into my eyes were due to the fact, that,
while listening to Gilbert, I was pleased with myself. I was debating
with myself whether I would come and tell you the story personally,
but was afraid of breaking down in the middle of it. I feel more sure
of myself while writing than while talking.

* M. Gilbert, who had been educated gratuitously by Goubaux had just
made a very rich and creditable match. He is the author of two critical
studies, one on Vauvenargues, the other on Regnard, both of which
gained the award of the Academic Fran9aise.

) V < -s of Recollections 39

1 Good-bye, my faithful chum of 1837, my faithful supporter from the
very day when I undertook that which I now hope to accomplish soon.
A cordial shake of the hand for you and a kiss for your wife and
daughter.

' GOUBAUX.'

A touching letter if ever there was one. Neverthe-
less it wants a postcriptum. The name of Gilbert
recalls to my mind another, that of Alexandre Dumas,
the younger, who was also a pupil of Goubaux a little
before Gilbert. One day the rumour spread that the
elder Dumas had been wrecked and lost his life off
the Sicilian coast ; Goubaux sent for the lad. ' My
dear boy,' he said to him, ' I trust that this is a false
report, but if it be true, remember that this house is
yours. Heaven preserve me from pretending to be
able to replace your father, but I'll do everything in
my power to remind you of him.' And this happened
about 1834, />., at the moment when Goubaux was
most cruelly worried for money, and yet he did not
i moment hesitate to shoulder that new burden.
His o\\n misfortunes, instead of wholly engrossing
him, only had the effect of making him more sensitive
to misfortunes which were not his own. While half-
ruined, he still thought of saving others from ruin. I

iv that Dumas followed Gill'

nple, He also remembered in due time a debt

similar to that of Gilbert and which Goubaux had

also forgotten. Thanks to all those instances of

1 in spite of his own ity, Goubaux

hi <>f the goal, but in order to reach it

40 .V/.r/r Years of Recollections

he had to travel a last bit of road which was harder to
him than it might have been to others.

A scheme like Goubaux's, requires, in order to
succeed, three men: an inventor, a man who has
the gift of organisation, and a good administrator.
Goubaux was an inventor of the first water, his
faculty for organisation was, however, very second
rate, and as an administrator he ranked very low
indeed. Luckily, he conceived the idea of charging
someone else with the administrative functions to
which he was so badly suited. Who was that some
one ? The City of Paris. After having requested and
obtained her patronage, he boldly proposed to put
her in his stead and place. The City of Paris
accepted the offer. The Saint- Victor Institution
successively assumed the names of ' Iicole Frangois
I.' <cole Chaptal,' 'College Municipal Chaptal,'
and Goubaux changed his title of Principal of the
institute for that of Director. The change meant
more than the discharge of all his liabilities, it meant
comfort and freedom from care. Freed at last from
debt and carking worries, he had the satisfaction of
watching, from the window of that room where he
had suffered and contrived so much, the influx of
more than eighteen hundred scholars within the
enlarged grounds ; he had the satisfaction of seeing
the walls of the original and humble establishment
extend further and further until the establishment
swallowed up the adjacent mansions and finally be-

'y Years of Recollections 41

came the centre of a new system of public education in
France. But Goubaux was not content with having
founded the method, he wished, before he died, to
insure its future and he accomplished his wish by one
of those strokes which virtually show the whole man.

At the period when he was merely the principal
of the Saint- Victor Institute his concierge was a
man whom he particularly liked and respected. The
concierge had a son, an intelligent lad. Goubaux
noticed his intelligence and took him away from
the porter's lodge ; no, he did not take him away,
he as it were left him there, for the lodge meant
the paternal home and Goubaux did not wish the
lad to be ashamed of it.

So he took him into the school, made him sleep
in the dormitories, attend chapel and join the others
in play hours, but every now and then the lad went
back to the lodge to assist his father in his duties.
And would the reader know the result of that educa-
tion, and what became of the lad? He became his
master's principal assistant, then his successor and
finally the chief exponent and continuator of his
method. At the hour I write (1885-88) he go\
that magnificent municipal college, yclept Chaptal,
with a prestige and lustre which is only another title
to ti t and honour of him who, as it were,

his capabilities in that respect. It is not
an institution of which the city may feel justly
proud, but the ome derived from it <

42 Sixty Years of Recollections

amounts to a hundred thousand francs per annum.
What I am going to say is scarcely credible, it is,
nevertheless, a fact. Twenty-seven years have elapsed
since Goubaux breathed his last and during that
time there has not been one prefect of the Seine nor
one municipal council to either of whom I did not ad-
dress at least one humble petition, praying them, not
to substitute Goubaux's name for that of Chaptal
who has had absolutely nothing to do with the
affair, but merely to add the former's name to the
latter on the frontispiece or door of the building.*
The name of Prosper Goubaux who did everything
is still wanting on that frontispiece. MM. Hauss-
mann, Jules Ferry, Calmon, Le"on Say, all of whom
I worried until they must have loathed my very name
have all given me their promise, not one of them
has kept it. One day I decided to address myself
to M. Thiers. It was at Versailles on New Year's day
1873. M. Thiers had kindly invited me to break-
fast with him in a non-official way, and just as we
were sitting down to table, I asked him in a jocular
way : ' M. le President de la Republique, will you
make me a present for the new year ? ' * With the
greatest of pleasure, my dear colleague,' he answered,
laughing. ' What can I give you, I wonder ? '

Thereupon I told him the story of Goubaux's

* Chaptal was a Minister of the Interior during the First Empire
and died in 1832. He was an eminent professor of chemistry and
made some valuable discoveries that benefited art and industry. TR.

Sixty Years of Recollections 43

heroic perseverance in brief, adding that the inscrip-
tion of his name on the frontispiece of the college
was his due, that it was virtually a debt of honour
due to his children who had a right to claim it as an
inheritance, that the inscription would be a salutary-
lesson to all the pupils, and the only means of the
City of Paris to discharge her obligations towards
him.

' You are absolutely right in what you say,' replied
M. Thiers, with that spontaneous animation which
constituted one of the charms of his character, then,
turning to M. Barthelemy Saint- Hilaire he went
on, ' I say, Saint-Hilaire, I wish you to write to the
Prefect of the Seine to insist in my name upon M.
Legouve's getting his demands.' M. Barthelemy
Saint-IIilaire wrote the letter, which reached the Pre-
fect in due time and was answered after that nothing.
Nor is this all. I need not point out the sympathetic

mess of our city fathers to perpetuate on tin-
walls of Paris the remembrance of those who set
Paris on fire. Well, in spite of all our efforts they
have systematically neglected or refused, which c<
to the same thing, to inscribe the name of Goul>
at one of the corners of one of those modest streets ad-
join i ollege Chaptal. Dors it not look as if the
cruel fate- that weighed him flown during his life
bent upon pursuing him after his death, as if public
/ere bent upon pursuing the cruel j>

te? After all, it does not matter much 1

44 Sixty 1 'ears of Recollections

may endeavour to efface his name from his work, the
work will, nevertheless, live, and Goubaux is, in spite
of everything, the ' creator ' of the system of profes-
sional education in France. Let us, therefore, refrain
from attaching the smallest trapping of woe to his
memory. He would not thank us for it, he who al-
ways showed not only a placid, but a laughing face
to the blows of fortune. In fact, I may say, without
exaggeration, that I never knew so cheerful a man, as
that man who was so sorely tried by fortune. In the
midst of his most terrible anguish there would sud-
denly come a burst of laughter, like a ray of sunshine
piercing the banked-up, sullen clouds. In a letter to
my daughter, after telling her of the endless worries
with which he was for ever contending, he adds :
* Oh, by the by, on Sunday, we'll be dining with the
Gilberts. I don't feel hungry yet, but the appetite
will come in good time.' One of his last collabora-
teurs was Michel Masson, gentle Michel Masson,
who with his long, silvery locks and placid face
looked like a white lamb. One day while he was
working with Goubaux at some drama the name of
which I have forgotten, Goubaux proposed a new in-
cident. The idea does not seem to strike Masson,
who with ever so many precautions and apologies
hints very timidly and in a kind of whisper that the
idea may not be altogether appropriate, ' All right,
Masson,' exclaims Goubaux, rising from his chair,
' it " y u are gi n g t ^ e angry about it. . . .'

.SY.r/r Years of Recollections 45

The most admirable feature of Goubaux's ga
was that it not only sharpened his fancy, imagination
and wit, but that it assumed one of the forms by
which he manifested his indomitable pluck. Men,
nay even God, might abandon him, he steadfastly
refused to strike or desert his flag. One of our
common friends, a lady, said, ' If M. Goubaux fell
into the sea, and had been absolutely drowned for
more than an hour, people would still see his arms
frantically waving above the water and his voice cry
for help.' Such was the man ; he had faith, hope and
charitv, and these saved him.

CHAPTER II

A digression on Dramatic Collaboration. Mme. Legouve tells a Story.
Her Husband sees the subject of a Comedy in it. He sets to
work at once to draw the Plan. Opportune arrival of Goubaux.
They make up their minds to 'collaborate once more. A few
instances of Collaboration. How M. Legouve and Prosper
Goubaux wrote 'Louise de Lignerolles.' A French Interior.
The Authors are stopped by a difficulty. How Authors find their
Sensational Effects and Denouements. How M. Legouve found
his. A true Story. M. Legouve finds a Letter relating to it among
his papers and at the same time finds his Denouement. A peep at
the National Guards in the late Thirties. The Dress Rehearsals
of ' Louise de Lignerolles.' The Premiere. Success.

I

THE system of collaboration is very much decried
nowadays ; I will only say a few words in its defence.
Let us suppress for a moment the results of collabora-
tion from the French repertory for the last sixty years,
and by the same stroke of the pen we lose a great
part of the dramatic work of Scribe, nearly the whole
of the dramatic work of Bayard, Mlesville, Duma-
noir, Dennery, the whole of the dramatic work of
Labiche, of Barriere, the whole of the dramatic work
of Duvert and Lausanne, the whole of the dramatic
work of Meilhac and HaleVy, and last of all, five of
the masterpieces in the domains of comedy and the

Sixty Years of Recollections 47

drama. In comedy we lose ' Le Gendre de M.
Poirier,' 'Mademoiselle de la Scigliere' and 'Made-
moiselle de Belle-Isle/ for though these works bear
the name of one author only on their title pages,
they are, nevertheless, the work of two authors. In
the drama we lose ' La Tour de Nesle' and ' Richard
Darlington.' No one respects and admires more
than I the immortal works which, ' fully armed ' have
sprung from one brain, such as ' QEdipe Roi,'
' Macbeth,' ' Polyeucte,' ' Britannicus.' But are there
not, even among the masterpieces, stage plays due to
the association of two men of genius ? Is not ' Le
Cid' by Corneille and Guillen de Castro? Is not
' Iphigenie ' by Racine and Euripides ; is not ' Phedre '
by Racine, Euripides and Seneca. Are there many
collaborateurs that have assisted their temporary
partners more effectively than Plautus helped Moliere
in Amphitryon' and ' L'Avare. Is not the best act
of the 'Psyche' of Moliere the work of Corneille?
It seems to me that a form of art to which we

such works, which causes our drama to r
throughout the whole of Europe deserves something
r than supercilious contempt, leaving alone the
that a number of brilliant but incom]
intellects which, if left to their own resources would
remained barren, have been lifted out of them-
y that kind of association and proved the
sufficiently novel rule in arithmetic that twice one

48 Sixty Years of Recollections

No one, then, need be surprised at my taking up
the cudgels for collaboration ; I am indebted to it
for three friends ; Goubaux, Scribe and Labiche ; and
if the pieces I wrote by myself; * Medee,' ' Par droit
de conquete,' and ' Un jeune homme qui ne fait rien,'
have not been less successful than the others it is pro-
bably because I remembered while writing them what
I had learned during my collaboration with others.

Collaboration has at least this privilege, it arouses
to a strange degree the curiosity of the outside world.
Not once but a hundred times have I been asked :
' But how do two authors manage to write one piece;
in what way is it constructed, in what way is it
written ? ' I doubt whether I could give them a
better idea of that method of work than by showing
them a ' collaboration ' in the act.

I s had been married about three years and was con-
stantly thinking of redeeming my failure when one
morning my wife, while talking about some of her
school friends, all of a sudden uttered the name of Clelie.
1 Clelie,' I repeated, laughing, ' how does she come by
that name? Is she a young Roman woman?' 'By
birth, no, but in face and feeling, yes. Handsome,
dark, tall, with a profile like that of an old medal
and eyes both full of sweetness and courage, Clelie
added to those energetic traits a kind of bantering
spirit which she showed under rather curious circum-
stances.' ' Tell me all about it,' I said.

' The story is worth telling,' said my wife. ' She

.V/.r/r Years of Recollections 49

had been married for something like four years to a
Creole who was passionately fond of her, they were
living in a nice country place at Vineuil near Chan-
tilly. The old Prince de Bourbon was still alive
and his magnificent hunts had made that part of the
country famous. One day the stag having jumped
the hedge of Clelie's garden, the whole of the pack,
the huntsmen and some of the gentlemen of the hunt
themselves followed suit and virtually enacted the
fable of La Fontaine. Next morning, Cllie, whose
husband happened to be absent at the time, wrote
very politely, but at the same time very firmly to the
Prince complaining of the damage that had been
done and expressing the formal desire that the
thing should not occur again. A week later there
another hunt and another invasion of her domi-
cile. Clelie was sitting in her small drawing-room
engaged with some embroidery when the servant came
to tell her that the stag had leaped into the garden,
that the pack had come after it, and that the hunts-
men and the rest were tearing at full speed in the
direction of the hed lie gets up very quietly,

rvants to sei/e two of the handsomest
hounds in the pack and, followed by her gardener who
at her command has caught up his -un, pr<
the hcd-e, holding her piece of embroidery. At the

moment two young fellows on 1
on the other the hedge. 'Stop gentlemen, 1

u t<> conn- any further/ she >ays, still put;
\oi.. ii D

50 Si.vty Years of Recollections

in a stitch here and there. Great surprise of the two
young fellows who begin to banter her in a good-
natured way, urging their horses meanwhile to take
the jump. ' If you move another step, gentlemen,'
says Cle"lie, ' my gardener will fire on you without the
slightest compunction. This is an absolute case of
trespass/ she adds, laughing, 'and I have assuredly
the right to defend myself. Oh, by-the-bye, before I
forget, you may tell the Prince that I hold two of his
best hounds as hostages.' After hesitating for a
moment or so the young fellows lifted their hats and
turned their horses' heads. The hunt had virtually
been stopped, the stag ' got away ' and the negotia-
tions between the Prince and Clelie for the restitution
of the two staghounds brought about a correspond-
ence and a series of proposals, terminating amidst all
the courtly graces of the ancien regime, with the ap-
pearance of Clelie in the Prince's drawing-rooms with
all the honours of war thick upon her.

My wife's story had worked me up to such a pitch
that I scarcely gave myself time to finish my break-
fast. I rushed to my writing-table, and before night-
fall I had built up and written the whole of a first
act. Goubaux happening to come in to take 'pot-
luck,' I read him what I had written during the day.
' The deuce,' he exclaimed, ' but there is sufficient
material there for a five-act drama. That woman is
a character, and oh a character one can build up a
drama.' * Yes,' I replied, ' the. thing is to find your

.;;' rears of Recollections 51

drama.' ' That's simple enough. You have only got
to find some pathetic situation, calculated to bring
into relief such a person, and after all, there are
only two situations of that kind. Are we to depict
her struggling against an intense passion, or contend-
ing with a great grief? Are \ve to paint her in the
light of a victim, or of a guilty woman? If she have
a lover. . . .' I left him no time to finish the sen-
tence. ' No lover,' I exclaimed, ' I'll never consent to
give her a lover. It would be tantamount to sullying
her character, and to convert her into a vulgar type.
It would merely make us relapse into the hackneyed
drama of the adulterous woman.' ' Very well,' re-
marked Goubaux laughing, ' but if you refuse to
provide her with a lover, you'll have to provide her
husband with a mistress. The interest would lie in
the showing of a character like hers struggling with
regret, sorrow, irritation, against the desire for venge-
ance ; in short, in half-a-dozen aspects, to be de-

i on eventually.' * That suits me better,' I said.
Thereupon, Goubaux turning to my wife began to

lion her. 'Tell me, madame,' he said, 'what was
this ('Iclie like as a woman; what sort of man was

husband, and what sort of life did they lead

' It was a very stormy life indeed.

passionately fond of her, the husband let his

,i nation run riot ; he was fickle and capricious like
all ( mscqueiitly his life was pretty well spent

in deceiving his wife and in asking her pardon, but

52 vSY.r/r Years of Recollections

on his bended knees and with tears, and sobs and
promises not to repeat the offence, the whole accom-
panied by recurrent periods of conjugal passion, all
the more ardent from their being complicated by
remorse, and what was worse, sincere remorse.' * And
she ? ' * She listened to it all, submitted to every-
thing, with a mixture of dignity, intense grief and
suppressed tears that made her like one of the
women depicted by Corneille.'

'Well,' I exclaimed, 'here we have got the stand-
point of our two characters, all we have got to do is
to inflict upon her a sufficient amount of suffering in
order to make her abandon her apparently calm
attitude, to make her groan and shriek with rage and
grief, in short, to make the faithlessness of the husband
the leading motive of the play. We must prove, by
a very vigorous dramatic action, that such faithless-
ness may be fraught with as much danger and lead to
as many catastrophes as the faithlessness of the wife/
' It is decidedly an excellent subject,' exclaimed
Goubaux. ' In that case, let us set to work at once,
my dear Goubaux, and just teach me my craft, by
writing this piece with me.'

This, then, is the way in which the primary sketch
of a piece is drawn by two authors working in con-
junction, it is virtually a conversation between these
two on a given subject. The one supplies the idea or
the fact, the other discusses it with him, they get
talking together, looking for ideas, suggesting to, and

Sixty Years of Recollections 53

contradicting one another ; the shock of two minds
produces the fusion of ideas, and from the fusion
springs the plan. When the plan is finished, it has to
be carried out.

There are various ways of carrying out a plan
sketched by two authors. In some instances, one of
the authors undertakes to sketch the whole of the
work, which the other fills in and finishes. In others
the acts are divided between them ; the one writes
the first two acts, the other the last three, the whole
is revised by both.

Labiche and I wrote ' La Cigale chez les Fourmis '
without ever working together. One day I met him
coming out of the Thc&tre-Frangais, to the Committee
<>f which he had just been reading a one-act comedy,
entitled, 'Les Fourmis.' He was dissatisfied and
more or less hipped and offended. The Committee
had accepted his piece, but lukewarmly not to say
coldly, and solely because it was by him. ' The
Committee is simply absurd,' he said, 'the piece is
very amusing, and there is a capital part for Pro-
vost. I should like you to read it.' With which
lie hands me the piece. Two days later I gave him
my opinion. 'My dear LabiYlu-,' I said, laughin i
am inclined to side with the Committee. The first
third of the IS delightful, the rest should be

i. What you want in it is a young g
Face to face with the frugal, saving ants, you
want a lavish >pper.' 'Your idea

54 Sixty Years of Recollections

strikes me as excellent; will you rewrite the piece
by yourself?' 'I can, at any rate, try. I leave for
Cannes to-morrow, I'll take your manuscript with
me and in a fortnight I'll show you what I have
done.'

I returned in a fortnight, I showed him the piece;
we read it to the Committee, it is accepted and played
and we score a genuine success, on the occasion of
which I composed the following small distich

' Entre Labiche et moi la partie est egale ;
II a fait les Fourmis et j'ai fait la Cigale?

Goubaux and I did the very reverse, but our coll-
aboration was none the less curious. The new year's
holidays being at hand, Goubaux publicly informed
his pupils that he was going to take a short journey.
The journey was very short indeed, for it merely
consisted in his taking his dressing-bag and a change
of linen from the Rue Blanche, where his school was
situated, to my house in the Rue Saint-Marc where
he took up his quarters in a small room adjoining the
drawing-room. I, on my side, announced to all and
sundry that we were going away for a week, and
when we had lowered the blinds of the windows look-
ing into the courtyard, we three, Goubaux, my wife
and I were virtually isolated from the world, and our
life of reclusion began.

At seven in the morning, we two, Goubaux and I,
were in my study where we found the fire lighted, the

Si.vty Years of Recollections 5 5

tea prepared and the mistress of the house enacting
the part of Charlotte in ' \Verther' to us, she was cut-
ting bread and butter. After a quarter of an hour of
cheerful gossip and laughter we set to work. Seated
at the same writing table, opposite one another, we
looked like a couple of schoolboys doing their lessons.
We were positively in ecstasy with the thing. The
most curious feature of the arrangement, perhaps, was
that we began the same act at the beginning and at
the same time. Starting from the pre-arranged plan,
we began both at the first scenes, and in that way \\v
wrote the first act, each bringing to the dialogue and
to the portrayal of the characters his individuality of
fancy or reflection. At mid-day we three breakfasted
together, or rather we four, for my little daughter
who was about two, made her appearance at that
hour; and her wondering looks, her plump little
cheeks, her dress, a masterpiece of maternal taste
and coquettishness, her earnest demeanour as she
sat in her high chair, the drollery of her answers,
(children have the knack of enunciating such unex-
cd ideas, as to give one the impression that they
have really a sense of humour) constituted one of the
amusing parts of the breakfast. It was strictly for-
bidden to sp^ak of or to allude to our work during
the ; :iich prohibition did not prevent my wife

from noticing with a smile, our anxious or beaming
looks and to deduct from them favourable prognosti-
cations or the reverse. After breakfast, we ha

56 Sixty Years of Recollections

hour's music, which had the effect of soothing our
minds, while at the same time it served as a reward
and as an encouragement or stimulant to further ex-
ertions. There is a mysterious bond between all
the arts. A melodious piece of music often has the
effect of inspiring you with a happy line, and during
that period of work Weber or Beethoven or Schu-
bert has often assisted me in overcoming a difficulty
in this or that scene.

At the end of ten days, Goubaux's holidays being
about to expire and our two acts being finished, we
summoned the reading committee, which committee
was composed of my wife. ' I am assuming the
functions of Laforet,* she said, settling herself com-
fortably in an armchair with her embroidery. We
each brought our exercises, and she added laughing,
' Little boy Goubaux, let us hear what you have
done.'

The double lecture led to many interruptions. It
was I who exclaimed now and then while listening
to Goubaux, 'Well done, that's better than mine.'
' Don't influence the Court,' said my wife gravely.
And the Court, after having heard both sides and
being asked to state which of the acts she preferred
answered, * I fancy I prefer them both ; both have
amused me, but not in the same places. The begin-
ning of the piece seems to me more striking in M.

* Moliere's servant, to whom he is said to have read his plays while
composing them, TK.

.SY.r. f of Recollections 57

Goubaux's manuscript, but the end of the same has
pleased me better in M. Ernest Legouve's. I like
the woman's part better in the one and the father's
part better in the other. It strikes me that by fus-
ing the two versions into one we'll get a perfect union
like ours.'

* This is Solomon's wisdom unalloyed,' exclaimed
M. Goubaux ; ' and as I have to resume my collar
to-morrow, Legouve will accomplish the union.'

So said so done. We spent the winter in finishing
the piece and in the beginning of spring went to
Kugene Sue to read it to him. He placed himself
at his easel in order to listen to us, for he professed to
be able to listen best when painting.

The effect produced was both excellent and dis-
astrous at the same time. The first three acts were
1 a great success, the other two considered exe-
crable. No amount of corrections, of improvements,
of excision would mend' them, they had simply to be
put aside and new ones written in their stead. All
the pluck had been taken out of us, and four months
elapsed during which we cudgelled our brains in vain
for a new solution. We wen- he-inning to -ive up
all hope of success, when unexpected aid, a provi-
dential auxiliary . out of our difficulty. Who
and what wa^ that auxiliary? A third collaborateur.
\\h<> was that third collaborates ? A very curious
11 comes to the aid of authors
as a rule, invoke no one's aid, and of whom, the

58 StJi'fy Years of Recollections

personage, it would therefore be well to say a few
words in this chapter on collaboration. The in-
dividual's name is * Chance.'

Chance, in fact, plays a great part in dramatic
conceptions. A word picked up at random, a book
one happens to read, a person one happens to meet,
may suggest all at once the very idea for which one
has been looking in vain.

In 1849, Emile Augier was superintending the re-
hearsals of ' Gabrielle,' at the Th&itre-Francais. All
went well until the fifth act, when the whole seemed
to come to a sudden stop. Both authors and actors
felt the necessity of some vigorous, unforeseen situa-
tion, in order to put life into that act. Augier cud-
gelled his brain to no purpose, he could find nothing.
One morning he is strolling along the Quai des
Saint-Peres, when on reaching the Pont des Arts, he
notices in front of him, and looking at the ' Institute,'
a man of about forty, accompanied by his little
daughter. Owing to the early hour, the bridge was
almost deserted, and the child, finding herself un-
hampered in her movements, ran on in front, then
came back to her father, flung herself into his arms,
while he lifted her up to kiss her amidst her pileasant
laughter and her embraces. The picture was abso-
Jutely delightful, and Augier, who had been watch-
ing them, could not help exclaiming, * Bravo.' The
gentleman was none other than the chief interpreter
of ' Gabrielle,' M. Regnier, the little girl was his

SLvtv Years of Recollections 59

daughter. * Have you any children, Sir Ambassa-

A

dor?' (Etes vous pere, monsieur 1'ambassadeur ?) *
asked the artist in response to Augier's ' Bravo.' ' No
I have only my sister's children,' replied the dram-
atist. They stand talking for a moment or so, and
each goes his respective way, the poet musing upon the
picture he had just seen. The gambols of the little
one, the two faces, their looks, their laughter, had
suddenly evoked such a vivid image of paternal
tenderness, as to show him his fifth act in an alto-
gether new light. The father of the piece all at once
assumes grandiose proportions which is the very thing
wanted for the denouement, and the author goes
home to write one of the most touching scenes of the
modern drama. I only quote the beginning of it :

.V.us n'existons vraiment que par ces petits etres
Qui dans tout notre coeur s'etablissent en maitres,
' jui prennent notre vie et ne s'en doutent pas,
Et n'ont qu'a vivre heureux pour n'etre point in-

is no doubt that a man must be an Augier
to draw such lines from such a meeting ; a great
many dramatists might have come that way on that
morning, and their fifth act would still have been in
limbo, but to Kmile Augier the Pont des Arts has
really been the short cut to the Acack nnV -I-Van^aise.

Well, it was by a similar accident, by a k-tt
found unexpectedly, by a story with which I had

The question of Henri IV to the Spanish ambassador, when the
entered the room and found hi horses' with his

60 .SV.r/r Years of Recollections

been mixed up and which suddenly recurred to my
mind, that I was inspired. But the story is too
striking, it has left too great a landmark in my life
not to give it in full.

II

I was in Rome in 1832. I was only twenty-five and
became acquainted with a Frenchman, a little older
than myself, but to whom I took a great liking on
account of his energetic temperament and his original
turn of mind. Tall, robust, somewhat full-blooded,
with a black beard and very light blue eyes his
appearance produced the usual strange effects of
those contrasts. M. Auguste Leroux went shooting
in the neighbourhood of Rome with . Horace Vernet,
practised fencing with Constantin, the celebrated
painter on porcelain, painted very nicely himself and
brought back from his shooting expeditions as many
pretty water colours as game, spent his money * like
a lord ' and was absolutely weary of everything. He
had a natural, hereditary tendency to spleen, which,
it should be said, was fully justified by a terrible
event that had befallen him in his youth. One morn-
ing his father while sitting at breakfast with his son
and his daughter, got up from the table without
saying a word, and a few minutes afterwards the
children heard the report of a pistol. As a matter
of course they rushed out of the room, and at about a
score of steps from the door found their father lying

Sixty Years of Recollections 6 1

dead. He had blown his brains out. The catastrophe
cast a shadow on the young fellow's life ; he often
said to me : ' I'll finish up like my father.'

On our return from Italy our cordial intercourse
soon changed into friendship. He introduced me to
his sister, whom he worshipped, and whose children he
positively idolised. Their father's tragic death had
drawn the bond between them still closer. They had
been drawn together by fear as well as affection. He
had also introduced me to his dearest or rather to his
then only friend, M. G. Delacour. M. Delacour, after
having spent many years in the service of his country
had retired with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. He
had inherited a considerable fortune, and at the age
of forty-five married a poor but marvellously good-
looking young girl. I have never seen a more strik-
ing contrast between man and wife. The husband
simple to a degree, even somewhat stern, but one
of those noble, kindly natures which shrink from
ch, and are content to let their deeds speak for
themselves. M. Delacour reminded me of some of
those military characters of the first Republic, so
frequently met with at that period. As for the wife,
she was like a picture by Wutteau, tiny, plump, with
rosy cheeks and saucy eyes, teeth that were so white
as to be a smile in themselves, two ever-shifting
dimples at the corners of the mouth, and such a
throat, bu^t and arm hort, a delightful mix:

of little fair\", little doll and Tar:

62 .SV.r/r Years of Recollections

The almost inevitable consequences of such a
union may easily be guessed Mme. Delacour de-
ceived her husband. He discovered her faithlessness
and consulted his friend. * You have but one course
open to you,' was the advice, ' to kill the lover and
discard the wife.' ' The lover is gone.' ' The wife
remains, turn her out of your house.' But M. Dela-
cour happened to be madly in love, the wife wept,
flung herself at his feet, promised amendment, the
husband was willing to forgive, M. Leroux alone re-
mained inflexible. ' If you pardon her to-day, she
will recommence to-morrow. If I were you, I should
put her away/ he said.

Two or three days later, on leaving his friend's
room, he found himself face to face in the adjacent
room with the wife who had been watching for
him. 'I would like to speak with you, monsieur,'
she said. ' I am at your service, madame,' saying
which he follows her into a small drawing-room, the
door of which she closes behind her. Then she goes
straight up to him, looks him full in the face and
says : ' Why this merciless attitude against me,
monsieur, what have I done to you ? ' ' What have
you done to me/ he replies, quivering with suppressed
anger, ' why, all the harm you have done to him, you
have done to me. Why my merciless attitude?
Because I hate and despise you, because I look upon
you as the most wretched creature on earth for having
deceived a man who dragged you out of your poverty,

Sixty Years of Recollections 63

almost saved you from starvation, and who cherished
you as a brother, a father and a lover at the same
time, who is one of the noblest hearted men I know,
who has all the delicate feelings of a woman added
to all the energies of a man ; I hate you for having
virtually plunged the dagger into the breast of so
kind a creature. It shows that you have neither
heart nor feeling. It is out of pity and affection for
him, from horror for you that I am bent upon your
downfall. Good-bye, madame,' he says, leaving the
room.

Left to herself, crushed beneath the withering
blast of his words, she felt all of a sudden springing
up within her one of those terrible, instantaneous re-
volts which remind one of one of those instances of
' fate ' depicted by the Greek dramatists. She rose
from her seat, reeled forward a few steps, and dropped
another chair, exclaiming, * Great heavens, I love
that man ! ' Nothing could have been more true.
She loved that man, she loved him for his hatred and
contempt of her, she loved him for his having told

<>f both. His indignant denunciation of her in-
gratitude had shed a halo around him ; she looked
upon him as a being of a superior order ; henceforth

had but one thought, one wish, to confess even -
him ; to fling herself at his feet, imploring
him to kill her, uhi" iming : 'Strike, stri :

hand that shall deal the blow.' A
enabled to carry on:

64 Si.r/j' Yt'iirs oj Recollections

plan. Finally, one morning when he called upon her
husband, she confronted him and without the slightest
preamble, without a moment's hesitation, in a terrible
burst of sobs, headlong passion, horror of herself and
adoration of him, this tiny creature, whom Fragonard
might have chosen for a model, expressed her love in
passionate accents, the like of which for pathos
Alfred de Musset never found under his pen. From
her he came straight to my house. I was out and he
left word that he would call next morning. When
he entered the room he looked so pale, so utterly un-
done that I could not help remarking upon it. He
told me what had happened. His story positively
terrified me, I beheld 'as in a glass darkly ' such a
horrible future in store for him that I cried out : ' Go,
go to America, to Africa, the farther the better. Go
away, friend, or you are lost. The conflagration is
gaining upon you, you are under the impression that
you are merely disarmed, that you are moved with
pity, it is nothing of the kind ; you are in love.' ' I,'
he exclaimed, starting from his chair in sheer be-
wilderment ; ' I, but that would be too abominable
to contemplate. After all I have said, after all I have
done, after all I feel for him. No, no, it is impossible,
it would be worse than a crime.' ' You never spoke
a truer word. And it is exactly on that account that
you are struck to the very heart. You are greatly
mistaken if you think that human nature is invariably
beautiful and noble. If you doubt my word go and

s of Recollect 65

ask half-a-dozen priests, priests whose duty takes
them to the confessional. You are in love, just as
much as she is, perhaps more than she is. Take
my advice and go away.'

This was at the beginning of June and next day I
went with my family to Dieppe. I had had no
news for a week, when, on my return from bathing
one morning, I found Leroux at our lodgings. ' You
here,' I said, horrified at the change a week had
wrought in his looks. ' XYhat has happened ? ' ' You
told me to go away,' he answered in a painful tone,
4 well, I have come to take refuge with you ; give me
shelter. The sight of your wife and child, of your
domestic peace and happiness will allay my excite-
ment. Thank God, I have as yet nothing to re-
proach myself with. I have not said a word to her.
I have come to seek near you the strength to remain
nt for ever.'

He stayed for a fortnight and I shall never forget
our excursions to the forest of Arques. My wife, he
and I got on to our horses after breakfast and for
hours together rode through the wild and soli
country, amidst the magnificent giant-beeches along
the crest of the rocks overlooking the rustic valley

l>y the Sorgues. His head almost toucl
his 1 Mane, he scarcely CVCT uttered a word.

as so painful as to become contagion

us down. We our tant to

ioved as re by this sombre image of

V!.. II

66 Sixty Years of Recollections

despair and by the expectation of some tragic and
mysterious catastrophe.

A letter he received while he was with us affected
him intensely. His sister occupied the ground Boor
of a small house, standing in its own gardens in the
Temple quarter. One day she wrote to her brother
that a charming young woman had called on her and
proposed to take the first floor, that in the course of
the negotiations she had become acquainted with the
children both of whom she had smothered with kisses,
' having evidently taken an affectionate liking to them.
She has even made them some trifling presents,' added
the sister, ' and they were offered in such a sweet and
delicate way that it was impossible to refuse them.
Her emotion gives me the impression of being
prompted by some recollection.'

The young woman was none other than the un-
happy Mme. Delacour, who being frantic with grief at
the departure of the man she worshipped, had taken
to prowling around the house in order to catch a
glimpse of the two children as they went in and out,
in order to get to speak to them and to inspire them
with a liking for her. All this was done with the hope
that he would come to hear of it from his sister and
that his heart would be touched.

We left Dieppe together, he to return to Paris, we
to return to our modest country house. A month
later, I learnt from his own lips that all I had fore-
seen, had come to pass. They had met one another

Si.vty Years of Recollections 67

face to face once more, their mad passion had been
too much for them, the husband had become cogni-
sant of the affair and as the result of a scene between
the two men, Leroux had offered him the satisfaction
due under such circumstances. ' I'll not fight you,'
the husband had chillingly replied, 'it would afford
you too much gratification. Twenty years of service
devoted to my country give me the right to choose
my own mode of vengeance. I leave you to one
another.'

The punishment came ere long. Leroux, bent
upon giving the young woman the life of luxury she
had grown used to since her marriage flung himself
headlong into speculations which seriously impaired
his fortune. They were compelled to retire to that
country house near Compiegne where his father had
killed himself. For two months he left me without

rd.

Getting very anxious, I wrote to him telling him
among other things of a comedy which I was project-
tor the ensuing winter. I transcribe his reply
ually : ' So my secretive friend is finishing a
comedy of which until now he had never broach r

1 to me. To punish him I ought to have gone
to the first ni^ht with a whistle, but honestly I could
not very well be present at that pivmuiv.

'///^ to kill myself togetlur with
\ you could see me, you would not
know me, for my ha: now. On a

68 S/.rtr Years of Recollections

plausible pretext I have managed to stow away in a
small pavilion at the end of the garden about thirty
fagots of wood and several bottles of turpentine. At
eleven o'clock to-morrow night, we'll walk into that
pavilion, she and I, with our minds made up to die
and agreed as to the necessity of doing so. I'll pour
the turpentine on the fagots and set light to them,
after which I'll blow her brains out with a pistol and
do the same thing for myself. Goodbye, may you be
happy in this world, I am going to find out whether
there is another.'

What had happened during the time I had had
no tidings from him ? What had been the terrible
phases of that tragic passion ? Why had his hair
grown white, and why did he call her his execu-
tioner? More than bewildered myself, I went post
haste to Compiegne : everything was over. I gathered
from the servants and neighbours a few particulars of
their last days, which after a lapse of more than
half-a-century, I cannot write down without my pen
trembling between my fingers.

M. Leroux had made up his mind to put an end
to everything by committing suicide. In order to
have his hands free he told her to go to Paris to
make some purchases, but she suspected his inten-
tions, and vowed that henceforth she would not stir
from his side for a single moment, being determined

to die with him.

M. Leroux being very fond of shooting was neces-

; Years of Recollections 69

sarily a great walker ; she on the contrary was very
delicate and tiny, and like the majority of women
born and bred in Paris, unable to stand the fatigue

couple of hours' walk. One morning, soon after
daybreak, while he thought her still asleep, he started
for the forest, his gun loaded with ball cartridge.
Five minutes afterwards, at the bend of a path, he
found her waiting for him. In a kind of frenzy, he
started at a gallop across the woods ; she followed
him, panting for breath, almost choking, lascerating
her feet among the brambles, but keeping up witli
him nevertheless, never losing sight of him. For
full an hour they went on, at the end of which she
stumbled, but still clinging to him and saying that
she would not leave him, and that if he wanted to
kill himself, he would have to kill her first. On that
day they conceived their plan. Their last hours on
earth must have been terrible. They sat down to
breakfast at twelve and remained there opposite one
another, gloomy and silent. When the servants came
to lay the cloth for dinner, the breakfast had not
been touched. At nine o'clock, M. Leroux told
them that the}- might retire for the night, and the
unhappy couple were alone once more, with one

iry candle between them. At eleven one of the

.:iits heard someone stir in the dining-room, he

jumped out of bed, opened his window and looked

out. He saw the window which almost reached the

.anlrn 1> nrd, and his master and

7 o Sixty Years of Recollections

mistress climb out of it. Then they went straight to
the kennel of a big dog, unfastened him and took
his chain. After which M. Leroux locked the front
door and flung the key over the wall. In another
moment, the couple went up the large avenue of
lime trees leading to a small summer house. The
servant caught a glimpse of them now and then
through the gaps in the trees; as they crossed the
paths, fitful patches of moonlight filtering through
the branches gave them the appearance of a couple
of spectres, or rather of a couple of convicts, for the
dog's chain was fastened to the right wrist of the
one and the left wrist of the other. At last they
disappeared from his view altogether, and after listen-
ing for a little while, and hearing no further sound the
man went back to bed and fell asleep. An hour
later, perhaps, he awoke with a start, the dog was
barking violently and there was a crash of falling
timbers, accompanied by the crackling of burning
wood. The pavilion was on fire. He rushed down,
the neighbours scaled the walls, and appeared upon
the scene almost as soon as he, but too late, the
place was simply ablaze. Among the ashes and
charred posts was found part of the shoulder of the
young woman and a wrist with the end of the iron
chain round it. The rest of those two human beings,
worthy of pity in spite of their error, had disappeared
in the flames and with them the explanation of that

Sixty Years of Recollections 7 1

enigmatical and terrible phrase, 'To-morrow I am
going to kill myself with my executioner.'

Apparently we have drifted far away from my poor
play ; apparently only, for we have just got back to
it. The tragic story related above had recurred to
me in all its details at the unexpected sight of
Leroux's letter among some old papers. The story
haunted me all day, and towards evening, by one
of those phenomena of the imagination, though
frequent enough with dramatic writers, the real
drama got gradually mixed up in my mind with
the fictitious one, the denouement of which was per-

ntly eluding my grasp. One of the three per-
sonages stood out from the other two and began to
form a part of my group of actors. It was the

mage of the colonel, whose answer : ' No,
monsieur, I will not fight you,' struck me all at once

he summary of a whole character, as the germ
of a dramatic part, as the starting point of an
altogether new situation from which two acts mi^lit
be evolved. Brimful of my idea, I went post haste
to Goubaux's, he was away from home, he was on
duty as a national guard at the Ministry of Finances.
To the Ministry of Finances I ran, Goubaux was on

(I. I tell him of my find, which he thinks

irable. ' In that case,' I say, ' let us set to work
at once.' ' I can't, 1 he ivplics, ' I have to keep the

72 Si.vty Years of Recollections

dogs away, and challenge the people who want to
go in.' 'What does that matter, it will be all the
more amusing.' And forthwith we set to planning
our act, he striding up and down, his rifle on his
shoulder, I running by his side on the pavement,
our conversation interrupted every now and then by
the ' No admittance here/ of the sentry.

By the time they came to relieve him, our plan had
taken shape, and two months after that our piece was
finished. In another two months we read it at
the Comedie-Frangaise, where it was unanimously
and enthusiastically accepted. Mdlle. Mars under-
took the principal part and on the 6th June 1838
I had the satisfaction of reading on the playbills:
' To-night for the first time, " Louise de Lignerolles,"
a drama in five acts, and in prose.' My heart beat
very fast when I read that title on the walls, not
so fast, though, as when I read that of ' Le Soleil
Couchant'

The predictions with regard to 'Louise de Ligne-
rolles' were more favourable. I had gathered two
very valuable ones the night before at the dress
rehearsal ; the first from Casimir Delvaigne. * It is
very brutal, but striking ; it will succeed,' he said, when
the rehearsal was over. My second prophet was
an old actor who played the minor comic parts. His
name was Faure. In his young days, he had given
proof of great courage. It was at Nantes in 1794, at
the time when Carrier had the people drowned in

.V/ltv s of Recollections 73

batches in the Loire. Entering the Hotel-de-Ville
one day, he caught sight of the bust of that fiend, and
snatching it from its plinth, he flung it to the ground
where it was shattered to pieces. ' That's what ought
to be done to the wretch himself,' he shouted. He
wa> advised to leave the town as quickly as he could ;
and he came back to Paris, where he resumed his
very modest position at the Comedie-Francaise.
1 Monsieur/ he said after the dress rehearsal of our
drama, 'you may make your mind easy. Your
success is assured ; all the petticoats will come and
see your piece, and wherever the petticoats go the
breeches invariably follow.'

Both predictions were realised to the letter. At
midnight on the 6th June '38 the names of Prosper
Goubaux and Ernest Legouve, ' the authors of the
drama we have just had the honour of performing
before you,' to quote Firmin's own words were
greeted with unanimous applause. I had taken my
nge for the failure of ' Le Soleil Couchant ' and
could claim the title of dramatic author.

CHAPTER III

The four Principal Interpreters of 'Louise de Lignerolles ' ; Mdlle.
Mars, Firmin, and Geffroy Joanny. The combined Ages of the
two Lovers. Firmin. Firmin compared to his Successor ; De-
launay. Firrnin's Appearance and Gait. His Style as compared
to that of Delaunay. The Byplay in Love. Avowals Then and
Now. No more Kneeling at the beloved Woman's feet. Firmin's
Want of Memory. His Devices to minimise the evil effects of it.
His last Years and Death. Joanny. His Peculiarities. His
Punctuality. Expects the same from his Fellow- Actors. 'I have
a Chicken for Dinner which cannot wait, etc.' His Ante-Theatrical
Career. His magnificent Style. His Politeness. Geffroy. M.
Legouve selects him to play a part in his Piece in preference to
his older and more experienced fellow-actors. He becomes
Famous in one evening. Mdlle. Mars. 'Was she Pretty?'
' Am I Pretty ? ' Beauty On and Off the Stage. Refuses to play
any but Young Girl's Parts. Her Reasons. Her Artistic Merits.
Her Love Affairs. An Anecdote of her Early Life. Mdlle.
Contat and the Black Thread. The Use of Slang on the con-
temporary stage. Sardou's first Attempt to introduce it. Mdlle.
Mars as a Dramatic Adviser. The Success of ' Louise de Ligne-
rolles.' Mdlle. Mars afraid of Mdlle. Rachel. Her reluctance to
tell her Age. Her last Years. Her Deathbed. Exit. ' The
Ruling Passion strong in Death.'

I

WHEN the curtain rose for the first time on ' Louise
de Lignerolles/ the two lovers of the play counted a
hundred and twenty-five years of existence between
them. Yet, I may safely say, that I have never had

Years of Recollections 75

t\vo such young interpreters, if by youth we under-
stand spirited, passionate and heartfelt acting.

There is a vast difference between the Comedie-
Frangaise of 1838 and that of 1887 and all the ad-
vantages are certainly not on the side of the contem-
porary organisation. At present, even in comedy,
the scenery and dresses are more carefully looked to,
the animation of a drawing-room, the movement of
the minor characters is better, there is greater anxiety
to catch the true accent of every day life, but what
has become of the diction, the elegant manners, the
refined language, and the hundred and one things
which made the Comedie-Francaise the faithful
image of French society as it existed in years gone
by. I will endeavour to signalise some of those
differences by showing four of the great artists at
work : namely, Mdlle. Mars, Firmin, Geffroy and
Joanny.

t us start with Firmin, whom I cannot portray

r than by comparing him to our dearly missed

Delaunay. They had many qualities in common,

and first of all the look, or it would be better, perhaps,

to term it the glance. On the stage we must not

confound the look with the eyes. One may have

ionks with very small eyes, and per

>*, one may have very large eyes and still be

utterly lacking in that flash of light which springs

from the pupil, spreads in one moment throughout

tin house and as it illumines it. Both had

76 StA-ti' Years of Recollections

dazzling white teeth, which seemed to sparkle like
the eyes, and to smile like the lips. Shorter than
Delaunay and without so shapely a figure, less
elegant in its movements, Firmin, with his head
slightly ' stuck ' forward, his body swaying more or
less on his legs, and beating his palms nervously
against one another, had not the charming grace of
Perdican, but the impassioned fire of his acting, the
electrical effect of his voice made up for it all. To
find a fit comparison to him we must go back to the
great tenors such as Rubini and David, who not
only touched one's soul, but made every nerve in
one's body quiver like the strings of a harp. Im-
passioned as was Delaunay, Firmin had something
more of ' the devil in him,' and was with it all as
light as a bird. There are some lines from ' Le Mis-
anthrope ' in which piece I heard them both, in which
both delighted me, and in which I was enabled to
appreciate the similarity of and the difference be-
tween their respective talents. They are the lines of
the Marquis (Acaste) at the beginning of the third
act. In order to explain my idea, I had better quote
the verses.

' Parbleu ! Je ne vois pas lorsque je m'examine,
Oil prendre aucun sujet d'avoir I'ame chagrine,
J'ai du bien, je suis jeune. et sors d'une maison
Qui peut se dire noble avec quelque raison ;
Et je crois par le rang que me donne ma race,
Qu'il est fort peu d'emplois dont je ne sois en passe.
Pour le creur, dont surtout nous devons faire cas,
On sait, sans vanite, que je n'en manque pas ;
Et 1'on m'a vu pousser, dans le monde, une affaire

AY.r/r Years of Recollections 77

D'une assez vigoureuse et gaillarde maniere.

Pour de 1 esprit, j'en ai, sans doute, et du bon gout,

A juger sans etude et raisonner de tout ;

lire aux nouveautes, dont je suis idolatre,
Figure de savant sur les banes du theatre,
Y decider en chef, et faire du ft
A tous les beaux endroits qui meritent de-
Je suis assez adroit ; j'ai bon air, bonne mine,
Les dents belles surtout, et la taille fort fine,
Quand a se mettre bien, je crois, sans me flatter,

n serait mal venu de me le disputer.
Je me vois dans 1'estime autant qu'on y puisse Stre. ;
Fort aime du beau sexe, et bien aupres du maitre ;
Je crois qu'avec cela, mon cher marquis, jc
Qu'on peut, par tout pays, etre content de soi.'

This charming piece, on Delaunay's lips, sparkled
like a lark's mirror in the sun.* So many lines, so many
facets. The faintest intention, the vaguest hint, the
most delicate nuance of the author's meaning was
elucidated and put into proper relief. Firmin, on the
other hand, laid stress upon nothing, did not stop
to accentuate or emphasise, but carried the whole in
a single movement which was like a flutter of wings,
like the buz/ing flight of a swarm of bees.

Firmin had made himself famous by the manner

in which he told a woman of his love. No one

could fling himself at the feet of a woman with as

much passion as he. Nowadays, men no longer fling

themselves at a woman's feet 1 believe I was the

Iramatic author who was bold enough to intro-

that bit of pantomime in a comedy. Bressant,

I- author uses
with u ;ire caught. I have seen them used in I

they are employed in Eng, seen them

78 Si.r/i' } 't'tirs of Recollections

when telling Mme. Madeleine Brohan of his love in
' Par droit de conquete,' gracefully knelt before her,
and at the same time electrified the audience by his
passionate pleading. When a few years later, M.
Febvre assumed the part he told me that he could
not possibly follow Bressant's example, that he did
not know how to set about that kind of thing, that he
would simply feel ridiculous and he was right The
taste 'for that kind of thing' had changed. To throw
one's self at a woman's feet, to kiss her hand, to pay
her a compliment, all ' that kind of thing ' dated from
a period when love was accompanied by respect, when
a certain show of gallantry was an essential element
in the act of 'paying one's court.' I defy any man, in
our own days, to make ' a declaration of love ' on the
stage, as we understood it then. The public would
split its sides with laughter, and the young woman or
girl to whom it was addressed would follow suit,
if she did not take the initiative. In order to convince
her of your affection, you must provoke her more or
less, I had almost said treat her more or less cava-
lierly. If one had proposed such a scene to Firmin
he would have said like M. Febvre : ' / do not know
how to set about that kind of tiling?

It seems scarcely credible but this very brilliant
actor had no memory, When enacting a long scene
at the far end of the stage, he was obliged to have a
second prompter somewhere within earshot. He
invented the strangest devices in order to refresh his

} 'ears of Recollections 79

memory. Sometimes he would select this or that
armchair, at others, part of the design of the carpet,
then again this or that lamp to help him out with a
hemistich or a line which was sure to escape him at
the moment he wanted it How did he manage to
suit his spirited, his impressive style to those fright-
ful lapses of memory ? How ? Simply by making
those lapses contribute to those bursts of passion.
Like Mol, whose memory was as defective as his,
he drew from his struggle with the text indescribable
effects ; he appeared to be dragging his words from
his very entrails, his stammering and stuttering
simply became so much quivering, headlong passion.
His impetuosity was, after all, so thoroughly natural
that during the run of * Hernani ' the slightest whisper

ist the piece sufficed to call it forth. Though
thoroughly worn out with the duties of this crushing
he would start to his feet and overwhelm the
hostile critic with the most striking passages from his
rdle, rendered, if possible, with additional fire and
spirit. Odd to relate, this excitable, highly strung

are spent his old age like a philosopher and
ended up like a stoic. Having retired from the st
he lived for many years in a small country cottage on
the banks of the Seine near Coudray, by hin
smiling and contented, spending his days in reading
Plutarch. 'When my friVmls come to see me I am

:ite<l. When they stay away I manage todowith-

:hem, lie said. When deep in fc]

8o .S7.r/r Years of Recollect io)is

felt that his sight began to fail him, he could read no
longer, his legs refused to carry him and a profound
but mute melancholy took possession of his soul and
showed itself in his features, and one day without
having ever uttered a word of complaint, he painfully
and slowly got on to the window sill in his drawing-
room, which was situated on the first floor and flung
himself head foremost on to the pavement below,
just as quietly, in fact, as a follower of Zeno would
have plunged a dagger into his breast.

Joanny, who like Firmin, contributed greatly to the
success of ' Louise de Lignerolles/ was a singular
artist in more senses than one. To begin with, he al-
ways knew the whole of his part at the first rehearsal
of no matter what new work. He brought his manu-
script in his pocket to mark the corrections and
alterations, but from the very first day the whole of
the text was indelibly stamped on his memory.

A vast difference assuredly between this principle of
being * letter perfect' from the very beginning, and the
theory of some great actors of to-day who pretend that
a part should be learned on the stage during rehearsal,
and during rehearsal only. Who is right? He, or
they ? Perhaps both : it is simply a question of
school and period. Formerly when diction was con-
sidered the first and foremost thing, Joanny's method
was the better. To-day the dialogue is as it were
mixed up with the gestures, the position of the actor
on the stage thoroughly modifies the accent of the

'ears of Recollections 8 1

phrases, actors do not only play a part, they ' walk it,'
I was tempted to say ' run it. 1 In Sardou's ' Bour-
geois de Pontarcy ' (' Duty ' in the English version), I
have heard and seen Mdlle. Bartet and M. Berton
exchange the most tender and purest protestations of
love, walking all the while round the furniture. I feel
bound to add that the whole of it was accomplished
with infinite grace and charm. Admitting that kind
of pantomime to be the right thing, the method of
learning one's part while enacting it at rehearsal must
be the better one, but when the characters in the play
were animated without being agitated, Joanny's
method was preferable.

His second original trait was his punctuality.

Having been a sailor in his early days, (he had lost

fingers of his left hand in battle), he made his

arance at rehearsal to the minute, just as he would

done on the fo'c'sle or quarter-deck of his ship.

But if he kept no one waiting for him, he equally

declined to wait for any one. I remember perfectly

well his pulling out his watch one day at a rehearsal

of ' Louise de Lignerolles.' We were in the middle of

but that did not affect him. ' One moment,'

he said very quickly, ' it's five o'clock ; if we had

begun at the right hour we should have finished long

ago. My housekeeper has got me a chicken for my

dinner, I won't let my housekeeper or the chicken

-10 I wish you a pleasant afternoon.' I wonder

what poor Joanny would say nowadays to the want
VOL, u

82 .SY.r/r }'<w;-.v of Rcco/lcctious

of punctuality which has become one of the traditions
of 'the House of Moliere,' where every watch is half-
an-hour slow. The old hands still manage to be
punctual, but the young ones, and especially the
women, seem to take a pride in keeping people waiting.
Who is to blame ? Not one in particular ; it is simply
the prevailing spirit. The idea of submitting to
discipline, of being bound by regulations has gone
out of fashion. People no longer care to be part of a
whole, there is no longer a milky way in the domain
of art ; everybody wishes to be a star, and as such
moves at his own sweet will, rotates by himself, or if
anything makes others revolve around him. I have
got an idea that this system is no more suitable on
the earth than it would be in the skies.

Finally, Joanny had a third peculiarity, he lisped.
Of all the drawbacks to good diction, lisping is un-
doubtedly the one lending itself most to laughter.
Well, this lisper, this methodical, systematical creature
was one of the most heartstirring, original and poeti-
cal artists I have known. Unfortunately for him, he
was the contemporary of Talma. The proximity of
men of genius is fatal to the man of talent. The
former monopolise all the available glory of their
time. The splendid light they shed reduces to a
mere flicker everything that but for them would be
considered brilliant Joanny, relegated to the Oddon
for a long while, only entered the Com&die-Francjiise
after the death of his illustrious rival, and suddenly

.SV.r.; s of Recollections 83

;;ned a foremost position. Who does not
member his Tyrrel in ' Les Enfants d'Edouard,' his
Coictier in 'Louis XI,' and above all, his Ruy
Gomez in ' HernamV His magnificent white hair
looked like a halo. He disliked wigs. ' Wigs are
made of dead hair,' he said, ' only the hair growing on
our heads and nourished with our blood can associ-
ate itself with the play of our features. -It enacts
our parts as we enact them.'

A the father of Louise de Lignerolles, he aroused
the enthusiasm of Mdlle. Mars to such a degree that
one day while rehearsing the fifth act, she said to me,
* Do you hear the old lion ? ' The praise was the
more gratifying to me inasmuch as I had, to a certain
extent, contributed to that magnificent roar. During
the first rehearsals I had not been particularly pleased
with Joanny in that scene. I considered that he did
lisplay all tl ;y required by the situation.

Hut how was I to tell him so? I was but thirty and
he had white hair. I had not the courage. Then

myself of going to him after the
ind while pretending to be enraptured with
of the SGene, to repeat the whole of it,
i lit\ as I wanted it
1 very attentively, looked at
:ig a word and

at r. b llcony, When Joanny

to th.v ..ictly c\

tonation turning to me and l>

84 Si.rSr Years of Recollections

ing with infinite grace, he said, * Will that do, M.
1'auteur ? '

I should indeed be wanting in gratitude if I did
not say a few words about M. Geffroy, before speak-
ing of Mdlle. Mars. To begin with, I have a weak-
ness for his talent and for a very good reason ; I, as it
were, guessed that it was in him before anyone else.
The part of M. de Givry, the colonel who refuses to
'go out' had met with enthusiastic approval at the
reading of the play, they offered us ever so many
societaires and tried artists to interpret it. ' No/ I
repeated obstinately, ' I want the young fellow I saw
in ' La Famille de Lusigny,' he alone is able to give
with the necessary pluck the words of Colonel Givry
when he appears upon the scene for the first time in
the fourth act.

As a matter of fact, the line involved a very, very
great risk. The first words he had to say to Henri de
Lignerolles were, * Monsieur, you are the lover of my
wife.' Nowadays such a commencement would
scarcely be considered very daring, but it was dif-
ferent in 1838. I remember well enough the murmur
of revolt that ran through the house. The pit rose
as one man, or rather like a horse that gets on
its hind legs. It was only what I expected. During
the rehearsals, all the actors, Mdlle Mars included,
had entreated me in vain to * cut the line.' ' You are
compromising the piece.' ' I don't care,' was my
answer. ' You are virtually invoking a perfect storm

Si.vty Years of Recollections 85

of hisses.' ' I don't care.' c But at any rate, do pre-
pare your public for that exhibition of brutality.'
'No, there's no time to do that. We are in the
fourth act and \ve must define the colonel's character
with one line. That line has an immense advantage,
it is the character "boiled down" to one sentence.
The whole of the part is contained in it. The public
will probably hiss for the moment, but you'll see
what they'll do afterwards.'

My view turned out to be the correct one. I had
instinctively established two rules, essential under
such conditions. The first is that a daring thing
should be done boldly. Precautions in such a case
only tend to put the public on its guard, and show
that the author is afraid of it. Now, it is a fact that
a theatrical audience is simply like any other gather-
ing of men, it is impossible to manage it except by
showing a bold front. The only way to impose on
it is by imposing on one's self. The second rule,
which since then Scribe has loudly proclaimed, is that
a theatrical effect is produced not by a blow but by
the counter-bit >\\ . I n ' Louise de Lignerolles ' the blow
had been very violent, but at the fourth line after it
came the counter-blow which served, as it were, as a
vaulting-plank by means of which to jump clean over
the forin.-r. When M. de Givry brutally claimed
his \\il\-, hidden in Henri de Lignerolles' rooms, the
lover said, ' And if do you think I

ild be coward enough to give her up? 1 'You

86 Sixty Years of Recollections

have been coward enough to corrupt her,' retorted
the colonel. And this telling retort Goubaux's
invention, not mine was the signal for deafening
applause which continued throughout. The part
was one prolonged, triumphant success of which M.
Geffroy had his well-deserved share, for he showed
himself in advance of his time by that careful attention
to detail in the matter of dress, manner and bearing,
which constituted one of his great talents. With his
heavy moustache, closely cropped reddish hair, turn-
ing grey and standing on end, his cavalry stride, his
voice cutting through one like steel, his brief answers
that reminded one of the crack of a whip, he posi-
tively made one feel afraid. You should have seen
him when Henri de Lignerolles said, * Monsieur de
Givry, you are a coward.' Taking a long breath, he
burst into a low sarcastic chuckle, and simply an-
swered, * Do you think so ? ' At eight o'clock in the
evening M. Geffroy was a ' mere hope/ at midnight
he was an actor of acknowledged talent.

II

' Was she . pretty ? ' That is generally the first
question people ask you when you happen to speak
of an artist of former days. Well, Mdlle. Mars was
pretty, she was even charming. So charming, in fact,
that Scribe in 'Valerie' dared to put on her own
lips the words, 'Ami pretty ? ' She was close upon
forty-five then, and the public replied to her by

s of Recollections 87

applauding to a man. That applause, I feel bound
ty, was due to a certain extent to the spirit of
the times. At present an author would scarcely
care to risk such an experiment ; it would want the
gallants of the pit of the early twenties to score a
similar success. I will go further still and say that
without the ' optical conditions ' of the playhouse, the
experiment might not have succeeded then. There
are what we call stage beauties. Mdlle. Mars, in
spite of her handsome eyes and magnificent teeth,
would not have passed muster, off the stage, as a
good-looking woman. Her complexion was neither
one thing nor the other, her nose was rather coarse,
her head somewhat large, and her figure more or less
short. But the stage is a magician with the power
of transforming everything. If it be true that extra-
refined features become somewhat indistinct, it is also
true that too strongly marked traits become more or
less toned down. The stage both magnifies and
reduces ; it has the effect of harmonising things, and
owing to the optical delusions prevailing on the stage,
Mdlle. Mars remained for nearly fifty years the model
irl and young woman behind the footlights.
1 1< i successes were scored in young girls' parts.

She continued to play Agnes (in Moliere's ' Iicole des
') when she was over forty. Scribe thought
IKT ' a wonderful turn ' by writing for her
tile part of ayounggirl who having entered the convent
at si- id being compelled to leave it a| forty,

88 Sixty Years of Recollections

during the Reign of Terror, had to face the world
with all the innocent, candid, unsophisticated inex-
perienced ways of the * bread and butter miss ' thick
upon her, with the soul of a child, and the body of
a matured woman. The conception was very ingenu-
ous, the part absolutely charming.

1 I'll have none of it,' exclaimed Mdlle. Mars, ' I'll
have none of it I should be downright horrid in it.
Your two score years would affect my face, my
movements, my diction. Pray, do not make a
mistake, I am not refusing the part from womanly
vanity, but from sheer^ artistic conscientiousness. I
can only be myself on the stage when I feel that I am
young, when I am supposed to be young, when I
know myself to be young.'

She refused for the same reason and more cate-
gorically still, another three-act piece by Scribe,
entitled ' La Grand'mere,' in which in spite of her
white hairs, she won a young fellow away from a
young woman in order to restore his affections to
her grand-daughter. ' Don't talk to me of your sex-
agenarian lady. To begin with, if I succeeded in
winning the heart of that young fellow, I would not
give it up to any one. Furthermore, take it for
granted that in the guise of a grandmother, I should
look like a great-grandmother.' She was right. She
was no more fit to play the part of a grandmother
than a tenor is fit to sing a bass part.

Unfortunately, the poor woman was not content to

Sixty Years of Recollections 89

enact the young woman merely on the stage. How
often have I seen her come to the rehearsals of
'Louise de Lignerolles, 1 nervous, irritable, her eyes
red with weeping. What was the reason? That she
probably just had had a violent altercation or explana-
tion with one of the most elegant young fellows in
Parisian society who held her bound to him by the
ties of a mutual affection . . . but which, alas, was
not shared to an equal degree. Well, nothing
could make her give him up, neither his frequent
faithlessness nor the humiliations to which she was
often exposed by her frantic passion. It was she
who was told by a physician to whom she had taken
him and who noticed her agony, to set her mind at
because there was nothing serious the matter with
Jicr son.' There is no occasion to laugh or to throw
stones at her, for all we know the talent and the
i in her case may have been set ablaze by the
self-same spark. Who knows whether the one would
have preserved its youthful elasticity and spirit without
the prolonged youth of the other ? We ought not to
judge those strange beings we call great artists by
the common standard. They are of different ages at
the same time ; they are adults when they have
scarcely emerged from childhood ; they are mere
children when ' they have reached the borderland
of old ,-i^e.' In that very drama of 'Louise de

d the mother of a little
girl of ci constantly chidi hild for

9O Si.vty Years of Recollections

remaining by her side when there was no necessity.
1 What are you doing here, hanging on to my skirts.
That's not like a little girl of your age. When you
have given me my " reply," you should be romping
and playing at skipping rope or at battledore and
shuttlecock.' She virtually taught the child how to
enact the child.

Mdlle. Mars' acting was marked by three eminent
qualities. To begin with, she had that rarest of all
gifts, the talent of ' composing ' a part. There is
nothing so difficult both to the actor and author as
to create a character that shall hold together, that is,
whose moods, however varying, shall accord so well
as a whole as to breed the conviction in the minds of
the public that they are looking at and listening to a
real living being. Mdlle. Mars excelled in that pro-
found art of extracting the harmonious whole of a
part from its very contrasting elements themselves.

Her second gift was a marvellous surety of execu-
tion. I had a striking proof of it one day. We had
to rehearse the most dramatic act of the piece. When
she arrived, she looked tired, unnerved, there was not
' a bright note in her voice.' Well, she rehearsed
every line in that subdued voice without missing a
word, without missing an effect, merely whispering
what under different circumstances she would have
said aloud, and making up for the deficiency in sound
by emphasis, and for the shortcomings of the vocal
organ by articulation. I was simply amazed. I

Years of Recollections 91

seemed to be looking at one of those drawings of
Raphael or Leonardo da Vinci in which, without the
aid of brush, colour or effects of light and shade, the
:er has rendered the expression, the form, and
intention with a mere pencil point.

Finally, her third gift was one which is scarcely con-
sidered worth having nowadays, namely, the gift of
taste. Taste, I think, may be defined as being synony-
mous with the control of one's own strength, with the
careful avoidance of exaggeration in the portrayal of
ion, with restraint even in the matter of graceful-
Some very great artists have been utterly
devoid of taste. Shakespeare knows nothing about
; Rubens has no taste, and let us thank heaven
for it, because taste pares, attenuates, and tones down
things, and the very extravagance of these powerful
geniuses constitutes part of their grandeur, albeit that
taste displayed by Sophocles, Virgil, Mozart,
Raphael, Racine, and La Fontaine likewise constitutes
one of the elements of genius. Mdlle. Mars' :
showed itself in the delightful sympathy between her
voice, physiognomy and gestures. Truly, we should
:nber that her tutrix had been Mdlle. Contat, the
i i)f the domain of elegance.

In the beginning of her Mdlle. Mars iiM-d her

trm too freely, which habit amused tin- indi .

f Mdlle. Contat. 'The left arm is at best but an

awkward in^tnin 1, 'and it should only be

used under nal < ir i ou'il

92 Si.vfy Years of Recollections

find that I'll break yours in. You'll be playing ' Le
Dissipateur ' to-morrow, and in the scene of the fourth
act, with which I have no fault -to find, that wretched
arm of yours saws the air like the sail of a windmill.
I am going to tie a black string to your 'paw,' and post
myself at the wing where you play your scene. The
moment you attempt to move your arm, I'll
pull.'

The scene commences, and at the second line Mdlle.
Mars' arm goes up, or rather tries to do so, for there
is a pull at the string and the attempt at revolt is
nipped in the bud. The scene becomes animated, the
young actress catches the spirit of it, and at a sing-
ularly pathetic line the poor arm gets fidgety, and
attempts to free itself a second time, but with the
same result. The scene becomes still more touching
and goes on increasing in pathos, the poor arm wants
to emphasise the pathos, but is pulled back for the
third time. It naturally protests against its bondage,
the string protests on its side, until at last Mdlle. Mars
carried away by her growing excitement, lifts both
hands so impetuously that the string snaps in twain
and the arm is free to do as it likes, and improves
the occasion. When the scene is over, Mdlle. Mars
makes her exit with a contrite mien and not daring to
look Mdlle. Contat in the face. But the latter goes up
to her, and taking hold of her hand says, * Bravo !
this is a better lesson than any I could give you.
Henceforth, remember that the left arm should not be

ty Years of Recollections 93

lifted unless you can break the string by the force of
your natural emotion.'

To-day, when the youngest and prettiest actresses
seek their success by means of vulgar gestures, bodily
contortions and trivial intonation, Mdlle. Contat
would scarcely find pupils. Formerly an actress, in
order to please, was bound to have taste, to-day she
must have ' spice.' How could it be otherwise, when
young women in society, and in the best society, set
the example. Fifteen years ago, (this was written in
1886-87) Sardou made one of his young girls talk a
few phrases of slang. There was a general cry of
indignation. To-day the adjectives 'stunning,'
1 side-splitting,' (c pat ant, tordant\ constitute part and
parcel of the usual vocabulary of young girls. I
may frankly confess that I cannot reconcile myself to
this. When I hear them utter these words, they
sound to me like oaths. Mdlle. Mars would probably
have considered them blasphemy.

Mdlle. Mars had another sterling and rare quality,

which I, above all men, ought not to forget. She

an excellent counsellor. In the third act of our

drama Louise interrupted her husband's meeting with

liis mistress. We had represented the husband as be-

^sed, grieved, and more or less repentant.

'This is simply absurd, 1 exclaimed Mdlle. M,
'he ought to get into a He has d<>nc \vrong,

consequently he ought to accuse, to ill-treat ni
any peech for that's your character, gentle-

94 .SY.r/r ) 't-tirs of Recollections

men. Your vanity rules everything. A husband wh >
is caught by his wife at a clandestine meeting is
virtually in a ridiculous position, hence my husband
must get in a towering passion. You need not mind
me in the case, I'll come out all the stronger, and the
scene of reconciliation will be all the more touching.'

When in due course that scene came, Louise left
alone with her husband, expressed her confidence in
him for the future, saying, * I have no longer any fear,
I am ignorant of everything ; I feel as if we had only
been married yesterday.' When she got to these
words she stopped short and in her somewhat brusque
voice, her everyday voice, said, ' I'll not speak this
line.' ' Why not, madame ? ' * Why not ? Because
it is utterly useless in that situation.' ' Useless, use-
less,' I repeated, rather nettled (I was only thirty and
not very patient,) I think it very good.' ' You think
it very good, " I feel as if we had only been married
yesterday." ' ' Yes, madame, it expresses as it were
the confidence which makes Louise go back to her
first days of married happiness.' * Have as much
married happiness as you like, but I refuse to say " as
if we had only been married yesterday." Put some-
thing else instead.' ' What am I to put ? ' * Put tra
la, la, la, la, tra, la, la, la, la, tra, la, la, la, la ! '
' Great heavens/ I thought, ' she's gone out of her
mind.' Thereupon I went away.

While striding along and my anger gradually sub-
siding, I began to reflect. ' What in the name of all

Si.vfv Years of Recollections 95

that's good did she mean ? Did those tra, la, la's
divided into equal parts represent to her, may be, the
rhythm, the harmony she stands in need of in these
words in order to convey the joy and tenderness with
which her soul is overflowing ? I had better think it
over.' Thus said I to myself and next morning I
came to the rehearsal with the following phrase in
four parts. * Even-thing is forgotten ; I know nothing;
our life only commences ; it's the first time you have
told me, I love you.'

The moment she heard the words, she exclaimed,
'That's it, that's all I wanted.'

tors often ask you in that way for things
that are not very clear, and which nevertheless are
none the less just. The reasons they advance are
bad, but they are right for all that. Their critical in-
stinct resembles a kind of semi-obscured second sight,
which often gropes about, often proceeds in a zig-zag
fashion, but which points out the straight road to the
author.

We rehearsed the piece sixty-eight times, and

during that very long period of preparation, I learned

many things, notably patience. Mdlle. Mars was not

alw.i . . ith. Very satirical and

gifted with a rare talent for mimicking people, she

mcaturing the g- voice of

/one who came in contact with her, and on one

I need scarcely remind the reader that no possibiii

rendering all this in English prose. TK.

96 Si.vtj 1 Years of Recollections

occasion she ^avc such a capital imitation of my jerky
and nervous diction of those days that she managed
to cure me of it for ever. The moment I feel in-
clined to relapse into my old habit, I think of Mdlle.
Mars and it has the desired effect. I may add that I
have never met with anyone so zealous and conscien-
tious, watching, as it were over every part, always
listening to what was going on on the stage, whether
she happened to be * on ' at the moment or not
One morning we were standing chatting at the wings,
she was telling me of her grievances against her
director. She was furious, her face, her gestures, her
voice, everything was ablaze. All at once her face
changes, she is angry as ever in speech, but her look,
her expression becomes milder, her invectives are
uttered with a smile, so that at the last sentence
though the language is still that of a fury, the face is
that of an angel. What had occurred ? This much :
while speaking she had carefully listened to the
actors on the stage and become aware that her
' entrance ' was nigh, and as she was to ' enter ' smil-
ing and amiable, she had prepared for it amidst her
anger and whilst talking, she had changed her features
as she changed her dresses when changing her parts.
On the first night of ' Louise de Lignerolles/ before
the rise of the curtain, I noticed that she was rather
more agitated than is generally the case with great
artists on the evening of a battle ; for on such occa-
sions they feel themselves in their element, like a

Sixty Years of Recollections 97

it captain amidst the roar of cannon. The
moment she caught sight of me, she came up to me,
saying, 'To-morrow you'll discover the credit I
rved for acting as I shall act to-night, for I'll act
very well.' Next morning, in fact, I learned that on
coming back to her house at five in the afternoon on
the day of the first performance, she found everything
in the greatest disorder. The servants had just
discovered that her diamonds worth sixty thousand
francs, had been stolen.

In spite of this, the performance from beginning to
end was a veritable triumph for her ; the success of
the piece itself was very considerable. At the
twentieth performance, the 23rd August, the receipts
rose to five thousand six hundred francs, an enormous
re in those days. Mdlle. Mars went for her holi-
days,* and was to make her re-appearance on the
1st October. She did not come back at the stated
>d, and only returned six months later ; she only
her character of Louise de Lignerolles
months after, and then only enacted it twice
or thrice. What was the reason? It may be ex-
plained in one word. Mdll< ! had made her
>n the boards of the Comedie-Fran-
in September. The brilliancy of this new
in the theatrical firmament had 1 d her. She
hid herself from i being eclipsed. She refused

ic often employed by gret artists in France in starrin
\.| || ( .

98 .SV.r/r Years of Recollections

to reappear except in an entirely new part, in order
to oppose one triumph to another.

The new part was that of Mdlle. de Belle-Isle
(Alexandre Dumas' play of the same name). Since
then every young and charming actress of the
Come'die-Frangaise has ' attempted the part,' not one
has ever succeeded in effacing the recollection of
Mdlle. Mars or of proving herself her equal, and yet
Mdlle. Mars was sixty-four years of age when she
played it.

Here is a rather curious fact, proving once more
the importance she attached to that great question of
her age. One day, a friend of mine, an ardent and
old admirer of everything connected with the stage,
entreated me to introduce him to Mdlle. Mars.
This friend suffered from a peculiar defect ; he had an
infallible memory. Everything in his mind was
reduced to dates. If the recollection of his first love-
appointment happened to well into his heart, he im-
mediately added with a melancholy sigh, ' It was on
the 1 3th September 1798.' While we were knocking
at Mdlle. Mars' door I felt vaguely apprehensive of
what might happen in consequence. * By-the-bye,' I
said, * don't let us have any of your awkward recol-
lections.' ' Don't worry yourself,' he replied, * I'll
be careful.' The . door is opened and in another
moment or so I present him to Mdlle. Mars as one
of her most fervent admirers, to which introduction he
adds immediately, ' Yes, madame, it is exactly forty

y Years of Recollections 99

s ago that I had the pleasure of applauding you
for the first time.' In vain do I pinch his arm, he
does not understand, and at the termination of the visit
he asks the illustrious actress to be allowed to call again.
The request is granted in the most charming manner.
\ days later, however, my friend tells me very
naYvely that he has called three times without seeing
her. ' Each time on my name being taken in, I got
the answer : ' Madame is not at home.'

She retired in 1841 and died in 1847. I have two
1 recollections ' of her at that period, one of which

idly characteristic, the other very touching.
One morning my wife was strolling in the Tuileries
Gardens with her little daughter, who was then about
s even, when all at once she nudged the child with her
elbow, saying, ' Look.' Coming towards them was an
old lady, wearing a ' false front ' of black hair, stoop-
ing considerably, painfully dragging herself along
and leading a small, yellow dog by a leash. The
little animal evidently gave its mistress a good deal
of trouble, but she bore patiently with it, stopping
when it stopped, etc., etc. It was Mdlle. Mars, tak-
'\er companion for an airing, the Araminte of
yore waiting upon a little mongrel.

One of Mdlle. MuiV friends was an old operatic

: whom amateurs still remember, Mme. Dabadie

imy of Rossini's '(iuillaume Tell.'

Dabadie was very anxious about Mdlle.

iritual condition. 'I'll think about it, I'll

IOO Sixty Years of Recollections

think about it ; but I must first of all see to that law-
suit of mine pending at Versailles. When I shall
have won that, you may bring me a confessor.'
i I have got an admirable one,' replied the operatic
artist, 'the Abb6 Gaillard, the curate of the Made-
leine.' ' Very well, I'll write to you when I want
him.'

A week later Mdlle. Mars is suddenly and danger-
ously taken ill. ' Send me your curate at once,' she
writes to Mme. Dabadie. The good priest went, it
was he who gave me the particulars of the last days
of her who was once Mdlle. Mars, and he never al-
luded to her grace, charm and fascination without
being thoroughly moved. That part of the penitent
woman was Mdlle. Mars' final one, and she enacted
it as she had enacted all the others, to perfection.
The priest in speaking of her triumphant success of
former days, said to her : * Where are all those
beautiful wreaths, mademoiselle. ? ' c Truly nowhere,
monsieur 1'abbe,' came the smiling answer, ' but you
are preparing a much more lovely one for me, which
will last for ever.'

On the last days, with her mind wandering now
and then and in the intervals of prayer, she suddenly
interrupted herself and after a moment's pause, began
to talk of ' Dorante,' of ' love ' and so forth. It was a
passage from ' Les Fausses Confidences.' Then she
stopped again as if listening to what she had said,
and applauded. A touching and delightful picture, if

Sixty Years of Recollections 101

ever there was one. This mingling of the parts of
the actress and spectator, that .voice listening to its
own music, those hands applauding her own words,
those alternate lines 'of the sacred text and of
comedy couplets, assuredly, all this has a grace
vying with that of her most delightful parts. Who
had the last words! David with his psalms or Mari-
vaux with his sprightly epigrams. I am inclined to
think it was Marivaux. That which precedes the
artist closest in death is art.

CHAPTER IV

Eugene Scribe. The beginning of my friendship with him. A Letter
to him and his answer. Scribe's Birth and Parentage. His School-
days and College Chums. His beginnings as a Dramatist. A
strange Collaborates. A scene from 'She Stoops to Conquer' in
real life. How Scribe became the owner of Sericourt. My success
with ' Louise de Lignerolles.' A Piece on an Episode in the Life of
General Lamarque. A qualified success. The balls of the Due de
Nemours. Court Dress in the forties. Scribe wants to write a
modern play for Rachel. I find the subject. Scribe at work.
An Essay on Scribe as a Dramatist. Scribe as a Librettist. A pre-
dicament of Dr Ve"ron. Scribe converts a dull tragedy into a
sparkling comedy. Scribe's Stage Tricks. His Denouements.
His reconstruction of two of Moliere's denouements. Scribe as a
Stage-Manager. Scribe and Louis-Philippe. Scribe as a Friend
and as a Man. Scribe and his Love-Affairs ' How happy could I
be with either,' etc. A Last Love. His Death.

I

MY friendship with Scribe, like that with Casimir
Delavigne, began with the letter of a schoolboy to an
illustrious playwright. I was at the top of the fifth *
form and had my mind full of theatrical ideas. One
day I fancied I had hit upon a subject for a comedy
which seemed to me absolutely delightful. The end
of the world was supposed to have been foretold, and
the date mentioned in the prediction was accepted

* Fifth form according to English scholastic rules. TK.

Sixty Years of Recollections 103

as a certainty. Of course the acceptance of the fiat
produced a complete transformation in people's
actions, language, positions, and sentiments. That
sword of Damocles suspended over the whole of
humanity caused the hitherto stifled, repressed and
forcibly subdued passions to burst forth from the in-
most recesses of men's hearts like so many volcanos.
Like that clarion sound before Jericho, it was to
over-topple all social castes and distinctions. There
was an end to poverty and riches. There were
neither great nor small. The impending end neces-
sarily brought people face to face as equals and un-
shackled, figuratively as well as literally. In short, if,
as I intended, the first act was to treat of society in its
old aspect, unimpaired, law-abiding, peaceful and
using the powers conferred upon it in the usual way,
the announcement of that sentence of death would,
one may well imagine, produce a tremendous sensa-
tion from a theatrical point of view. Enraptured with
my plan, I wrote to Scribe, asking him to carry it out
with me ; the plan to be a free gift. I signed with
three- asterisks and added with the comical conceit
of the youngster who is bent upon being modest :
' I will be a discreet donor.' I was delighted with the
donor.' I felt proud of it, the student in
ric flattered himself upon having hit the grandi-
loqui "--ssion. Since then I have l.m-hed more

than once at the recollection of it.

Scribe replied to M. * * * in a letter, full of kindli-

IO4 Sixty Years of Recollections

ness, heightened by a touch of sprightly irony. He
instinctively guessed that he was dealing with some
' young hopeful.'

* Monsieur,' he wrote,' your subject is novel and
interesting; unfortunately in order to command the
slightest chance of success, there is one indispensable
condition, namely, that the public itself on the first
night should feel more or less convinced that the end
of the world is drawing nigh. That is the obstacle.
At the present moment the public is far from believing
this, and it will be difficult to force that belief upon
them. Fortunately, people are talking of a comet
which is to appear next year, a comet which is ex-
pected to shatter our globe like a simple wine-glass.
Let us wait for the comet. Its coming may put the
public in the humour to be terrified. If so, I will
take advantage of it and write the piece, or rather we
will take advantage of it, for I sincerely trust that
that great event which will overtopple so many things
will also rend the veil behind which my anonymous
correspondent hides himself.'

This letter, kindly withal, notwithstanding its tone
of banter, filled me with delight. I kept the precious
note like some treasure, still, I did not make myself
known. I kept waiting for the comet and waited in
vain, it frightened no one and left me with regard to
M. Scribe in the position of M. *

I little expected then that twenty years later I should

Si.vty Years of Recollections 105

become his collaborateur and friend, that I should be
present at his most signal triumphs and have my
share in some of these, and that finally, after a lapse
of sixty years, I should take up the pen to save him
from supercilious indifference and oblivion. I do not
intend to write his 'apology,' I will neither recrimin-
ate nor praise him inordinately, I will not attempt to
hide the weak points of his talent. I will confine my-
self to painting him such as I knew him for
many years, at work, in his study, chatting, writing,
initiating me in his method of working, and working
with me and will leave aside his works, trusting to
posterity to assign to them their proper place.

The theory of environment is very much the
fashion just now. It appears to me to contain a
good deal of truth. The spot in which we happen
to be born, the circumstances amid which we L;T< >\\
Kercise a powerful influence on our lives. Scribe
is a striking instance of this.

He came into the world on the i ith June 1791, in

tin- Rue Saint-Denis, in a silk warehouse, kept by his

;n of the ' Hlack Cat,' a stone's throw

away from the (then) central market; consequently

in the midst of a 1 (juarter, inhabited by a

middle-cla^ moved from

i the people,

106 Sixty Years of Recollections

not to say the ' populace.' His talent bears the stamp
of his origin.

A second point worthy of notice is the fact of his
guardian having been a celebrated barrister to whom
he went every Sunday. To this connection he pro-
bably owed his understanding of business matters
with which he has often been reproached, and which,
after all, frequently proved an advantage in his
pieces. There is a third important circumstance
which we should not overlook ; he was educated at
Sainte-Barbe. Thence sprang, no doubt, his tendency
for keeping up college friendships, the traces of which
are met with at every instant in his plays. There are
at least a score of Scribe's pieces, the action of which
begins with the accidental or prearranged meeting of
two college chums who, on finding themselves together
again after many years, feel a revival of all the hopes
and affections of their youthful days, and their mutual
confessions and recollections supply a kind of affec-
tionate note to the sprightliness of the 'exposition.'
Truly, his sojourn at Sainte-Barbe had given him
' cronies ' eminently fit to stir within his heart the love
for * Companions of yore.' Two of these were Germain
and Casimir Delavigne. All three were called 'the
inseparables.' Casimir and Germain went to their
parents on the days they had leave, and Germain,
through his connection with the manager of a small
theatre, had tickets for the play. He went to it ever}-
Sunday, and went, as it were, for the whole three.

Years of Recollections 107

On the Monday, at * play time,' there were endless
discussions between him, his brother, and Scribe on
the piece itself, on the acting of it, on the effect both
had produced on the public, the whole interspersed, as
a matter of course, with numberless projects for
comedies or farces and aspirations to see their joint
names on the playbills. Their beginnings were not
brilliant. ' Do you know/ said Scribe one day to
Janin and Rolle when all three were dining with me ;
you know how I did begin ? I began with
fourteen failures. Yes, with fourteen. But it served
me right. My dear friends, you have no idea how
flat and heavy those pieces were. Nevertheless/ he
added with charming modesty, ' there is one I would
fain rescue from the ignominy inflicted on it. It was
hissed more than it deserved, for it was not as bad as
an>- of the others. Really and truly, the verdict was
unjust.' We could not help laughing. * Yes, you are
laughing, and I too am laughing, but it was no
ling matter to me in those days. After each
failure, Germain and I strode the whole length of the
Boulevards, desperate, furious, I repeating at e\ery
moment : " What a beastly trade, but it's all over. I
give it up. After the four or five plots we have in our
desks, I'll write no more.'" five plots,

what a pretty touch of natu: the rail

very human passion under the sun. 'I'll have
four iW8 i nor the ga:.

that I'll play no more.' 'One la .-ll/ says the

loS y Years of Recollections

love-sick wight, ' and then I'll leave her for ever.'
And the gambler keeps on gambling, and the love-
sick wight does not leave the damsel ; and seeing
that the dramatist is both a love-sick wight and a
gambler, he tries over and over again.

That was what Scribe did, and he acted wisely.
But Scribe or no Scribe, a playwright at the outset of
his career is bound to stumble and to make mistakes.
He is ignorant of his own particular tendencies and
he wants someone to point them out to him. In
Scribe's case that 'someone' was one of the oddest
characters I have known. Though he nominally
figures on the list of French dramatic authors, he had
scarcely any talent, he had not even what we call
sparkle or wit. But the piercing eyes that flashed
from behind his glasses, the bushy, mobile eyebrows,
the sarcastic mouth, the long and inquisitive looking
nose, all these stamped him as an observer, an in-
quirer, a kind of sleuthhound. One day when dis-
cussing the editor of a periodical whose enemies
averred that his face was like that of a pig, Beranger
wittily remarked, * A pig if you like, but he has the
knack of finding truffles.' Well, Scribe's friend dug
him out from beneath all his failures, and he con-
ceived the strangest device to bring out what really
1 in him was.' He constantly repeated to him : ' You
will be all right. The day will come when you will
show as much talent as Barr, Radet and Desfon-
taines.' ' How absurd of you to exaggerate as you

Si.vfy Years of Recollections 109

do,' replied Scribe. * I am not exaggerating at all,
only you want two things, perseverance in your work
and solitude. I am going to take you away. I have
got some friends a few miles distant from Paris. They
have a very nice house in the country, that's where I
am going to take you.' ' You are going to take me,
you are going to take me ; what's the good of telling
me you are going to take me ? Your friends do not
know me, I do not know them.' ' I know them, and
that's enough. We'll take up our quarters for four
months with them, and in the autumn you'll come
back to Paris with five or six charming pieces/ In
another week our friends were comfortably settled in
two rooms adjoining one another, Scribe under the
careful surveillance of his gaoler who only allowed
him to go down to his hosts after he had finished his
day's work, when he was sure to find excellent fare
and a cordial welcome. There was one thing, h< >\v-

. which made Scribe feel uncomfortable, namely,
his friend's occasional rudeness to his host. When
the meat happened to be done too much, or the

tables too salt, he simply exclaimed: 'This is
horrible stuff", take it away, take it away.' Scribe,
like most nice-minded people when compelled to sit

by while their friends are making fools of themse'
felt awkward and fidget ty. they feel as if they and
not their friends were the offenders. Scribe bent his
! OV hi> plate, ki< ked his friend under the table
to make him hold his tongue, and when the dinner

HO _SY.r/r Years of Recollections

was ( >ver, remonstrated with him in the liveliest terms.
' That's not the way to speak to one's hosts,' he said.
* Don't trouble yourself about that, they like it,' was
the answer. * They like it ! why you are behaving as
if you were at an inn.'

The fact was that they were at an inn, or at any
rate in a boarding-house, a boarding-house where
the friend paid for Scribe whom he housed, fed and
provided for in a general way, in order to compel
him to work, in order to force his genius to sprout
forth. It would be difficult to find a more curious
instance of admiration for talent. Only, for the sake
of thorough accuracy, I ought to add that the friend
was not wholly prompted by pure love of art. For, if
he had as much as suggested the title of the piece,
indicated its starting point or inspired a song, he as-
sumed the part of collaborates, claimed the acknow-
ledgment, shared the author's fees and the glory accru-
ing from the work. He undoubtedly worshipped
Scribe, but Scribe paid the budget of that worship.

These curious details were told to me by Scribe at
Sericourt while we were working at ' Adrienne
Lecouvreur,' ' and/ added he laughing, ' there is this
or that piece of mine to which the fellow put his
name without having written a syllable of it. It was
his due after all, for I'll never be able to repay him.
He had the most wonderful knack of inciting me to
work, of winding me up to the required pitch, of
comforting me under disappointment. I am even

5 of Recollections \ \ \

indebted to him for Sericourt. Yes, my dear fellow,
the very room in which we are seated now, do you
know what it is made out of? Out of the two small
rooms in which I wrote by his side, and thanks to
him, my first works.'

1 Do you mean to say,' I asked, * that the boarding-
house . . . .'

ericourt is the former boarding-house. I became
its owner by the strangest coincidence. I had just
returned from Belgium with Melesville ; we were
posting. When we got to La Fert-sous-Jouarre,
we had to change horses. The postboys were evi-
dently in no hurry, and while waiting I sat down on
a milestone or something of the kind, and took out
my pocket-book to jot down a scene which had
struck me as we were driving along, Oh, I never
ed my time. While I was considering for a
moment or so, I happened to look up and noticed
a bill, setting forth the conditions and particulars of
the sale of Sericourt a r amiable* " SeVicourt," I say
to myself all of a sudden, " surely I know that name.
Monsieur," this to the in: landing in his door-

way, " does not Sri court belong to two ladies of the
name of D ? " " It does, monsieur. " " Do you
think one would be allowed to go over the ]>r<

* The bills of a sale in France always state whether the sale is a
;.iry or compulsory one. In the one case the saU ice ted

must

the hammer, even if all the par
the less cxp less formal method.

i i 2 Sixty Years of Recollections

" I feel sure, for it is for sale." " How long would it
take "to get there ? " " About three-quarters of an
hour." " Upon my word, I should like to have a look
at my old room," I exclaimed aloud, just as the post-
boys and horses came jingling along. " Melesville, do
you mind getting to Paris a couple of hours later ? "
I say, turning to my companion. " Not in the least,"
is the answer. " Very well then, postillion, drive us
to Sericourt." An hour later I was looking at the
garden, through the house, the whole of my youthful
attempts uprose before me ; I felt moved beyond de-
scription, and next morning I had bought the small
estate where the recollection of my early thirties helps
me in cheerfully bearing my sixties.'

In what way did I become Scribe's collaborates ?
In what way did we write ' Adrienne Lecouvreur?'
A short but necessary digression compels me to
speak of myself, but it is only a roundabout way

back to him.

II

The success of ' Louise de Lignerolles ' in 1838 had
greatly encouraged me, and in 1844 I read to the
Committee of the Comedie-Fransaise, a five-act drama
in verse, entitled, ' Guerrero ou la Trahison.' It was
accepted without a dissentient voice. After I had
read the third act, the members of the Committee,
contrary to all precedent, got up and catching hold of
my hands congratulated me ; Provost offered to play
one of the principal parts. The main idea of the

Years of Recollections 113

work explained its success, for I may safely say that
it was rather strong and absolutely new. A fact of
which I had been an eye-witness and a celebrated
nage whose friend I had been had inspired that
idea. In 1829 I had spent my holidays at Saint-
r, in the department of the Landes with a man
who had had his share of the world's popularity and
glory : namely, General Lamarque. His name under
the Kmpire was inseparably connected with a daring
exploit, the bold and heroic capture of Capri.

The general was a native of Saint-Sever and re-
sided there in 1829. Rich, enjoying great considera-
tion, a scholar and a clever scholar to boot, he was
simply wearing himself out with ennui and rage. The
Kourbons had exiled him in 1815, and though the
sentence was revoked three years later, he was de-
prived of all chances of active service, struck off the
army list, etc., etc. He came to settle in the small
town where he was born. The idea of his shattered
r filled him with despair, nothing could corn-
ate or comfort him for that. To beguile his
he bethought himself of building a veritable palace,
ith was spent in the building of it, and
when it was finished, he flung himself headlong into a
lation of ' Ossian ' in VCTSC which took him
another ; .nth. When he had written the last

took to cultivating flowers, and from 1
spent a few months Inter, he l>r;

ctions of geraniums, rose bushes, peonies ; but
.11 11

114 .V/.r/r Years of Recollections

neither building nor bedding, neither rhyming, nor
constructing palaces prevented the craving of his
heart, all these amusements only soured him by their
inaneness, and he relapsed into his former slough of
despair, a despondency still more embittered by the
cruel sentiment of his inactivity. His passion for
soldiering was so intense that when out riding with
his nephew and myself in the neighbourhood of Saint-
Sever, he stopped more than once, saying all of a
sudden : * Look here, young men, do you see that
height yonder? Well, suppose it were bristling with
cannon and occupied by Prussians, how would you
manage to take it?' Saying which, he would put
spurs to his horse, shouting for us to follow him, and
breasting the hill, initiate us in the mysteries of
attacking an outwork. To cut my story short.
When in 1823 the war with Spain broke out, he could
no longer restrain himself. The sound of cannon
suddenly bursting forth in Europe made him lose his
head, and he, the victor of Capri, the exile of 1815
wrote to the Minister for War offering his sword, and
winding up his petition with : ' My greatest ambition
is to die on the battlefield wrapt in the folds of the
'white flag.' What proved to be the bitterest of all
trials was that the Minister proved more tenacious of
his reputation than he himself; he would not sanction
his proposed faithlessness and the offer was declined.
We should not be too hard on him. The passion for
war is as powerful as that of love and for gambling.

Si.rfy }\'iirs of AVt v//<v.'. 115

\ve nt seen a striking instance of it during the

:ro- Italian campaign. General Changarnicr,

living in exile at Antwerp was said to spend his days

by following on the map the march of our troops at

nta and Solferino, and when in 1870 war broke

out, he also could hold out no longer. He not only

forgot the harm the Emperor had done him, but the

evil he himself had said of the Emperor, and wrote to

him of whom he had spoken with so much contempt

and raillery', entreating him in almost the same terms

of Philoctetes in Sophocles to employ him, no matter

where, no matter how, without a grade, without pay,

without a fixed post ; he only wished to hear the

of the cannon once more. It was that passion

with all its attendant despair, with all its frenzied

. and finally leading to disloyalty which I had

avoured to transfer to th merely changing

defection into treason

The rehearsals commenced almost as soon as the
,d been accepted, and confirmed the favour-
able predictions it had called forth at the
ve of its performance Mdlle. Anais, a

not in the
' It appears ti

o you to-morrow.' Unfortunatel) i'r.

that happy
iry.

'nit the latter part \\

Ii6 Si.vfy Years of Recollections

lent indifference. When leaving the house, I ran
against Mdlle. Mars who said : ' Too severe in its
tone, my friend, too severe.' The piece added a good
deal to my reputation, but not to my exchequer.
Nevertheless I was indebted to it for one precious
favour, the friendship of Scribe who had been kind
enough to attend the rehearsals and who remained
a warm partisan of the play ; furthermore, for two
distinctions, the Cross of the Legion of Honour and
a subsequent invitation to a ball. At that particular
period the Due de Nemours gave some very brilliant
balls at the Pavilion de Marsan, the invitations to
which were greatly prized. Court dress, the coat
a la Franchise, white kerseymere knee breeches,
white silk stockings, sword, etc., was strictly enforced.
I had been told that the prince had been very
much struck with my drama, and that he would
willingly send me an invitation, provided he felt sure
that it would be accepted. I did accept, and on my
name being announced by the attendant, the Due ad-
vanced a few steps towards me, which distinction
made me feel somewhat awkward, seeing that I
had never spoken to a prince of royal blood.
My embarrassment, however, soon vanished when
I saw his. Timidity if it be accompanied by kind-
ness and courtesy in persons of high rank, is not
far short of the quality of grace ; the timidity of
the Due was of that kind. He was not a fluent
talker, but his looks and gestures conveyed so amiably

Sixty Years of Recollections 1 1 7

what his tongue failed to utter, that after a few
moments we were chatting together like two young
fellows of the same age. My legs were the most
awkward part of me. In 1845 shapely calves were
not the rule in society. Those confounded white
silk stockings fidgetted me a good deal, I felt as if I
were decollete below. Moreover, people's vanity
came into play, everyone was looking at everyone
else's legs. The fear of looking ridiculous made
people more sensitive than usual. Fortunately the
young princes came to the rescue. All four were
graceful and elegant to a degree, but their tibias
dwindled down to such thin and feeble 'broomsticks'
that it looked as if they had ordered them expressly
to make us feel at home. It was impossible to feel
ashamed of one's legs after having looked at theirs.
No legs ever exercised the virtue of hospitality with
such kindly forethought. Towards eleven o'clock
the king made his appearance. He was the only one
who wore trousers. He stood watching the groups
of dancers with a kind of benevolent cynicism, his
hat reposing on his abdomen as on a tiny shelf, and
with such a merry, mischievous twinkle in his eye
that I instinctively guessed what M. Thicrs told me
The kin aid one day to me, 'was the

most brilliant story-teller and the greatest master of
banter in the whole of his kingdom.'

* Guerrero,' had been th< , of my intin

with Scribe. I often went to see him in the morn-

Il8 Si.v/j' Years of Recollections

ing. One day I found him in a great state of excite-
ment ' You are the very man I want,' he said, ' you
are going to give me a bit of advice. I have had
an offer which both tempts and frightens me. The
director of the Com^die-Fran^aise wants me to write
a part for Mdlle. Rachel.' ' Well, who is to prevent
you ? ' ' Corneille and Racine. How can I possibly
put my humble prose in that mouth accustomed to
recite the verse of " Andromaque " and " Horace ? "
'What's that to you?' 'You would not be fright-
ened ? ' * Not in the least.' 'You would dare to write
a prose part for the representative of Phedre and
Camille?' ' Certainly, well, find a subject and we'll
write the piece together.'

Three days after that I enter Scribe's room with
the classical ' Eureka ' on my lips. I tell him my idea.
* Your idea is not a good one, it is devoid of interest.'
' Devoid of interest,' I exclaim, and forthwith begin
to defend my idea. ' Let us try,' he says, ' if your
idea has got anything in it, we'll find it out in Iialf-c:;-
honr or so. And he immediately begins to turn my
idea upside down and inside out, to pull it to pieces,
and to examine every shred of it. ' Not a thing in it,
as I told you ; you must find something else,' he
winds up. On that occasion I had the first practical
demonstration of Scribe's marvellous facility of find-
ing out at a glance whether an idea was dramatic or
not. A few days later I call again, this time with
the subject of ' Adrienne Lecouvreur.' The words

.V/.r/r Years of Recollections 119

have scarcely passed my lips when he jumps from his
chair, rushes towards me, flings his arms round my
neck, shouting at the top of his voice, 'A hundred
nights, with six thousand francs receipts each night.'
* Do you think so ? ' I say. ' I don't think it. I
feel certain. It is an admirable " find." You have
hit upon the only means of making Rachel talk
prose. Come to-morrow morning, and we'll set to
work immediately.'

At ten o'clock next morning I was with him. He
being operated upon by his barber, who held him
by the nose. The moment he caught sight of me,
he said quickly, in that peculiar tone of voice of a
man who is being shaved, ' My dear boy, I have
found what we want.' ' Take care, Monsieur Scribe,
you'll make me cut you,' interposed the barber. ' All
right, but be quick.' And while the razor was gliding
over his face, his fingers were twitching excitedly, he
kept looking and smiling at me. No sooner is the
man's back turned than there comes an avalanche of
ideas, of more or less defined situations, of outlined
characters which had sprung up in his mind during
the last four-and-twenty hours, and which were being
ched rapidly by him while he was dipping his face
into the water, while he was brushing his hair and put-
on his shirt, while he was changin USCTS and
while he into his waistcoat
. coat an- his watch chain, for he liked
tdcwn to his work and ready to go out

1 20 Si.vty Years of Recollections

at a moment's notice. As a matter of course, I told
him the result of my meditations, and then he seated
himself on a small chair at his writing-table, saying,
1 And now to work, to work.'

There is no need to enter into particulars of that
collaboration, I will only point out two or three facts
calculated to show Scribe as a man, an author, and a
collaborates.

In our theatrical slang there exists a very significant
word ; it is the word ' nume'rotage.' The numbering
is the planning of the sequential order of the scenes.
That sequential ordering is not only a kind of classi-
fication, it also comprises the development, that is,
the accumulating interest of the play. That number-
ing is the itinerary of the dramatis persona with the
points of interest as land marks. Each scene must
not only be the logical outcome of the scene that pre-
ceded it and be connected with the one that follows
it, but it is bound to impart to it its motive and
movement, so as to push the piece forward without
interruption and in that way to reach, stage by stage,
the final aim, in other words the denouement Scribe
had not only a talent for numbering, he had the
positive genius of it. No sooner had the plan of a
piece been sketched than the whole materials for the
work came to him as if by magic, and placed them-
selves in their logical position. During one of our
first conversations on * Adrienne Lecouvreur/ when
the situations were still in a very sketchy state, he

Si.i: s of Recollections 12 1

suddenly got up, then sat down again at his writing
table. 'What are you doing?' I asked. 'Writing
out the sequence of the scenes of the first act,' was
the answer. ' Hut we have not decided as to what
we are going to put in that first act.' ' Never mind,
never mind. Don't interrupt the thread.' And forth-
with he wrote

SCENE I. The Princesse de Bouillon, The Abbe.
SCENE II. The Same, the Duchesse d'Aumont.
SCENE III The Same, the Prince de Bouillon.

' Hut my dear Scribe,' I remarked, interrupting
him, ' before bringing the Prince de Bouillon on the
stage, we ought at least to know . . .' ' Never mind,'
was the answer, ' the Prince de Bouillon is to appear
twice in that act, and if I do not " bring him on " at
that particular moment, I shall not know what to do
with him.' Saying which, he went on writing and a
feu days later when all the incidents and scenic
movements of that first act were finally decided upon,
the personages almost naturally took up their position
at the points assigned to them, like guests at a
dinner where the hostess has inscribed their names.
I was simply astonished. 1 have rarely met with a
instructive fact.

In tin- midst of our work, Scribe was compelled to

nipt it. He explained the reason in a letter

\vhi<h I am anxious to quote b< not

only a phase of his character, but a -limpse of his

life.

122 .V/.r/r Years of Recollections

4 My dear friend,' he wrote, ' I am writing this to
ask you for a longer credit. Our dear Adrienne is
one of those creatures for whom everything else
should be put aside. When one is engaged with her,
one should not be engaged with anyone or anything
but her. Unfortunately, just at the moment when I
am beginning the third act, the Opera-Comique -
claims my services for the new score of Auber ;
Buloz (the director of the Comedie-Frangaise) asks
me for a five-act comedy, ' Le Puff,' which is to be
put on before ' Adrienne ' and finally Montigny (the
manager of the Gymnase) is sounding a cry of alarm ,
because ' Charlotte Corday ' has turned out a failure.
He insists upon my finishing ' La Deesse,' a piece in
three acts, with music and songs in which Saintine is
collaborating with me. I do not know whether the
gods are particularly wearisome, one thing I do
know, this goddess has bored me to death. I sat
" down to her " in a desperate mood, working from five
in the morning till late at night, and by dint of such
labour managed to put together two more or less
presentable acts. But after these I felt fagged and
wrote to Saintine to come to the rescue for the third.
He came and saw, but did not conquer, and now the
whole affair has to be started afresh. Meanwhile,
Adrienne whom I love with all my heart, is waiting
and you are waiting also. But I will take no engage-
ment with regard to ' Le Puff,' without your sanction.
I wish to put matters clearly to you, but if my

.SY.r/r ) 't-ttrs of Recollections 123

reasons fail to convince you and you cannot grant
me a delay until October, if the delay grieves you,
write to me to that effect. That reason will have
more weight with me than all mine.'

It would be difficult, I believe, to be more gracious,
more kind, and let me remind the reader that when
he wrote that letter, Scribe was in the zenith of his
fame and I scarcely more than a beginner. Conse-
quently I answered as follows: ' My dear friend, your
letter has touched me much more deeply than the
delay with regard to " Adrienne " is likely to grieve
me. Your fear of giving me pain went straight to my
heart. Don't trouble about me and write your comic
opera, write your " Deesse," and write your " Puff."
Meanwhile I will write our first two acts, which I will
take to you personally when finished, to Sericourt.'
k and read them to him. During the whole of
my reading the first act, he kept rubbing his head,
and when it was finished, he said : * It won't do at all.
hear the second act.' At the fourth page, he
us to talk to himself in a low voice . . . 'Bravo,
excellent.' And he sets to laughing and crying and
clapping his hands, adding, ' As for that act, I'll
answer fur r Upon my word, I don't often

get collaboratems <>f your mettle. There is only one
, to which I object in that second act: Adrir
with which slur enters.' 'You have hit the

I >aid laughing. ' That story is a:
I took it almost word ! >v word ;

124 .S7. r/ r ] '< w ; T of Recollections

" Memoirs " of Mdlle. Clairon.' ' That's just it, it
hangs fire because it is true. I do not wish you to
misconstrue my meaning. The truth is absolutely
necessary on the stage, but it has to be focussed in
accordance with the optical conditions of the stage.
I am not at all surprised that the story in Mdlle.
Clairon's " Memoirs " struck you, it was sure to pro-
duce a great effect in them, because it places before
you an individual of flesh and blood, a fact that has
happened and because the actress imparts as it were
her own life to the story. You take an interest in her
by being interested in what she says. But on the
stage we are in the absolute domain of fiction, and
fiction has its laws. We are speaking not to one
reader, but to fifteen hundred individuals and the
number of spectators, the size of the house itself
change the moral conditions of the effect, just as the
laws of optics and acoustics modify the material con-
ditions of that effect. Instead of that true narrative,
I am going to put an absolutely fictitious one, in-
vented for Adrienne, suited to Adrienne and which
will produce the most startling effect upon the public.'
This was done, and on 6th October 1848 we read
1 Adrienne' to the Committee of the Comedie-Frangaise.
Our piece was rejected* without a dissentient vote.
How it was enthusiastically underlined and put in
rehearsal six months afterwards is a play within a play
which I will describe when I come to talk of Mdlle.
Rachel herself. At present I am in too great a hurry

:' Years of Recollections u;

to leave Adrienne in order to show the grand sides of
Scribe's character and career.

A careful review of Scribe's career as a playwright
must necessarily deal with every branch of dramatic
art, because he himself dealt with everyone of these
and in each he has left us a model or two which
if they are not absolutely worthy of imitation, are, at
any rate deserving of consideration.

Among the foremost gifts of the dramatist, those
of invention and imagination rank the highest. \Ve
must be careful not to confound those two faculties.
They are closely connected, they support one another,
but each has its special character and its distinct
domain. Invention creates, imagination works out
the thing. To the one belongs the primary idea, the
finding of the subject, to the other the execution
thereof. Both are not always to be met with in the
same man and rarely in equal proportions. A man
may have more imagination than invention, or more
invention than imagination. Our own times afford
us two striking instances of this. Balzac is a mighty
:itor. He invents wonderful characters, splendid
'starting points,' but his execution, for lack of im-
itiun. is often heavy; Balzac falls short of that
fertility of incidents, that liveliness of dialogue which
make a powerful work amusing besides. The winged
goddess did not pass that way. Look, on the other
!, at Al( Dumas. Ti > >ints of

belong as of to someone <

126 Sf'.i't_r }'t'(f/~s of Recollections

Sometimes he takes them from history, at others he
has them given to him by his collaborateurs, then
again he simply borrows them from other works. He
himself in his charming and unaffectedly good-natured
Memoirs admits that ' Antony ' was inspired to him
by the first performance of ' Marion Delorme.' In
order to stir his faculty of creation he often wanted
that tap on the cheek which a certain philosopher,
whose name I forget, declared to be necessary to him
in order to accelerate the pace of the world. But
no sooner was that impulse given than Alexandre
Dumas set the machine a-revolving and with a
vengeance. No carriage drawn by the most spirited
team ever went down-hill at such a rattling gallop,
with greater contempt for everything in its way, with
greater surety also than a drama or novel by Alexandre
Dumas proceeded towards its denouement. Even when
the horses are not his he makes them his by the way
he handles the ribbons. Nay, they may give him cab
horses, he makes them step out like thoroughbreds.

With Scribe the powers of invention and imagina-
tion were of equal value and of great value. He
has often been contemptuously relegated among
the adaptors or arrangers of other people's ideas.
In reality, no literature in the world has produced
so powerful a dramatic inventor. One single fact
will suffice to prove this. For a score of years
he positively held sway over the four principal
theatres in Paris ; namely, the Opera, the Opera-

;: Years of Recollections 127

Comique, the Gymnase and finally the Comedie-
e. Each of these four theatres he had
positively endowed with fresh life or added to its
intellectual as well as material wealth by writing for
it. Before him. the repertory of the Opera was com-
posed, with the glorious exception of * La Vestale ' of
ical tragedies, merely transformed into so many
libretti ; Iphigenias, Alcestes, Armitas, CEdipes. or
kindred subjects, but always the same which, taken
up in succession by different composers, left the
librettists scope for nothing save elegant versification.
What did Scribe bring to it ? Poems. ' Le Prophete,'
Huguenots,' 'La Juive,' 'Robert le Diable,'
' Guido et Ginevra,' ' Gustave, ou le Bal MasqueY are
w. rks the like of which were absolutely unknown
before Scribe and constitute him one of our greatest
lyric poets, if we take the word 'poet' in the antique
. -"I'lTi'i*, creator. One of Scribe's least fav-
ourably disposed critics has ranked ' Le Prop!
among Shakespearian conceptions. Whence sprang
that tlon? 1'Yom the simple penpal of an

ilhist iition of the Bible, lie was reading the

n'ption of the marriage in ('ana when he rame
n the words, 'Woman what have I t<> do with
lie read no further, for his imagination had
been struck and had already be ;,m t<> transform the
f Christ. ' A man r.ulually impelled to

'f of all his natural
'ulfil what ; Ion, a man

128 Sixty Years of Recollections

sacrificing his duty as a son to assume the part of
God ; it would be a magnificent character to sketch,'
he said to himself. ' And what a splendid part it
would be for Talma.' Unfortunately Talma was dead,
but fortunately Meyerbeer was alive, and Scribe com-
posed the libretto of * Le Prophete.'

What was the Ope"ra-Comique before him ? A
charming but very mild kind of playhouse. But ' Le
Domino Noir/ ' La Dame Blanche,' ' La Sirene,' ' La
Neige,' ' Fra Diavolo,' ' L'Ambassadrice,' * La Part du
Diable,' opened a new road to music by endowing
lyrical comedy with a new form. Scribe has contri-
buted his share to Auber's glory, seeing that Auber
would not have been the Auber he was without
Scribe. * Do you know to whom I owe the phrase of
" Amour sacre de lapatrie"?' said the composer of
' La Muette de Portici ' (Masaniello), one day to me.
' To Scribe. One day while we were out walking he
marked the rhythm of the line so vividly to me that
the melody came as it were of itself. He had spoken
my duo to me.' Scribe, therefore, is not only en-
titled to one patent as an inventor with regard to the
Opera-Comique, but to two.

Before the advent of Scribe, a vaudeville was based
upon a slight story, more or less adorned with song ;
Scribe 'raised it to the rank of comedy of char-
acter Le Theatre de Madame * has become a branch
of the Comcdie-Frangaise.

* The present Gymnase. TR.

Si.vty Years of Recollections 1 29

<\ finally, at the Comedie-Frangaise itself, leaving
aside the novel experiments implied in such pieces as
1 I .a Camaraderie,' ' La Calomnie,' ' Le Verre d'Eau, 1
what is ' Bertrand and Raton ' ? Simply the most
beautiful political comedy of its repertory.

Such was Scribe as an inventor. As for his im-
agination, it was practically inexhaustible in devising
startling incidents, in overcoming apparently insuper-
able obstacles. I need only give one instance. ' La
Revolte au SeVail,' a ballet, the name of the author of
which I do not remember,* \vas being actively re-
hearsed at the Opera, Mdlle. Taglioni was to enact
the principal part. Two days before the first perfor-
mance, which was already advertised with the quasi-
sacred and binding word, * Irrevocably/ over it, the
Director of the Opera (Dr Veron) rushed into Scribe's
study at nine in the morning : ' I am simply going
frantic, ruin is staring me in the face, you alone can
avert it,' he said. 'What is the matter?' asked
Scribe. ' The performance of my ballet is impossible/
1 Why ? ' ' The whole of the success depends on the
situation of the second act, and that situation i
follows : Mdlle. Taglioni who is shut up and besieged
by the revolutionaries in the palace, enlists all the
women of the huivm, provides them with arms, drills

* The author of 'La Rlvolte au Slrail' was Mdlle. Taglioni's
father. By all accounts, it was one of the most stupid prcductions of
that most stupid of individuals. Nevertheless, the first twenty

^>ces yielded more money than the first twenty-five performances

le Diable/ which is not saying little. TK.
VOL, II I

130 .SY.r/r Years of Recollections

and converts them into soldiers, whose command she
assumes. She repels the attack.' 'That's a very
original idea,' replies Scribe. 'That may be,' says
the director, ( but we discovered yesterday that it is
perfectly absurd.' ' Why ? ' ' Because in the first act
she has had a talisman given to her by a magician.
Hence, she would only have to show that talisman
and all the eunuchs would take to their heels.'
* That's true,' remarks Scribe, ' and it makes the affair
very serious.' ' That's what I say, and under the cir-
cumstances my only hope lies with you.' ' Very well,
I'll be with you at rehearsal to-day and try to find
something afterwards.' 'That won't do at all. It's
no good trying to find afterwards, I want you to
find something now, at this very minute. It's of no
use your coming to dress rehearsal, there will be no
more dress rehearsals. Between now and to-night,
this very day, you must find some means of enabling
me to give the ballet without changing anything,
for there is no time to change anything, and without
the necessity of a day's delay, for every day of delay
means ten thousand francs.' 'Very well,' replies
Scribe, ' leave me to myself for an hour or so, and I'll
try to think it out.'

The director departs and slowly descends the
score of steps leading to the ground floor, but before
he can ask the concierge to let him out, he hears a
voice shouting after him : ' Ve>on, come back, I have
found what you want.' As a matter of course, V6ron

AV.r/r Years of Recollections 131

comes up much quicker than he went down. ' You
h:ivc found what I want?' he gasps, panting for

th. 'Yes, \Vivit was Millie. Taglioni's talis-
man?' 'A ring.' 'Very well, we'll change it into
\Vh<> was her lover?' * A young attendant
at the seraglio.' ' We'll transform him into a young

; ierd. What was the divertissement in the first
act?' 'A dance before the Sultan in the garden of
the palace." ' That's all right. After the dance we'll
make Mdlle. Taglioni sit down on a grassy knoll,
where she'll fall asleep ; the little shepherd shall steal
softly towards her and take the rose away, and when
in the second she'll want to have recourse to her talis-
man and take it from her bosom, it will no longer be
there. You see it wasn't, after all, so very difficult to
get out of the difficulty.' ' I felt sure that you would
be able to do it,' exclaims Dr Ve'ron, rushing towards
the stairs which he descends even quicker than he
had ascended them a few minutes before. A quarter-
of-an-hour later an envelope is brought to Scribe
which contains two notes of IOOO francs each, ac-
companied by the words : 'This is not a fee, merely
a grateful acknowK ' That was the only

time. 1 --aid Scribe, when telling the story, * I earned
tw> thousand francs in two mini;'

Here is a fact, illu still more forcibly!

'.ty for tran.sforming things, which in his case was
nothing short of marvellous. One of his friends

1C to consult him on a very harrowing and

132 Sixty Years of Recollections

sombre five-act drama, intended for the Ambigu.
'Well, my dear friend and master, what's your
opinion ? ' says the author after the first act. * Go on,'
remarks Scribe seemingly absorbed in thought. ' Let
us have the second act.' The author goes on reading,
the drama getting more sombre as he proceeds, and
Scribe's face lighting up as the drama gets more
sombre. Somewhat surprised at that kind of success
which he had certainly not foreseen, the poor author
begins to stutter and stammer and to feel very con-
fused, until Scribe, unable to hold out any longer,
suddenly exclaims : ' Upon my word, it's absolutely
side-splitting.' ' I'll trouble you no longer, c/icr
maitre, we have had enough of this,' says the author
somewhat nettled. ' I perceive well enough that my
piece is very bad.' * What do you mean by bad ; say
it is excellent, delightful, positively delightful. It
contains some wonderfully comic effects and I feel
certain that Ferville will be as amusing as Arnal.'
At the name of Arnal, the tragic author, indignant
beyond measure, leaps from his chair. He made
sure that Scribe had not heard a syllable of his play.
But he was utterly mistaken. Not only had Scribe
listened very attentively, but he had reconstructed
the piece while he was listening, and as each lugubri-
ous scene dragged its weary length along transformed
it into a comedy-scene. When the reading was over
the huge, heavy, commonplace five-act melodrama
had become a delightful, sparkling comedy in one

; ) 'ctirs of Recollections 133

act, which we know under the title of ' La

Chanoinesse.'

Ill

Next in importance to the invention of the subject
stands the planning of a play. Nowadays the plan-
ning of a play is greatly scoffed at. The author who
happens to plan his piece carefully is treated to all
sorts of nicknames, ' bone-setter,' ' osteologist/ ' an-
atomist,' ' dissector/ ' skeleton-maker,' etc., etc. To all
of which sobriquets I have but one reply. During the
last thirty years a goodly number of old pieces have
been revived ; the only successful ones are the pieces
based upon a good plan. The plan is to a play what
it is to a house, the first and foremost condition of its
beauty and stability. You may load and overload
a building with the most magnificent decoration and
ornament, you may use the most solid materials, if
that building be not erected in accordance with the
of equilibrium and due proportion that building
will neither please nor last The same holds good of
a dramatic story. The dramatic story must before all
things be clear, and without a plan there can be no
Tin: dramatic story must proceed without
page to a defined goal, without a plan such pro-
s is impossible. The dramatic story must assign
to each of its characters its proper position, each fact
must be placed at its exact point ; without a plan tlu u
be no due regard to proportion. Tin- plan does
nut only include the ordering of the play: it

134 S/.rti' Years of Recollections

includes that which Alexandra Dumas, the elder,
called the first article of the playwright's creed, the art
of preparing situations, in other words, of logically and
naturally leading up to them. The public as a collective
being is a very odd creature, very exacting, and most
often very illogical. It insists upon everything being
led up to, upon being hinted at to them, and at the
same time it wants to be startled by the quasi-unfore-
seen. If, to use the popular expression, a thing drops
upon them from the skies, they are shocked ; if a fact is
too plainly announced beforehand, they are bored ; in
order to please them the playwright has to treat them
both as a confidant and as a dupe : that is, to drop
carelessly at some point of the play a word that shall
pass almost unperceived and yet give them an inkling
of what is going to happen, a word that goes in
at one ear and out at the other, and which, when the
' situation ' comes upon them, shall elicit an exclama-
tion of content, that ah ! which signifies : ' True, he
warned us, how stupid we were not to have guessed as
much.'

After that their delight knows no bounds, and
Scribe was a past-master in that particular trick of
delighting them. I would recommend the perusal of
one of his master-pieces, ' La Famille Riquebourg/
and would ask the reader to pay particular attention
to a small glass of liqueur introduced in the third scene.
It looks like nothing at all ; it is brought in as a mere
adjunct on a salver, it takes its place like a mere

Sixty Years of Recollections 135

1 super ' in a tragedy. Well, the whole of the piece
hangs on that tiny glass of liqueur. Without it the
piece becomes an impossibility, there is no way out of
it, the denouement lies virtually at the bottom of that
tiny glass.

Finally, the fundamental point of a well-con-
structed plan is the denouement. The art of un-
ravelling, especially a comedy, is in some respects an
almost new art. The public is more difficult to
please with regard to it and the authors are more ex-
pert than of yore. I shall not be suspected of wishing
to depreciate the memory of Moliere when I say
that in general he does not unravel his pieces, but
simply finishes them. The moment he has finished
portraying his characters, and developing their
passions, he brings upon the stage, one knows not
whence, a father who finds the long-looked-for son,
one knows not how ; everybody embraces everybody
else and the curtain goes down. That fashion of ter-
minating a piece, by hook or by crook, would not
be tolerated nowadays, one would have to be a
Moliere to dare do such a thing. Nowadays one of
the first laws of the dramatist's art is to make the

tement the logical and enforced consequence of

the characters or the events of the play. The last

scene of a play is often written before the first.

..isc while that last scene has not been found

there is virtually no piece, and as soon as the auth.r

got hold of his </< /. ' lu- must not lose

136 T Years of Recollect iotis

sight of it for a moment and make everything sub-
ordinate to it. The novelist may at a pinch begin
without knowing exactly whither he is going ; he
may, like the hare of the fable, stop every now and
then to browse the grass, to listen from which quarter
the wind blows ; but the dramatic author is bound
to take the tortoise as his model, though he must
go at a somewhat quicker pace. In other words,
he must start at the right moment and not loiter
by the way. Above all, while advancing he must
never lose sight of his goal.

Scribe is one of the authors of our time who was
fully alive to the importance of the denouement and
who succeeded best in applying the severest laws to
it. Nay, he applied these laws to the works of
others also and most often to the works he admired
most. One day I heard him in the heat of a con-
versation on the art of writing comedy, reconstruct
two denouements of Moliere, that of ' Les Femmes
Savantes ' and that of ' Tartuffe.' ' What a pity,' he
said, ' that Moliere terminates that beautiful character-
play like a genre comedy by the trivial artifice of
a false piece of news, by a fictitious ruin. He
had such a capital denouement ready to hand. The
conclusion sprang so naturally from the very entrails
of the subject. I should have finished my piece with
the admirable scene between Vadius and Trissotin.
The picture of those two " prigs," abusing and unmask-
ing one another, destroying their own and their dupes'

: ' Yetirs of Recollections \ 3 7

illusions would have terminated a masterly \vork in a
masterly way. As for " Tartu fife " that is altogether
different. As a rule people cavil at the dc'no:ien.
personally I think it admirable. First of all, it has
that merit, as far as I am concerned, that without
that dJnouemext we should probably not have had
the piece at all, and there is very little doubt that
Moliere only got the play sanctioned by making the
king one of the actors in it. Secondly, that denoue-
ment is unquestionably a striking picture of the times.
Here we have got an honest, upright man who

valiantly fought for his country and who having
become the victim of the most obvious and most
odious of machinations finds not a single hand
stretched out to defend him either in society or on
the part of the law. In order to save him, the
sovereign himself has to intervene like the Dens ex
machitm. Where could we find a more terrible
indictment against the reign itself than in that im-
mense eulogy of the king. That's why I admire
that denotement so much,' said Scribe, 'and that's
why I would change it if I had to write- the piece to-
day. To-day, in fact, the only sovereign is the law
itself The word of the sovereign simply me.m^ the

les of the Code. The code, therefore, should be
entrusted with the r61e of Louis XIV; it is to the
code I would look for my denouement. I would

ntC int.. a magistrate and when I
" I'h- > me and I'll show you

138 :y Years of Recollections

that it does," Cleante should exclaim : " No, it does
not belong to you, for you owe it to the gener-
osity of a benefactor, to an absolutely free gift, and
the law has provided for wretches of your stamp
by these two avenging lines : ' Every donation may
be revoked on the proof of the ingratitude of the
recipient.' I dare you to come and claim this house
before the law. If you do, you will find me there
also with the patent proofs of your abominable
ingratitude. You had better come then, but remem-
ber, I'll be waiting for you." '

Next to the plan of a comedy comes, as a matter
of course, its style and the portrayal of its characters ;
before venturing to discuss these two subjects, I
would dwell for a moment on a fundamental point of
our art which, moreover, occupies a considerable place
in Scribe's work and which partly constitutes its
originality.

On the first night of * Hernani,' Scribe occupied a
box in the centre of the house on the first tier, I was
in a side box on the second tier, and I watched him
following the development of the piece with the
closest attention, standing up all the while, and dar-
ing to laugh openly at the most sensational incidents.
It was not only a bold thing to do, for he made
himself a good many relentless enemies on that
occasion, but it was also a bold profession of his
dramatic, I might add, his philosophical, creed. The
fact is that every comic author has within him the

\/.r/r Years of Recollections 139

making of a philosopher, I mean that he carries
within him an aggregate of general ideas, a theoretic
conception of life of which his comedies are only the
realisation. He owes those general ideas either to
his own nature or to the surroundings amid which he
lias been brought up, and they represent the part of
his own thoughts and character in the work of his
imagination, they constitute his social and moral part
in the part in the play.

This dual part of Scribe was very considerable
though it may be summed up in one line, Scribe
represents the bourgeoisie. Born in the Rue St Denis,
he remains throughout and therein lies his strength
the man of the Rue St Denis, that is, the incarnation of
that Parisian middle-class, hard-working frugal, honest,
which perhaps lacks sentiment for everything that
is great, the class which does not aspire to a very
ited ideal, but which is heir to those precious
gifts of nature commonsense, kind-heartedness and
the domestic virtues.

Hence, Scribe's original place in the literature
of the Restoration. He was the living and natural
antithesis to romantic ism. While ' Antony ' dragged
us with him, bewildered and intoxicated like him-
into the maelstrom of adulterous passion,
while 'Hernani' made us frantic with enthusiasm
hand of brigands, while 'Marion Delorme ' en-
deavoured to force upon us the dogma of the
dem: Men woman by pure love; he,

1 40 Sixty Years of Recollections

Scribe sang the praises of conjugal happiness, and
selected for his heroines young girls who had not
been subject to such temptations. One has but
to take up the various works that compose Scribe's
repertory, such as ' Le Mariage de Raison,' ' Une
Chaine,' * Les Premieres Amours/ ' Le Mariage d'
Argent,' and at no matter which page we open them
we shall find everywhere the defence of paternal
authority, sense getting the better of passion. Scribe's
muse is the ' feet-on-the-fender ' muse, the ' bread-
and-butter-cutting ' muse, if you like, but it is the
muse of the family home. The story goes that
after seeing ' Le Mariage d'Inclination/ a young girl
flung herself into her mother's arms, confessing her
intention to elope ; after a play by Alexandre Dumas
she would have flung herself into the arms of her
lover, saying, * Take me away.'

The bourgeoisie is, furthermore, represented in
Scribe's comedies by the patriotic sentiments with
which these comedies teem. His warriors, his medal-
led veterans^ his fire-eaters, his colonels have raised
many a smile since, as far as we are concerned they
made us cry for we had not long ago been invaded
and our wounds were by no means healed ; each of
his songs in his farcical comedies proved a consola-
tion and a kind of revenge ; unless I am very much
mistaken we would not laugh at them nowadays.

Finally, Scribe was both a conservative and an
agitator, supporting the throne and making sport of

Si.rtr Years of Recollections 141

thj chamber ; praising the King and satirising his
Ministers in song, and especially pitilessly scourging
those recantations which those who profited by
them would fain have had us accept as conversions.
In connection with that subject, I happen to remem-
ber a very interesting story, its date is the beginning
of the second Empire, somewhere about 1854. One
day, at some reception or other, Scribe happened to
run against an important personage, an old school-
fellow whom we will call M. de Verteuil. 'What
are you doing?' asks his friend, 'some comedy on the
stocks, I suppose?' 'Yes,' replies Scribe, 'I fancy I
have got hold of a charming subject. I intend to
put on the stage a ' Peer of France,' of the time of
Louis- Philippe's reign,* who becomes a senator under
Napoleon III. You may see for yourself what a
fund of comic traits I ought to extract from such a
senator's recantations, from his awkward position in
trying to reconcile his adherence of to-day with his
adherence of formerly. I think it will be delightful.'
At that moment the two friends were separated by a
batch of guests and shortly afterwards Scribe went
home, engrossed in thought and not very cheerful,
-ation had set him thinking. ' I am
afraid,' he said to himself, 'that my subject is not
as good as I fancied it to be; de Verteuil is a

clever man, I tried to give him a sj>iriu-< :
count of my plot, but it went without a smile. T
* The pers created by Louis-Philippe were only life peers. TK.

142 Si.rty Years of Recollections

is no mistake about it, he did not seem amused in
the least, a bad sign that, I feel sure.' While talking
to himself he mechanically opens the evening paper,
and the first thing he sees is the following : ' M. de
Verteuil, a former peer of France, has been called to
the Senate.'

And now let us look for a moment at some of the
characters of Scribe's plays and at his style. I may
frankly confess that these show the two weak points
in Scribe's works. He failed to look at humanity in
any other light than that of the ' float.' He had a
profound knowledge of men and women, but he
invariably saw them like so many theatrical person-
ages ; hence, the curious fact that, though he has
created a great number of very attractive parts, he has
produced very few general and deeply pondered types.
Not that life and truth are wanting in the characters
he brings on the stage, his faculty of subtle observa-
tion enables him well enough to dissect and to depict
boldly their foibles, their passions and aims ; they
talk as they should talk, they behave as they should
behave in the situation in which they are placed, but
they are only the men and women of that situation ;
they fill it adequately but never go beyond it. On the
other hand, and to take only one instance, when one
reads Shakespeare, his characters seem to be endowed
with such powerful breath of general vitality, they are
stamped with such individuality as to convey the idea
that in every possible circumstance they would act

.SV.r/r Years of Recollections 143

and carry themselves just as they are acting and
carrying themselves in the situation in which they are
presented to us at that moment. They are not only
stage parts, they are men and women, and what is
more, men and women equipped for the whole battle
of life.

\Ve look in vain for something similar in Scribe.
He rarely conveys the idea of possessing the power to
create strongly marked characters, and excepting
4 Bertrand and Raton,' and the last and admirable
scene of ' L'Ambitieux,' one is compelled to admit
that his comedies are stage pictures rather than real
pictures of the human heart.

His style is open to similar objections, the language
of coined}- should be at the same time a colloquial
and a polished language, (//;/< lauguc parlcc ct utic
riU . To perceive this at once we have but
to read ' L'Avaiv.' I.e 1-Vstin de Pierre,' and ( Gee
Dandin.' No doubt, it is Harpagon and Don Juan
who speak, but we also feel that it is Moliciv who
makes them speak. Scribe has only half of those
tyle has all the requisites of conversation,
the conversation is natural, bright, it trips along and
sparkles, but one regretfully notices the want of that
richness of colouring and that surety of outline which
alone constitute the -ivat writer. He falls short in
one oth< < t. A comic writer putting on the

stage the characters of his own time is bound to give

them the language of his own time, unfortunately there

144 f y Years of Recollections

is a great deal of jargon, consequently there are a great
many ephemeral elements in that language. Odd to
say, the feeling that ' springs eternal in the human
breast ' is subject to the most transitory form of ex-
pression. That part of a stage play which grows
obsolete soonest is the love episode. Even such love
letters as have been written to yourself, should you
take them up after a lapse of years, will make you die
with laughter. Their comic effect is in direct propor-
tion to their tenderness. The art of the great dra-
matist is to distinguish in the current idiom the
perishable element in order to borrow from that idiom
only that which is strictly necessary to impregnate
his dialogue with the tone and the flavour of the
moment.

Moliere writes both in the language of his time
and in the language of all time ; Scribe in virtue of
his very scenic instinct, makes too much use of the
dictionary of the Restoration. Finally the impetu-
osity, the despotism of his dramatic temperament led
him to make everything subservient to the action of
the play ; absolutely everything, even to grammar,
not from ignorance, for he knew his own language
very well, but knowingly, and with deliberate pre-
meditation. I happened to be present one day at a
rehearsal of one of his pieces, when all at once one of
his characters delivered himself of a slightly incorrect
phrase. I suggested a more correct one. ' No, no, my
dear boy,' says Scribe, ' your sentence is too long ;

r Years of Recollections 145

there is no time for it. My sentence is probably not
very orthodox, but the action is proceeding apace,
and the sentence must follow suit ; that's what I call
the economical style.' On the other hand, it is not
from economical motives, but from necessity, that he
wrote certain lyrical lines with which he is constantly
being reproached, and of which reproach I would fain
cleanse his memory. First of all, you may adopt it
as a principle that whenever you meet with a very
bad line in an opera that it is the composer and not
the librettist who has perpetrated it. The despotism
of the former is beyond most people's imagination,
and no words can convey an idea of the fate of an
elegant strophe when he happens to lay hold of it ;
he shatters it to pieces, he amputates it, he supplies
artificial limbs to it ; it is simply monstrous. The
famous Alexandrine of the ' Huguenots '

' Ses jours sent menaces. Ah ! je dois 1'y soustraire.'

was never written by Scribe, it belongs to Meyerbeer.

be had correctly written

" Ce complot odieux
Qui menace ses jours, ah ! je dois 1'y soustraire.'

But that </ui happened to be in Meyerbeer's way.
Meyerbeer cut it out, and substituted his horrible
hemistiVh, the unfortunate librettist backed it as one
9 an accommodation bill, and when the bill was
protested, it was he who paid. I am anxious to get to
the fifth point of my drain, itir survey, to the 'staging'

Vol.. || K

146 .SY.r/j' Years of Recollections

of a phi\', for there we shall find Scribe occupying

the foremost rank.

IV

The staging of a' play, especially of a comedy, is
also a wholly modern art. No doubt, in former days,
the author wrote on his manuscript : ' The stage
represents a drawing-room/ but there was nothing
to show that the action did take place in a drawing-
room. First of all, the dramatis persona kept on their
legs. We all recollect the actors at the Comedie-
Frangaise stepping to the footlights, side by side and
delivering their speeches before the prompter's box.
A clever writer who since then has been become an
official personage wanted to introduce on the stage
of the Com&die-Frangaise what he called ' seated
comedy.' Unfortunately, his piece turned out a
failure and what he called 'seated comedy' became
prostrate comedy. Scribe was one of the first to
introduce on the stage the animation and bustle of
real life. The very nature of his talent compelled
him, as it were, to do so. His bustling, sparkling
comedies, full of incidents and apparently spontaneous
situations did not lend themselves easily to the
sobriety of movement of the stage of yore. In reality,
a manuscript of Scribe only contains part of his work,
the part which is spoken ; the rest must be enacted,
the gestures must complete the meaning of the words,
the intervals of silence are part of the dialogue and
the small dots finish the sentence.

Si.r/]' Years of Recollections 147

lias it ever struck you to compare the punctuation
of a piece by Scribe with that of a piece by Moliere ?
In Moliere's each thought is virtually terminated by a
stop, and in his dialogue he rings the changes
according to the rhythm of the sentence itself, on
stops and commas, double stops, (semi-colons), marks
of interrogation and every now and then of ex-
clamation. Scribe has added to these the small
dots, that is, the unfinished sentence, the sentiment
merely hinted at, the partly expressed thought In
proof of this, I might point out in ' La Camaraderie,' a
monologue of a page in which I have counted eighty-
three of those little dots. Truly, the monologue so
full of reticence is that of a young girl, and young
girls proverbially say only half of what they think.

Certain is it, though, that that system of small dots
contains a wholly new school of stagecraft, and that
Scribe was justified in saying that the staging of a
play was equivalent to a second creation, to adding a
new piece to the first.

Those who never saw Scribe conjure up a dramatic
work from, what for want of a better term, I may call the
limbo of the manuscript, those who never saw Scribe
'put a piece on the ^ta-e'and remain with it until
it could stand alone, only know half of the real
Scribe. I h to be t one <lay at a

: I happened to conn- in at

the very moment when Scribe was arranging the
n the third act I cannot do better

148 Sixty Years of Recollections

than ask the reader to picture to himself a general on
the battlefield, he was here, there, and everywhere at
the same time, he was enacting every part ; at one
moment he was the crowd, the next the Prophet,
the next the woman, then striding at the head of the
insurgents with a fierce air, his spectacles pushed up
to his forehead ; after that, and with his spectacles still
on his forehead, rushing to the opposite side of the
stage, and enacting the part of Berthe, pointing out to
everyone his or her place, marking the bounds with
a piece of chalk, at the exact spot where this or that
actor had to stop ; in short, combining so skilfully the
evolution of his diverse characters as to make their
most animated movements perfectly well ordered and
investing that order throughout with grace.

No sooner was the third act finished than we rushed
away to the Comedie-Franc^aise to attend another
rehearsal, that of the second act of ' Les Contes de
la Reine de Navarre,' an act altogether different from
the other, an act played by four characters only, an
act of a more or less domestic, home-like nature.

And in accordance with the theme Scribe becomes
all of a sudden a different man. The energy dis-
played but half-an-hour previously in handling large
masses and in making them convey by their gestures
and grouping some of the effects of popular passions,
that energy had made room for a subtle, critical
faculty of interpreting the most refined and delicately
shaded feelings. Before his arrival the actors them-

Years of Recollections 149

js had become conscious that the act wanted life,
that it was dragging somewhat heavily along. No
sooner does he set his foot on the stage, than, without
adding a word, he ' besprinkles ' the dialogue with
such telling gestures, such effective attitudes, such
ingenious pauses, he avails himself so adroitly of the
chairs and tables, as of so many advantages of posi-
tion as to emphasise the situation and to heighten
the interest. His characters so vague in outline but a
minute before, now stand out in relief ; the action of
the piece becomes clear, animated : full of life; a
magician had touched it with his wand.

Nor is that all. The art of ' staging ' became a
kind of revelation to him. By the light of that small,
dim lamp that stood on the ricketty little table dur-
ing rehearsals his manuscript revealed to him things
he did not suspect of being there. He has often
told me what happened to him with a very interesting
drama, entitled ' Philippe,' which he had written in
conjunction with Bayard and which turned on the

i cry of an illegitimate birth.

The piece opened with the disclosure of that secret.

Scribe, who was to attend the rehearsals, makes

at the very moment the actor is

iling the secret to the public. 'It is too soon,'

;ins, l \ve must put off that iwrlation till

the second scene.' Next morning the revelation

is introduced into the second seen.-. Too soon,' he

aims once more, 'it inu^t he put off till the

1 50 Sixty Years of Recollections

third scene.' The revelation was put off accord-
ingly, but Scribe still considered it too premature.
He kept on deferring it until finally the original ex-
position became the denouement of the piece.

Nevertheless, I feel bound to qualify my praise. If
Scribe was the founder of the modern art of ' staging,'
it is but fair to admit that two important parts of that
art were utterly beyond his ken. He had no know-
ledge either of scenery or costumes. Odd to relate, it
would be difficult to find an imagination going farther
a-field than Scribe's and remaining so thoroughly
within the limits of home. His imagination wandered
through every country of the world, while at the
same time it always remained in Paris. At the be-
ginning of his comic operas and operas he put : * The
scene of the piece is laid at St Petersburg,' * The scene
of the piece is laid in Madrid,' ' The scene of the
piece is laid in Pekin,' notwithstanding that the
scene of the piece was virtually in Paris. When he
wrote the words ' an inn,' ' a kitchen,' ' a palace,' his
' mind's eye ' always perceived the selfsame inn,
kitchen or palace. As for his characters, he mentally
decked them out in all kinds of finery, not to say rags,
which had not the slightest connection with the
country in which those characters were supposed to
live and act. He made them speak and bestir them-
selves, but as for housing and clothing them, he did
not trouble about it. This defect, apparently alto-
gether on the outside, was due to the deficiency in his

: ) \\irs of Recollections 1 5 1

intellect to which I have already drawn attention.
He lacked the gift of individualising. Fortunately he
met with a marvellous collaborateur in M. E. Perrin.
M. E. Perrin who had not only an instinctive taste for,
but a practical knowledge of scenery and costume has
often told me of Scribe's amazement at the sight of
the transformation of his interiors and characters by
a consummate stage manager.

I feel reluctant to wind up this essay on Scribe as a
dramatist without mentioning another of his collabora-
teurs who may be termed unique in his own way, for
that collaborateur was nothing less than a king.

About 1850 Scribe adapted Shakespeare's 'Tem-
pest' into an operatic libretto.* The English were
very anxious to have it performed in London and
Scribe went thither to superintend the rehearsals.
His first visit on the day after his arrival was to Louis-
Philippe. Scribe had never been a republican, it was
one of the rare subjects on which we did not agree,
he had, furthermore, been too warmly welcomed at the
Tuileries not to undertake 'a pilgrimage' to Claremont.

Those who knew him said that Louis-Philippe was
one of the most brilliant talkers of his time, and as a
matter of course, he gracefully brought the conversa-
tion round to the subject of the ' Tempest,' then all of
a sudden, in a semi-bantering, semi-serious tone, he
1 : 'Do you know, M. Scribe, that I have

Hale'vy, the composer or ' La Juive' was in London with Scribe at
that time. Was it his opera ? TK

152 Sixty Years of Recollections

the honour of being a colleague of yours ? ' ' You,
sire ? ' ' Yes, indeed, I. You have come to London
for an opera ; well, I also wrote an opera when I was
a young man, and I give you my word it was by no
means bad.' 'I can well believe that, sire; you have
done more difficult things than that.' ' More difficult
to you, perhaps, but not to me. I took for my sub-
ject the Cavaliers and Roundheads.' 'A good sub-
ject, sire/ assented the author of ' Les Huguenots.'
' Well, I happen to have come upon the manuscript
very recently. Shall I give you an idea of it? I
should like to have your opinion on it.' * I am at
your disposal, sire.'

Thereupon, Louis-Philippe in his most brilliant
manner starts telling Scribe the substance of his first act,
and at first Scribe sits listening, respectfully, without in-
terruption as he would have listened to a speech from
the throne, but gradually,as the piece proceeds, the play-
wright's feelings get the upper hand and he absolutely
forgets that his interlocutor is, or at any rate was, a
king ; he forgets everything except that there is the
scenario of an opera being submitted to him, and
interrupting the speaker at a faulty passage, he says :
4 Oh, that won't do at all.' ' Why won't it do ? ' asks
the King, slightly nettled. ' Because it is improbable,
and what's worse, devoid of interest.' ' Devoid of
interest, devoid of interest,' repeats the King. * My
dear Monsieur Scribe, just allow me. . . .' But the
King might have saved himself the trouble ; Scribe

Sixty Years of Recollections 1 5 3

was 'off;' their respective parts had been reversed ;
it was the author who was the king for the moment.
L Do you know what you want there, sire ? You want
a love scene there. Politics are well enough in a minis-
terial council, but in an opera we must have the love-
passion.' ' In that case, let's have a love scene,'
replies Louis-Philippe, laughing. And forthwith
they begin to devise and to discuss until it is time
fi >r Scribe to return to town. ' Already,' says the
King ; ' one moment, I'll not let you go unless you
promise me to come and lunch with me to-morrow.
Our opera is not finished. I shall expect you to-
morrow.' ' Very well, sire, till to-morrow.'

Next morning on arriving at Claremont whom
should he see standing sentry at the door of the
King's study ? The Queen, who was watching for him,
apparently in a very excited state. ' May heaven
bless you, M. Scribe,' she said. ' For the first time
since we left Paris the King dined heartily last night.
and during the whole of the evening he was cheerful
and talked a good deal. This morning on entering
his room he was sitting up in bed, rubbing his fore-
his ancestor Henri IV used to do when he
felt pu/./.led and saying in a low voice to himself,
" That confounded Scribe, he thinks it is a very easy
matter." And he was smiling all the while. Oh, do
come back, Monsieur Scribe, do come back as
as you can, every day if possible while you are in
London. Will you promise me?'

1 54 Sixty Years of Recollections

Scribe promised and kept his word. For a whole
week he went every morning to pour a few drops of
joy on that broken heart, to shed a few rays of light
into that mournful home, and on his return to France
he brought back the most glorious author's fees
he had ever received in his life, the gratitude of an
exile, the affection of a deposed king and the bless-
ings of a woman who was little short of a saint.

These recollections would be very incomplete if I
omitted to show Scribe as a man and a friend. It
would be worse than inaccuracy on my part, it would
be a want of gratitude. One day, M. Thiers, allud-
ing to himself said to me, ' After all is said and done,
I am a good fellow.' I will paint Scribe with one
word, he was ' a good fellow ' in every possible sense
of that charming word. A good fellow is unaffected ;
a good fellow is lively and gay ; a good fellow is good
and kind ; a good fellow is artless, if not always, at
any rate sometimes ; a good fellow is modest. Well,
Scribe was all that. We may take it that he could not
have been ignorant of his own merits. Forty years of
success must have pretty well enlightened him in that
respect, but he really seemed to give them no thought
One day in the course of conversation some one
quoted enthusiastically the trenchant remark of
Royer-Collard with regard to M. * * * ' He is not an
ass, he is the ass.' ' I don't consider that so very
extraordinary,' said Scribe, in the simplest way im-
aginable, ' I fancy I could find as good.' Is not this

Si.vfy Years of Recollections 1 5 5

delightful from the lips of a man who was so witty
that people twitted him with being too witty.'

The following story will, however, give an abso-
lutely striking portrait of him. Scribe generally
spent the autumn months with his friends in the
country. In the evening they amused themselves
with reading English novels, and the reader was a
poor governess who, in an interval between two
chapters, said with a sigh, ' Ah, if I could only realise
my dream.' 'And what may your dream happen to
be, mademoiselle ? ' asked Scribe. ' To have one day,
not now, but many years hence, an income of twelve
hundred francs a year, which would insure my peace
and quietness and independence.' A few weeks later,
one evening, after she had come to the end of some
nificant novel, Scribe all of a sudden said to her,
1 Do you know, mademoiselle, that there is a subject
for a capital one-act comedy in that story, if you like
we'll write it together, seeing that you gave me the
subject.' As a matter of course the girl was but too
glad to accept. Three days after, Scribe comes down
to the drawing-room with his comedy finished and
three months after that the papers announce its first
performance. On the morning of the adver:

, Scribe repairs to his dramatic agents. * To-
night there is a premiere of a piece of mine, which
:>een written in conjunction with a lady,' he says.
' I have not the faintest idea what the result will be;
this much I do know, that tin- piece will *have to

1 56 Sixty Years of Recollections

yield twelve hundred francs a year for life to the joint-
authoress. You may arrange the matter just as you
please, provided it looks genuine.' Rather a delicate
proceeding this on the part of Scribe, who has been
so often accused of plagiarism, but who in this in-
stance did not borrow his plot from any one, and
who, I fancy, has not had many imitators in that re-
spect. But the best of the story has to be told. The
governess who had relished her success, kept con-
stantly suggesting to Scribe new plots for comedies,
drawn from English novels, which Scribe as con-
stantly declined with a smile. After that, the gover-
ness, whenever they praised Scribe to her, protested
in a soft, gentle, cooing tone. ' Yes, yes, there is no
doubt about it, he is a charming young fellow. But
I am afraid gratitude is not one of his pet virtues.
We wrote a very pretty piece together, seeing that
it brings us each twelve hundred francs per annum,
why does he refuse to write another ? ' Scribe never
dispelled her illusion.

Assuredly a man who is not only superior to most
men but a good fellow to boot is a delightful phe-
nomenon, not to mention the splendid faculty of im-
agination which not only concocts a pretty piece out
of an indifferent novel, but makes it the basis of a

kindly action.

V

I have now come to the most 'delicate point
in this essay. No doubt, old chums occupied a

.V/'r/r Years of Recollections 157

large space in Scribe's life ; but 'petticoats' occupied
a still greater. The latter enacted as many parts
in his existence as they enacted in his pieces, or
to put it correctly, they have all enacted the same
part. Where, in fact, could he have found so many
delightful love scenes, if not in his own heart? A
woman who knew Scribe * very well,' who, in fact, had
had every possible opportunity of knowing him well,
once gave me a description of ' Scribe in love.' I am
alluding to Jenny Vertpre to whom Horace Walpole's
mot on Mme. de Choiseul might well apply : * She is
the prettiest little fairy that ever came out of a fairy
egg,' for it is the portrait of Jenny Vertpre herself. A
young general of the First Empire having come to
bid her good-bye just before starting for Russia, could
not withstand the temptation and carried her off in
his big cloak, and snugly ensconced in their carriage,
they got as far as Dantzig, she cosily wrapped up in the
cloak, like a bird in its nest. She was only sixteen,
with eyes like a squirrel's, gleaming little teeth like
those of a mouse, and hair the hue of the raven's wing.
And with it all, such a figure and such a smile, not to
mention her cleverness. When Scribe drew the
delightful character of Mnu-. 1'inehon, he wrote to her
as follows : ' My dear Jenny ; I have drawn a part for
you, made up of your own say She was the

m actor of the Vaudeville and had grown
up side by side, in fact, on the same story of the
same house with Dejazet. Every morning the two

158 Sixty Years of Recollections

little girls went down to buy the milk and the char-
coal for the two households. Trotting about together
they compared notes as to their respective school
learning. Dejazet could read, and Jenny Vertpre
knew her catechism. The latter fact elicited the
serious admission of Dejazet years afterwards to
Jenny, that she loved her very much, ' because it is to
you I owe my religious principles.' * The comic part
of the business/ added Jenny laughing, ' was that she
meant what she said, for Dejazet has always been
very devout. She always went to mass in the little
village where she lived, after she retired from the
stage.'

From Dejazet I led Jenny Vertpr6 to talk about
Scribe.

' Oh, the scamp,' she said, * he would not have been
able to begin work without at least half-a-dozen letters
from as many women on his table.' ' What was he like
when young ? ' 'A kind of face such as one might
find described in a passport. Nose average, forehead
average, chin average, shape average, somewhat heavy.
What distinguished him from the crowd was a pair
of small green eyes, full of mischief and sparkle and
never still, beneath enormous, bushy eyebrows. But
there was above all, his mouth, with two dimpled
corners like a child's. And with it all amusing, spruce
and neat, with soft, cajoling ways, a regular " boobfy." '
I protested. * I am telling you the truth,' she added
with her diabolical little smile, ' it was a positive sin

Sixty Years of Recollections 1 59

to deceive him, it was as easy as A, B, C.' I felt down-
right astonished. Scribe easily deceived. ' You are
surprised,' she went on. ' That shows you did not
know the Scribe of my days. My dear fellow, he
was an absolute simpleton.'

To this portrait from a woman's lips I may add
another, drawn by Scribe himself. We were talking
about the Gymnase and the celebrated actor Gontier.
' Gontier,' said Scribe, * was very clever at caricaturing
people. One day, in the green-room, after having
drawn several actors and actresses with more than his
ordinary success, he starts another sketch which
simply sets them all in a roar and frantic with delight.
I am the only one who does not join in the general
merriment. "Who is this ? " I ask. " I don't know
that thickhead." Thereupon the laughter grows all
the louder. That "thickhead" was myself This
Scribe, every inch of him ; never endeavouring
to make himself out better than he was, never pluin-

himself upon anything, ever holding his tor
about his love affairs.

One night at the Opera ball, a masked woman
comes up to him, begins to talk and finally puts her
arm in his. Her very walk showed that >he was
young, and a pair of black eyes, flashing through the
apertures in her mask, bred the supposition that she-
was good-looking. The con n becomes more
and more animated; the masked womai d to
be clever and Sci ul more i He

160 .SY.r/r Years of Recollections

also begins to talk cleverly, becomes more pressing
and his companion's resistance grows fainter and
fainter. He offers the hospitality of his bachelor's
quarters and the offer is accepted. In those days he
lived near the Bourse, on the third floor of a large
house. Off they go, in a little while they reach his
home and are ascending the staircase. All of a
sudden when they get to the first story, the lady
stops. ' We are not there, yet,' says Scribe. ' In-
deed, we are,' says the lady. ' I am sorry to contra-
dict you,' replies Scribe merrily, ' one of these days I
may be fortunate enough -to live on the first floor, but
at present. . . .' ' At present,' interrupts the lady,
taking off her mask, * at present it is I who am living
there.' ' I don't understand, madame ? ' ' Yes, mon-
sieur, this is my domicile, and now, good neighbour,
allow me to thank you with all my heart. I lost
my husband in the crowd and felt dead frightened.
Fortunately for me I happened to fall in with the
most charming of knight-errants who, for my edifica-
tion, improvised one of the most delightful episodes
and love scenes he ever put in his comedies, with the
prettiest denouement possible, for all of which kind-
ness I feel sincerely obliged and for which my hus-
band will come to thank him personally to-morrow.'
Thereupon she sweetly curtsies to Scribe and dis-
appears through her own doorway, leaving him on the
landing, looking more or less sheepish, confused and
grieved. Whether the lady felt touched by his re-

Sixty Years of Recollections 161

proachful and regretful parting glance, I am unable to
say. The little comedy in one act may have had a
sequel, but Scribe never breathed a syllable of it.

All his adventures, though, did not miscarry like
this, inasmuch as he by no means took his love-affairs
in a tragical spirit. He did not pretend to enact the
Antony. As long as the girl was pretty,- good-
tempered and kind he did not trouble about the rest,
and if she deceived him, provided it was done with a
certain amount of cleverness, he put a good face
upon the matter by being the first to laugh at it.
In those days there was a favourite actress at the
Vaudeville of the name of Pauline, with the most
magnificent pair of black eyes I have ever seen in
my life. Brunet was her manager and he managed
to direct her away from the paths of virtue. About
the same period, Scribe appeared upon the scene with
a piece that ran for a hundred nights. Pauline took
a fancy to him, which drove Brunet to despair at first,
though he managed to resign himself to the fact
afterwards. He made up for his misfortunes as a
lover by his success as a manager. Pauline virtually
Scribe to the theatre with silken bonds, and all
would have i 11 but for the advent of a third

thief in the shape of the handsome Dartois. That
was more than Brunet could bear, and lie rushed to
Scribe's house. 'My dear fellow,' lie exclaimed in a
>air * we are being deceived.' That we

'ed Scribe to such a; ; that he forgot his

II L

1 62 Si.vfy Years of Recollections

own grief. The ////;-#/ had the effect of reconciling
him to the pluralism of pretty Pauline.

Things did not always work so smoothly, whether
his inamoratas were faithful or not. When he was
about forty, in addition to the casual and unimportant
love-affairs which cropped up as frequently in his
existence as they did in his pieces, in addition to these
he had two serious liaisons which every now and then
led to very comic predicaments. His two lady-
loves were both married women, but separated from
their husbands, consequently with all their time at
their disposal, which fact militated against his own
freedom. The mistress' freedom means the servitude
of her admirer. At that particular period the whole
of Paris was rushing to see ' Les Pilules du Diable.'
As a matter of course, Scribe goes to see the piece,
which does not strike him as very amusing. On his
return at night, he finds the following little note,
'Every one ; is talking of " Les Pilules du Diable,"
which I am longing to see. Take a box for to-
morrow, I'll be with you at seven.' * Hum,' grunts
Scribe, two doses of these pills in twenty-four hours
is rather too much of a good thing. I suppose there
is no help for it, so I had better get the box.' He
swallows the second dose which he relishes even less
than the first and gets home, not in the brightest
of tempers. On his table lies a second note, couched
as follows, ' My dear boy, they have worked me up to
such a pitch about " Les Pilules du Diable," that I am

Si.i'fy Years of Recollections 163

positively dying to see it, especially with you. Will
to-morrow night suit you ? of course it will. Take a
box on the ground tier. I am looking forward to my
evening with you as a great treat.'

As usual, Scribe resigned himself to his fate, for
with his kind disposition, his insuperable reluctance
to distress people, but especially a woman, he had not
the courage to break off his relations with either of
them. The utmost he did was to slacken his chain
by means of some stratagem. One of his two queens
and charmers, the elder by priority or age, I do not
know which, had exacted a promise that he should
pay her a visit every day from five till six. In ex-
acting this promise the lady had not been prompted
altogether by affection, or at any rate, there was a
good deal of calculation in that affection. She was
anxious to have this daily call construed into a
public recognition of her sway over Scribe. He
faithfully kept the appointment, only two or three
times a week, after a quarter of an hour or so of
conversation, he took up his stand against the mantel-
1 putting his arm behind his back, managed
to put forward the hand of the clock; then turning
mimd, he exclaimed: 'Six o'clock already, I must
go! How quickly t in your company.'

Goethe tells us that he transformed his love sorrows

1 that his ;_;rief vanished, borne away on

the uin.;s ..f his muse. Scribe avenged himself for

the th'.usand and CUM liliputian bonds,

164 Sixty Years of Recollections

by converting them into two of his most delightful
comedies, viz. : ' Les Malheurs d'un amant heureux/
and ' Une Chaine.' Finally though, when about fifty
he became once more master of his own destiny by
a bold stroke he got married. That denouement
may be reckoned among one of the very best of all
his comedies. First of all, like the skilful playwright
he was, he prepared that denouement long beforehand.
At the outset of his double liaison he had declared
on his oath to both his mistresses, not once but a
hundred times that, had they been free, he would
have married them. Later on he swore to them that
if they became widows he would marry them. ' The
years are going by,' he said to them, ' I will wait for
you until I am fifty. But let it be understood that
at fifty, if you are not free, I will be.' Heaven alone
could tell of the fervent supplications he addressed
to it for the health and long life of those two hus-
bands. Not his best friend inspired him with a
similar solicitude for his wellbeing. Heaven granted
his prayers, both husbands kept their health. He
married as he had said he would, shortly after his
fiftieth birthday, and three months after his marriage
both husbands departed this life. ' Great heavens,
can you imagine my position if that misfortune had
happened three months earlier ? ' he exclaimed. ' How
could I have possibly got out of the difficulty ? The
very thought of it makes me shudder. After all/ he
added, ' I could not have married them both.'

Sixty Years of Recollections 165

With his married life, Scribe entered upon the
happiest period of an existence which had been happy
throughout. His reputation was at its zenith and the
full cup of unalloyed joy at his lips. * My dear fellow,'
he often said, * up till now I only knew what pleasure
meant, at present I know what happiness means.'
His wife was comparatively young, barely thirty,
good-looking, lively, kind-hearted and a woman of
parts. Beranger, who knew her and whose songs she
sang in a very talented manner, said of her that she
was strong enough intellectually to govern an empire.
Twelve years went by in that way without the faintest
shadow on the picture, without a cloud in the sky.
After that period when I happened to remind him one
morning of the almost unheard-of and uninterrupted
success and happiness of his life, he said to me in
a sad tone : ' No one knows where the shoe pinches
except he that wears it.' I dared not question him,
but I noticed that from that day forward his imagina-
tion was not as bright as it had been. When talking
about the subject of a play, he invariably proposed
painful and more or less bitter subjects. 'You have
often asked me,' he said one day, ' to provide a sequel
to our four brilliantly successful pieces. Well, I'll
give you a title which is an i<le.i in itself.' ' I.i-t us
hear tl ! aid ' L'Amour d'un Vieillard '

(The love-passion of an old man.) I could not help
which he went on quickly. ' Wait a
moment. 1 he said. ' I have no intention to write

1 66 Sixty Years of Recollections

another "Hernani" or "6cole des Vieillards." What
I would like to portray is the sorrows of an old man
who is being tenderly beloved. Do you follow my
meaning, he said " tenderly beloved." ' ' Yes, yes, I
understand ; it would be the companion picture to
" Les Malheurs d'un amant heureux." But would
the subject be interesting to the public ? ' ' Undoubt-
edly it would, for it would be absolutely new, true
and I might say, tragic. It would deal with a secret
phase of human life which has up till now escaped
observation, at any rate as far as the stage goes.
We men may and often do love an ugly woman, a
stupid woman, even a spiteful and bad-tempered
woman, but never an old woman. On the other hand
with women, and I say this in their praise, for it
proves that their love proceeds from their souls more
often than it does with us, the fame of a man, his
talent, his heroism may blind them to his years.
General Cavaignac was over fifty when in June (1848)
he saved Paris from a revolution. That victory
aroused the enthusiasm of several girls who fell in
love with and wanted to marry him.' ' My dear
friend,' I answered, ' to that instance I could add one
much more striking and which bears absolutely on
your subject. The old man of whom I want to tell you
was over sixty and your title seems expressly made
for him, so much did he suffer from loving and being
beloved.' 'Who was that, I wonder? Beranger?'
1 Yes, Beranger, it is evident that you do not know

Sixty Years of Recollections 167

the tiling that befell him at Tours.' * No, I do not
know it.' ' Very well, let me tell you. Branger
who had retired temporarily to Tours met with a
young girl, an English girl, who became so deeply
enamoured of him that she proposed to leave every-
thing and to elope with him. What was the result?
That he, Branger, the man who had sung " Frtillon "
and " Lisette "- and who until then had known none
but facile and evanescent love-adventures became
deeply enamoured at the age of sixty-two, that he
conceived a mad, intense passion which pierced his
heart like an arrow, which fired his soul like a blaze.
But he remained Branger, he knew that that girl had
a father and mother whose joy and pride she was.
He was not going to end up a long honourable exist-
ence by committing an infamous act ; a man does
not rid himself at will of three score of years of
honesty and uprightness. He would have become an
object of horror and disgust to himself, if, however
madly in love, he had taken advantage of that young
blind and unreasoning passion. By a tremend-
ous effort of will he tore himself away from Tours
awl hid himself in a small village near Paris, at
Fontenay, like some poor, wounded animal which
withdraws to the dense growth in the wood to let the
blood from his wounds flow freely and then cleanses
i in the limpid forest-brook. During a whole
twelvemonth, mark what I tell you, during a whole
twelvemonth, he lived there by him.sdf. withholding

1 68 Sixty Years of Recollections

his address from his dearest friends, disguising him-
self by means of large blue spectacles in order to
escape recognition and patiently awaiting there, while
wandering through the woods, the end of his agony.
He had the reward of his courage, at the end of the
twelvemonth he went back into the world, if not
absolutely cured, at any rate perfectly self-controlled.'
I had got thus far with my story, when Scribe, who
had been listening with intense emotion, turned very
pale, and pressing his hands against one another,
said all of a sudden in a scarcely audible voice, and
with ill-suppressed sobs : ' My dear good friend,
Be>anger's story is absolutely like mine.' * Like
yours ? ' I exclaimed in amazement ' Yes, I also, at
the age of sixty or more, have suddenly, and for the
first time in my life felt that bewildering, maddening
sensation which we call an intense passion. I also
met, not with a young girl, but with a young woman,
willing to throw everything to the winds for, to sacri-
fice everything to, me. And like Be"ranger, I beheld,
uprising before me, my advanced age, my life, all I
have been, and all I have done. You have just said
it, a man does not rid himself at will of an honourable
and honest past. All' the pieces in which I have sung
the praises and the holiness of the matrimonial tie, of
the purity of home life, of love hallowed by reason,
flung their weight upon me at once. Then, there was
my wife, my dear wife whom I would have driven to
despair. And there was something else besides. I

Sixty Years of Recollections 1 69

was thinking of my enemies, my enemies in the press
who would have soon discovered the secret and con-
verted it into a scandal. Did not they go as far to
incriminate even my paternal affection for one of my
nieces. When I came to reflect upon all this, my
commonsense, my most deep-seated affections, my
horror of having my name bruited about, gave me
courage and a twelvemonth ago I broke off what as
yet was not a bond. But heaven alone knows at the
cost of how much suffering. One single fact will be
sufficient to prove that to you. About a month ago
I went back to society for the first time ; namely, to
a grand ball at the Hotel-de-Ville. The first person
I saw on entering the grand gallery was she, she
radiant with beauty and animation, and waltzing
round with a charming young fellow. One look at her
sufficient. Jealousy sees more in one glance than
a hundred pair of ordinary eyes. I understood, as if
I had read it in an open book that, deserted by me
she had, cither out of pique or from innate fickleness
herself headlong into some other love-passion,
young fellow with whom she was dancing was
lover. I felt such a sharp pang at my heart
that I sank back on the nearest couch, utterly undone
and remained motionless for a quarter of an hour.
When I rose to go, I found myself confronted with an
unknown personage who was so pale and looked so
le^pair. that I could not help sayii
>r fellow, how much he must have

1 70 Sixty Years of Recollections

suffered. The poor fellow was no one but myself. I
had passed in front of a looking glass and had failed
to recognise my own face. In short, my dear friend,
if you and I were to go out at this moment and if I
were to run against her suddenly in the street, I feel
that I should drop senseless on the pavement'

This disclosure on Scribe's part had the effect of
drawing me still closer to him, a wholly new man had
been revealed to me. He had shown an intensity of
passion the capacity for which I did not as much as
suspect, a heroism of which I did not think him
capable.

His energetic resistance met with its reward. In
the course of time even the scar of his painful wound
disappeared ; the last years of his life were years of
happiness and by his sudden death, which struck us
all like a thunderclap he was spared the sadness
almost inseparable from moral and physical decline.
Twenty-six years have gone by since that sorrowful
March day in 1861, and at present when I look back
upon him through the vista of the past he is to me
what I feel convinced he will remain to posterity
the most complete representative of French theatrical
art in the nineteenth century. Some of his contem-
poraries did, no doubt, surpass him in many phases
of that art, but not one has possessed in the same
degree, the two fundamental qualities of our national
art, invention and the faculty of composition. No
one created so many subjects for dramatic represen-

Sixty Years of Recollections 171

tations as he. No one proved himself master of so
many different genres as he. No one knew as well as
he, how to lay down the basis of a plot, to conduct it
through its various windings, to tie and untie its
knots. Here is a final and conclusive proof of his
talent. In two of the genres he illustrated he was
without a rival during his own lifetime and has had
no successor since he died. Who since that death
has written a beautiful libretto for an opera or a
masterpiece in the way of a comic opera? I will not
venture to call Scribe a man of genius, but he had
certainly a remarkable genius for the drama, and
withal so original that no literature has produced, I
will not say his equal, but an author analogous to
him. Scribe deserves to have applied to him the
line of Michelet on Alexandre Dumas : ' He is one
of Nature's forces.'

CHAPTER V

Rachel. Why ' Adrienne Lecouvreur ' was written. Rachel changes her
mind; the Piece declined by the Committee of the Comedie-
Frangaise. The Race of Managers to get hold of the Play. M.
Legouve's determination to impose the Play upon Rachel. His
success. Rachel at Rehearsal. An evil foreboding. Rachel asks
M. Legouve for another Piece. He writes it. The result. Rachel
as a Dramatic Adviser. Rachel in her True Character. Her last
Days.

As I have already said, * Adrienne Lecouvreur'
had been written at the request of Mdlle. Rachel, I
might say at her earnest entreaty. But the few
months we spent in writing the piece, were spent by
Mdlle. Rachel in taking a dislike to it. Fickle both
by imagination and by temperament, her lack of
firmness aggravated the defect. She consulted
everybody, and anyone could influence her. The
mere banter of a critic was enough to set her
against an idea, which but five minutes before had
delighted her, and the same thing happened in the
case of ' Adrienne.' Her would-be advisers managed
to frighten her about this projected excursion into
the realms of drama. The idea of Hermione and

ty Years of Recollections 173

Pauline condescending to speak in prose, the daughter
of Corneille and Racine becoming the godchild of
M. Scribe seemed nothing less than sacrilege to them.
Hence, on the day appointed for the reading of the
piece, Mdlle. Rachel came to the meeting of the Com-
mittee, fully resolved to decline the part. Everyone
had made it a point to come. The actresses, who
at that time were privileged to vote, mingled with
the actors, and a certain ' Daniel-come-to-judgment '
air which pervaded the meeting, inspired me on en-
tering with evil forebodings. Scribe took up the
manuscript, and began to read. I ensconced myself
in an armchair, and began to ' take stock.' In another
moment or so two comedies were being unfolded
before me, ours and the other; the latter a silent
one, enacted in the hearts and minds of the socti-
-v. Vaguely apprised of the secret intentions of
their illustrious fellow-actress, they were virtually in
a predicament.

A play written for Mdlle. Rachel, and in which she
no longer desired to act, might, if accepted by the
Committee, i, is difficulties, nay to liti-

gation. The Committee-, therefore, took their rue for
the verdict on ' Adrienne' from Mdlle. Rachel's face ;

:,ice remaining absolutely unmoved, theirs foil*
suit. During those five long acts, she neither smiled.
applauded, nor ^ ^n of approval ; they neither

approved, a} >; led. The general a]

so thorough, that Scribe, fancying that one of our

174 S'.vty Years of Recollections

judges was about to drop into a sound slumber
stopped short and observed :

1 Don't mind me, my dear fellow, I beg of you.'
The socittaire in question protested most strongly
against the soft impeachment, and that was the sole
effect produced throughout. Stay, I am mistaken,
there was another, or at any rate the beginning of
one. In the last scene but one of the fifth act, Mdlle.
Rachel, impressed by the situation in spite of herself,
slightly leaned forward in her chair, in which up till
then she had been apparently buried. She evidently
thought it worth her while to be interested and to
listen, but seeing that I noticed the movement she
immediately collapsed, and resumed her stony look.
When Scribe had finished reading, he and I passed
into the room of the director, who in a few minutes
joined us. In a tone of regret, which we accepted as
sincere, he told us that Mdlle. Rachel failed to * fancy
herself in the part we had written for her, and as
the play had been written at her own and special re-
quest the Committee would prefer to consider the
reading as null and void. ' In other words,' said
Scribe, 'our piece is rejected. Very well ! Every dog
has his day.'

Next morning three different managers called to
ask us for our play. Scribe was fond of reprisals that
looked like revenges, and considered that they should
be inflicted, ' red hot ' ; he, therefore wanted to accept,
but I objected. ' My dear friend,' said I to him, ' the

Si.vty Years of Recollections \ ; 5

piece was written for the The.atre-Frangais, and the
Theatre-Fransais shall produce it. The part was
written for Mdlle. Rachel, and Rachel shall play
it.'

'But how will you make her do it?' 'That I do
not know at present, but it must and shall be? In
the course of our work to which you have contributed
the lion's share, you were kind enough to tell me
more than once, that I understand the part of
Adrienne better than yourself. Indeed I may say
that I have always discerned a new kind of stage
character in that tragic actress, who has slowly been
converted to the noble sentiments of the tragic
heroines she represents, in that interpreter of Cor-
neille, some of whose greatness has gradually been in-

1 in her blood. Well, in my opinion that char-
acter should not be played on any other stage but
that devoted to the masterpieces of Corneillc.'

The evident sincerity of my conviction had the

t of convincing Scribe ; it was nevertheless a hard
tussle. The aforementioned directors returned to the
charge and with greater vigour ; one of these in order
to force our hand, said : ' My leading lady has never
had a chance yet to die on the stage, and would be
delighted to die of poison.' This argument, hov.
specious, failed to influence me, but six months
having elapsed without a change in the position,
Scribe declared that he would wait no longer. ' I will
only ask you to wait for another week, 1 I .1

1 76 Sixty Years of Recollections

' You intended to spend six or seven days at Se"ri-
court ; you had better go. If, on your return, I have
made no progress, I'll give in.' ' I shall expect you
to breakfast this day week at eleven,' he replied, and
went away.

Then I went to work. I called upon the new
director who had meanwhile been appointed to the
Theatre-Frangais, and made a little speech to him
somewhat to the following effect : * You are no doubt
aware of Mdlle. Rachel's refusal to play our piece.
This refusal on her part may be a mistake or not,
I will not discuss it. But I am certain of one thing,
that she has undoubtedly done us a great wrong. It
is not fair to return his play to a man like M. Scribe,
after having asked him to write it. One does not
offend an author who stands in the very front rank,
in that manner, nor, if you will permit me to say so, a
younger man, who does not altogether stand in the
last. Mdlle. Rachel must be aware of all this, and a
moment's reflection on her part will make her feel
the justice of my remarks. A woman gifted as she
is, cannot possibly be completely devoid of the sense
of what is fit. Now there is one way of arranging the
thing, both in her interests and in our own. I am
not going to ask her to play our piece, but I want her
to allow me to read it to her personally, and not at
the theatre, with her comrades in attendance, but at
her own house, and in the presence^of friends of her
own. She may invite whomsoever she pleases, and

Si.rty Years of Recollections 177

as many or as few as she likes. I will come alone
with the manuscript Should the play fail to please
her and that new committee, I will withdraw and
admit that I have had a fair hearing. If, on the
other hand, it pleases her and them, she will play it
and score a great success. She will look upon me
for ever afterwards as her best friend.'

The director transmitted my offer which was ac-
cepted, though on that same evening Mdlle. Rachel
was reported to have said to one of her female friends :
4 1 cannot decline M. Legouv's offer, but I shall
never play this . . . .' I refrain from writing down
the word, which, though expressive to a degree, is
altogether outside the classical repertory. An ap-
pointment was made for the next day but one, the
jury selected by the actress herself was composed of
Jules Janin, Merle, Rolle, and the director of the
:iv-Francais.

On my arrival I no doubt felt somewhat nervous, but

i iheless, thoroughly self-possessed, because I was

of the justice of my cause, though prepared for

My preparations were not formidable.

Scribe was an admirable reader, and had rendered

our dialogue in a marvellous manner before the

Committee. He fell short, however, in one thin;.;. In

my opinion the part of Adrienne had not been made

sufficiently appropriate by the reader to Mdlle. Rachel.

1 Ie had read the part with a great deal of spirit and

, but he had read it as one reads the part of a
VOL, II M

178 Sixty Years of Recollections

4 walking lady.' His delivery had been wanting in
grandeur, and he had not sufficiently indicated the
heroism smouldering in the woman. Now this was
precisely the point by which one might hope to
interest Mdlle. Rachel, to acclimatise her to this
novel kind of stage-character.

To her the enterprise was obviously fraught both
with danger and difficulties, and we were bound to
lessen as much as possible the former, and to smooth
away the latter. We had to indicate to her in read-
ing the part the best means of transition from one
line of characters to another, and to convince her that
what to the audience would appear something akin
to a metamorphosis, would in reality be to her a
mere change of costume. This appeared to me the
point on which Scribe had not laid sufficient stress,
and so for two days I took great pains to accentuate
it and bring it into proper relief. I was welcomed in
a charming manner, full of that 'soothing' grace
which was as it were part of herself. She herself
sweetened the glass of water I might want, she herself
fetched me a chair, she herself drew back the curtains
to give me a better light, I could not help remember-
ing the famous phrase : ' I shall never act this . . . '
and I chuckled inwardly at this lavish display of
amiability, the more so as I knew the cause of this
pretty piece of acting. How, in fact, should I be able to
accuse of ill-will and prejudice a listener so graciously
disposed to listen. It is what in theatrical parlance

Sixty Years of Recollections 1 79

we call a 'led-up-to' effect. I begin reading. Dur-
ing the whole of the first act, Mdlle. Rachel ap-
plauded, approved, smiled, in short, did the very
opposite of what she had done in the presence of the
Committee. Why all that ? Echo answered Why, but
I had no difficulty in fathoming her plan. She
had learned her lesson to perfection. Her excuse
would be, that the part did not suit her style.
Seeing that Adrienne does not appear at all in
the first act, Mdlle. Rachel was perfectly safe in
praising it, nay, her very praise would lend an
air of impartiality to her subsequent reserve, and
a semblance of sincerity to the expression of re-
gret which would accompany her refusal. But her
very cleverness proved a big blunder, for the moment
her friends perceived her satisfaction, they joined in
it. They took to applauding without stint, and the
reader encouraged by their applause grew more ani-
mated. At the beginning of the second act I felt
confident of having my audience in hand. I set
every stitch of canvas, scudding before the breeze
icccss, before that kind of electrical current so
well known to all playwrights, and which takes all of
a sudden possession of the house, the moment victory
is declared. In tin- second act Adrienne makes her
appearance, holding in her hand the part of Baj.;
which si ; . The Prince de Bouillon t.i

towards her, and says in a captivating
tone : ' What are you in quest of now? ' to which she

1 80 Sixty Years of Recollections

replies : ' I am in quest of the truth.' At this re-
partee Janin cried, ' Bravo !' * Oh, oh,' said I to myself,
'here is at least one friend'; for after all the repartee-
did not deserve such praise. Mdlle. Rachel had also
turned towards Janin, as if to say : ' Has he turned
traitor ? ' Luckily the traitor's opinion was soon shared
by everyone present. Mdlle. Rachel, surprised and
somewhat disconcerted at her inability to summon
to her aid the indifference that had marked the first
reading, slowly yielded, though still resisting, to the
generally favourable impression. After this second
act, warmly applauded by all, she said languidly :
' I have always considered this act the prettiest.'
This was her last attempt at resistance, for at the
third act she bravely threw her former opinion
overboard, precisely as some politicians do with
the opinions they held but the day before. She
applauded, laughed and wept in turns, adding now
and then, ' What an idiot I was.' And after the fifth
act, she flung herself into my arms, embraced me
cordially and exclaimed : * Why did you not take to
the stage?'

The reader had saved the author. Of course I
could not but feel flattered, seeing that some time
previously after having heard M. Guizot speak in the
chamber, she had exclaimed : * How I should like to
play tragedy with that man ! ' Next day at the stroke
of eleven I entered Scribe's room. ' Well,' he said
with a mischievous look, ' what is the state of affairs ? '

Sixty Years of Recollections 1 8 1

Instead of answering, I took from my pocket a
paper and read aloud : ' Com&die-Franc^aise, this day
at twelve o'clock, rehearsal of " Adrienne Lecouvreur.'"
' What ! ' he shouted. Thereupon I told him every-
thing, and next morning, the serious work of re-
hearsing began. I learned a great deal from it.
Every day at ten, I went to Mdlle. Rachel's either
with Scribe or by myself if he happened to be pre-
vented by the staging of ' Le Prophete,' and until half-
past eleven we went through the act that was to be
rehearsed at the theatre. The play was mounted in
eight-and-twenty days, not one of which passed with-
out this double rehearsal one in the morning, the
other in the afternoon. It was during that time that
I conceived my admiration for Mdlle. Rachel's
perseverance, perspicuity, faculty of assimilation,
modesty and good fellowship. Not an atom of the
vanity so common to the great artist, not the smallest
whim of the spoilt child of success ; she was entirely
given up to her art, and sacrificed everything to her
art. She listened to hints, discussed them, gave in
the moment she was convinced, but not a moment
before. Here is a striking proof. Those who have
seen her Adrienne will recollect that one of her most
telling effects of the fifth act was the cry of ' Ah 1
Maurice,' when in the midst of her delirium she-
lf ever there was a theatrical
hat sounded like an inspiration of the moment, it
that one. Well, it took Rachel three days, not

1 82 ; Years of Recollections

exactly to discover the real pitch of it, but to accept
it. Scribe had given her the key ; she resisted Scribe,
she resisted me. ' It sounds false ! ' she maintained
obstinately, ' it sounds theatrical.' ' It sounds false
because you spoil it in delivery,' replied Scribe, who
could be very rough and tenacious on the battlefield,
that is, during rehearsals. At last, after three days of
miscarried attempts, the cry entered her very heart,
and she reproduced it with admirable inaccuracy. I
say inaccuracy, because on her lips this cry became
sublime. That was one of her special gifts, you
handed her a penny, and she transmuted it into a louis.
Those rehearsals have left another recollection
thoroughly characteristic of her. A few days before
the first performance the theatre was closed for an
evening rehearsal. Scribe was detained at the Opera
and did not put in an appearance. The first four
acts took us till eleven o'clock, then everybody left
except Mdlle. Rachel, M. Regnier, M. Maillard and
myself. All at once Mdlle. Rachel said to me, * We
are kings of all we survey, suppose we were to try the
fifth act which we have not yet rehearsed. I have
been studying it by myself for the last three days and
would like to see the effect.' We went on to the
stage, the gas was turned off, consequently there were
no foot-lights, there was nothing but the traditional
small lamp by the side of the prompter's box shorn
of its occupant ; the audience consisted of the fireman
on duty, dozing away on a chair between the wings,

Years of Recollections 183

and myself in the stalls. At the first sound of her
voice, I became deeply impressed by her delivery ;
never had I seen her so true to nature, so simply yet
so powerfully tragic. The light of the smoky little
lamp cast livid shadows on her face and the emptiness
of the house imparted a strange sound to her voice.
It was mournful to a degree. When the act was
finished, we went back to the green-room. As I
was passing in front of a looking-glass, I was struck
by the pallor of my face, and still more so by the
looks of M. Regnier and M. Maillard who were
equally pale. As to Mdlle. Rachel, she had seated
herself away from us, and did not utter a word, every
and then her frame shook, and she was still
brushing the tears from her eyes. I went up to her
and in the guise of praise pointed to the perturbed
faces of her fellow actors. ' My dear Mademoiselle
Rachel,' I said taking her hand, ' you played that fifth
act as you will never play it again ! ' 'I think so too/
slu- replied, ' and do you know why ? '

' Yes ; because there was nobody there to applaud
you, because you did not give a moment's thought to
th effect, because for the time being you were poor
Adrienne herself dying in the middle of the night in
the arms of her two friends.' She remained silent for
a moment, then said, 'You are altogether mistaken.
A much stranger phenomenon took hold of my mind.
I did not weep for AdnVnnr, I was \\vrping for myself.
A nameless something told me all at once that I, like

1 84 Sixty Years of Recollections

Adrienne, should die young. I seemed to be in my
own room breathing my last, I was watching my own
deathbed. When I uttered the words : " Farewell
ye triumphs of the stage : Farewell ! ye delights of
the art I have loved so well," I was shedding real
tears. It was because I was thinking with despair,
that time would efface all traces of what was my
talent once, and that soon there would remain nothing
of her who was once Rachel ! '

II

The success of ' Adrienne ' had inspired Mdlle.
Rachel with great confidence in me. She said openly
that I had given her talent a new lease of life, by
making her strike out a new line against her own in-
clination. Our rehearsals had shown her that I was as
capable of teaching her how to play a woman's part as
of writing one, and she asked me to help her in taking
yet another forward step. In Adrienne she had de-
serted poetry for prose, the antique for the modern,
the peplos and the chlamys for the brocaded gown ;
she now wanted to play an absolutely modern part
in a walking dress. She no longer wanted to be a
heroine but a woman in society, in other words :
' Mdlle. Rachel.' I proposed 'Louise de Lignerolles' to
her. She had seen Mdlle. Mars in the part, and been
deeply impressed ; but the thought of challenging
comparison tempted her rather than frightened her.
' Read your piece to me,' she said, ' and we'll see.'

Sixty Years of Recollections 185

I did read it to her, she played the part, and scored
a triple success ; a success due to her talent, a success
due to her beauty, and last, a success due to the
elegance of her dresses. The last was all the more
pleasing to her, seeing the treasury paid for it
heaven alone knows, with what an outcry. Four
dresses costing 1 500 francs the four the theatre was
positively being ruined. Nowadays they would cost
6000 francs and be paid for without a murmur, which
would be the right thing. This second success still
further strengthened the bonds between Mdlle. Rachel
and myself. I was almost looked upon as a friend.
She did me the honour to ask my advice about some
of her other parts. One evening she read to me
Emile Augier's drama ' Diana ' which she was then
rehearsing and this reading of the play confirmed an
opinion I had long held, namely, that there is a vast
difference between reading and acting. An excellent
reader might make but an indifferent comedian, and
an excellent actor but an indifferent reader, the two
arts differing almost entirely from one another. The
actor represents only one character in a play, whereas
the reader has to represent them all. The one has
only the instrument of his voice to aid him, the other
is assisted by his dress, h his bearing, and

hi\ facial play, so much so that Mdlle. Rachel who
played the touching par: me' with remarkable

at, read tin- In an altogether ordinary

way. Slu afforded me, furthermore, tin

1 86 Sixty Years of Recollections

pleasure of enacting before me and for me alone,
with her sister Mdlle. Sarah Felix, the scene between
Celimene and Arsince.

It was a clever, incisive, effective reading, but
wanting in youthful sparkle and gaiety. Youth
and loveliness are indispensable to save the part
of Celimene from becoming odious. When they had
finished the scene, I laughed and told her that it
was very nice, but that her Celimene was a woman
of forty. Finally, one day, after a long discussion
on women's parts on the stage, she asked me to
write one expressly for her. ' If you will do this for
me/ she added, smiling, ' I will write you a letter
without a single mistake in the spelling.' In order to
carry out this third attempt, I conceived the idea of
a ,tragedy which should be both ancient and modern.
Let me explain. During the last forty years, an-
tiquity has, as it were, become a new world to us.
Numberless critical, archaeological, historical, numis-
matical and artistic studies have all of a sudden
thrown a new light on the habits, beliefs, monuments,
and labours of antiquity. The Greek drama has, as
it were, been recalled to life by the researches of
German scholars, and by the learned and ingenious
work of M. Patin on the three great tragic writers.
Fortified by these new revelations, I took up a sub-
ject which had always attracted me by reason of
its very mysteriousness, namely, Medea. I felt
that the Greek poet had not said the last word on

r Years of Recollections 187

the subject. I saw that this mother's heart would
bear still further probing, and that one might draw
still more powerful effects from even the most beauti-
ful scenes. One scene tempted me more than the rest ;
I mean the description of Creusa's death. Medea,
in token of submission, sends her sons to Creusa,
with presents of rare beauty, namely, a crown of gold
and a peplos of the finest workmanship. Euripides
tells us in delightful verse the unfeigned joy of the
young girl at the sight of those presents. ' She
placed this crown on her head, she draped the peplos
in tasteful folds on her bosom/ he says, * she dressed
her hair before a bright mirror, smiling at her own
reflection, then having risen from her throne she
walked up and down her chamber with graceful steps,
her feet encased in white sandals, and craning her
neck to catch a glimpse of the back of her figure.'

Suddenly, however, she changes colour, trembles
violently from head to foot, and the poet in his ad-
mirable narrative proceeds to show her to us in the
act of tearing away the crown which sets her head
on fire, and shrieking with agony as she falls swoon-
ing into the arms of her old slave.

What a ma t scene this would make, I said

vsclf, if instead of being read, it were enacted; if,
instead of sending them by her children, Medea herself
were to take the ; , if, instead of an aged slave,

Medea herself were to help Creusa apparel 1 in- her-
self Medea on h< T knees, bowed down and

1 88 Sixty Years of Recollections

assuming the part of a servant, Medea watching her
rival's every expression of artless delight, then all of
a sudden bounding towards Creusa, already writhing
with excruciating pain, and replying to her with
savage glee : ' What does this mean ? It means
that you must die ! '

What a splendid situation ! What a contrast to
depict for an actress like Mdlle. Rachel. With my
mind full of the idea, I set to work immediately, and
wrote the scene in two days. When it was finished,
the remaining incidents of the drama as it had pre-
sented itself to my mind, gradually grouped them-
selves around the scene, and after a twelvemonth's
work, I took my play to Mdlle. Rachel. Her first
glance at it boded me no good, she frowned at the
very title, but this did not dishearten me knowing
her as I did, and remembering her refusal to play
Adrienne. Consequently, when I had finished read-
ing, I said in an off-hand tone : ' Well ? ' ' Well,' she
replied, ' I expected something more original, you
must remember I have already played so many Greek
parts.' ' But Medea is not a Greek in my drama, she
is a Barbarian.' ' Another thing, I have never played
the part of a mother.'

' All the more reason why you should begin to do
so. ' How do I know that I shall be able to express
the feelings of a mother on the stage ? ' ' Your own
motherly love ! Why should you not be able to ex-
press that which you so intensely feel ? ' ' In the second

y Years of Recollections 189

and third acts I have come upon sudden transitions
from fury to sobbing, I don't know how to do that
kind of thing.' ' I do/ I laughed, 'and I'll teach you.'
That was the way in which I managed to imbue her
gradually with the idea of the character I had tried
to sketch, that is, without deliberately contradicting
her, by the alternate use of argument and persuasion,
by constantly keeping in view both the receptive and
non-receptive, the docile and refractory qualities of
that rare intelligence, until, at last, she threw herself
into the study of * Medee ' with the same passion she
had shown in the cases of Adrienne and Louise.

I shall never forget one of those days of study. I
was expected at ten o'clock in the morning at the
small villa she then rented at Auteuil. On my
arrival I found her in the garden, gathering flowers,
tying them into bouquets ; she was in a merry mood,
laughing, as happy as a child, the very fact of living
filled her with joy. ' I am pleased to see you,' she

' we'll set to work with a will. I feel particularly
well to-day. What a blessing it is to feel well. I have
done with all the follies of youth, they are too dear at
the price, and after all there is nothing compared to
the joy of breathing the fivsh air, gladly, and without

lint. I feel sure we shall get on capitally to-
day.' I asked lu-r if she would like to trythcgre.it
scene between Medea and Crenel, the terrible scene

.ill tided to.
' If you lik cl, 'we had better begin at

190 Si.vty Years of Recollections

once.' However, after a few minutes of work and
preliminary essay, during which she seemed uncertain
of her powers and doubtful of her effects, she suddenly
stopped.

' My dear friend, do you know what we must do/
she said, c we must cut out that scene.'

' Are you joking ? ' I replied, ' what, cut out the
most powerful, the most novel, and the most effec-
tive scene in the whole of the three acts as far as you
are concerned ? ' * Never mind me and my effects ;
let us look to the part and above all, to the play. It's
my opinion that this scene kills the piece, because it
kills the interest in it.'

4 You cannot surely mean what you say,' I replied,
' the interest positively converges towards this.' * Yes,'
an interest of horror and sickening terror, but that is
not what we want in the third act. Just reflect for a
moment that I have to slay my children, and remain
sympathetic all the while. I repeat " sympathetic,"
whilst killing them. How can I command sympa-
thy five minutes after committing an atrocious deed,
after murdering in cold blood, treacherously and
foully ? The murder of Creusa on the stage, makes
the murder of the children impossible ; the one drags
down the other, and I become simply a wholesale
murderess. I feel the loss of that scene as well as
you do ; I am perfectly aware of what I could make
of it, but afterwards, I would fail to believe in the
reality of my tears.'

Sixty Years of Recollections 191

For a moment I looked at her without replying ; I
confess I was amazed at seeing a woman of no
education formulate instinctively and by sheer force
of intellect, a most profound piece of criticism.
Then I took her hand, and said : * You are quite
right, I will cut out that scene/

' You are really delightful,' she exclaimed, throwing
her arms round my neck.

1 You will own, however,' I said laughing, * that it is
vastly amusing to see me cut the very scene round
which my piece was written.'

\ -thing is more conducive to mutual confidence
and suggestion, than such genuine and heartfelt colla-
boration between two individuals. The communion of
mind leads to the communion of hearts, and as a
consequence the discussion that day gradually drifted
from the tragedy to the tragedienne herself, from
Medea to Mdlle. Rachel. Without the least premedi-
tation she began to talk of her debuts, of the hopes
she cherished when she was young, of her own life,
until at last she confided to me a fact so curious and
so much redounding to her honour, that I cannot re-
thc pleasure of telling it We had been chatting
about Polyeucte and Pauline. ' Ah,' she exclaimed,
'Pauline's is the part I probably liked best, nay,

Chipped most in my life.' She laid great Sf
on the word worshipped.

'The character has produced a strange sensation in
me, whi people would credit You

192 Si.vfy Years of Recollections

ask me what it was ? I will tell you. You remember
that after having created it with great success, I
suddenly relinquished it ? ' ' I even remember the
curious explanation given at the time,' I replied.
' I know what you refer to/ she said laughing.

* They wanted to make out that I was jealous of
Beauvallet as Polyeucte. I, jealous of Beauvallet,
a very likely thing indeed. The truth is, that I
ceased to play Pauline for a while, out of respect for
the character. You do not know what a strange
creature I am. A fatal accident in my life brought
me in contact with a man of low sentiments and
ideas, but of powerful intellect, by which he soon
gained such mastery over me, that while cursing it
I submitted to it.' ' But why did you submit ? '

* Why indeed ? You men of intellect fancy you are
lynx-eyed, and all the while you are simply so many
moles when it comes to reading our hearts, the hearts
of actresses who happen to be women at the same
time. You simply see nothing at all ; true, we our-
selves often see no more than that. Why did I sub-
mit to a man I hated and despised ? Because he had
a hold on me, because he had got hold of a secret
which he used as a weapon against me, because he
had persuaded me that he could further my theatri-
cal career. To be frank with you, I am not quite sure
that I did not look upon his perverse power over me
as a proof of force. And yet, so intensely did I loathe
him, that one night in the first act of " Maria Stuart "

Sixty Years of Recollections 1 93

I actually put a small pistol in my pocket, with the
firm intention of shooting him in the stage-box in
which he always showed himself conspicuously when-
ever I played. What a sensation it would have
caused ! ' Of course I smiled when I heard her utter
this bit of theatrical bombast, and she went on : ' I
understand, you think I am only acting a bit of
comedy before you. Never mind,' she added with
strange persistence, ' I wanted you to know this story
and I want you to believe it, for it is the plain unvar-
nished truth. I gave up the part of Pauline so sud-
denly, because I felt unworthy of playing it, because
there came a time when I hated myself so much that
I felt I could no longer act so noble a character and
utter the lofty sentiments placed on her lips. Those
admirable lines burnt my tongue like fire, and I
could speak them no longer, I really could not ! '

She spoke with such apparent truth, that her words
made a profound impression upon me and I became
serious. Then she went on in an attitude and voice
til never forget: 'That all this sounds very im-
probable, I know full well ; but what would you say
if I laid bare my uh<U lu art to you? You have a
great :i<>n for me, I believe? You all go into

ecsta n you hear me declaim some great j>

Well, let me tell you, there was once a Rachel within
me ten times greater than the one you know. I

that mi;.;ht 1
been mine. I li roof of some talent, no

1 94 Sixty Years of Recollections

doubt, but I might have been a genius. Ah ! would
that I had been differently brought up, that my sur-
roundings had been different. If I had led a different
life, what an artist I should have been. When I think
of all this, I am torn by such regrets . . . .' Here
she came to a sudden stop and covered her face with
her hands for a minute or two, until I saw tears trick-
ling through her fingers. I was very much astonished
and asked myself how much truth there was in what
I saw? Were these genuine tears, or had she the
gift of producing them at will ? Was it her intention
to deceive me, or did she deceive herself? Imagina-
tion is so important a factor in shaping the actions of
those high-strung creatures, that one never knows
where the truth begins, and where it ends. What
was the cause of her being so deeply moved ? Was
it regret at a non-realised artistic ideal, or was she
merely creating a part as she went on ? Did she
want to impose upon me ?

Mme. Talma has left it on record that her
emotion in ' Iphigenie ' was caused not by the lines of
Racine but by the sound of her own voice in deliver-
ing them. Was Mdlle. Rachel's a similar instance?
Did she feel moved at the sound of her own voice ?
Had she a particular reason for selecting me as the
depositary of her confessions, I who could hardly be
termed a friend ? I was lost in speculation and ex-
pected every moment to see her remove her hands
from her face, laugh in mine at the sight of my

Sixty Years of Recollections 195

emotion and hear her say. 'That was well done, I
see I have played my part well ' Nothing of the
kind happened. She dried her tears and said
quietly, ' Now you know me better than many others
who fancy they know me intimately.'

I went away deeply moved, astonished and de-
lighted. This conversation seemed a happy augury
to myself. Changeable as I knew her to be, I could
hardly imagine that she would not keep faith with a
man to whom she had confided so much. The noble
character she had assumed before me for a moment
would bind her more or less, if only for the pleasure
it would afford her to appear in such a light. In
short, I felt very hopeful. Three days later, however,
I heard that Mdlle. Rachel was about to start for
Russia, and thus put an end to the rehearsals of
' Medee.'

It was a severe shock ; a peculiar circumstance

made the case more aggravating. There happened

to be a vacant chair at the Academy and I had

counted on this very ' Md6e ' as one of my best

claii The departure of Mdlle. Rachel, then,

dashed all my hopes to the ground ; still I was not

She wrote to me that her journey

would simply delay the production of our piece for

months, and I pretended to believe her. We

often confuse faithless folk by pretending t<> p]

faith in them. It, as it v rCCfl their hand.

hese three months of waiting, I cndcavoi;

196 Sixty Years of Recollections

to discover in that strange character itself the reason
of that hope against hope, which might still remain in
me. During those three months, I made some pro-
found psychological studies indeed. I fancy the
reader will feel some interest in this little voyage of
discovery.

Ill

Mdlle. Rachel had no doubt an excellent heart.
No more affectionate daughter, no more loving sister,
no more devoted mother than she. Dependents,
inferiors, servants, the 'small fry' of the theatre,
simply worshipped her. While in London, I saw her
burst into tears on hearing of the death of a young
Neapolitan Prince at the age of twenty-three, and she
sobbed so violently, that her brother who was at the
same time her manager, was afraid it might impair
her voice for that night, and with the practical
philosophy of the manager told her ' that we are all
mortal.' But I also remember having caught her one
day in her dressing-room dancing a sort of cancan in
the costume of Virginia. ' Oh, Mademoiselle Rachel,'
I exclaimed, ' and in that dress too, it really is too
horrible.' ' That is just why it is charming, you
great ninny,' she retorted, laughing. ' After all, my
dear fellow, in my inmost heart I am a little mounte-
bank.' This was true and not true ; she was a little
mountebank and at the same time she was a Virginia.
A tragic actress in virtue of her voice, intelligence

Sixty Years of Recollections 197

and gait, she was before everything an actress at heart
and in her inmost soul. One day, after an aristo-
cratic reception where she had assumed all the airs of
a great lady, she felt the need of having her ' fling,'
and there and then before some friends indulged in
antics and gestures worthy of the veriest guttersnipe.
That was the strange, characteristic mark of this
multiple being. The incongruous was the acme of
her delight. Blended with everything else, and ever
floating to the top, there was the temperament of
the jeering, flouting street-arab, speaking all kinds
of languages and changing her vocabulary according
to her interlocutor, delighting most in getting the
laugh of folk, and catching them unaware.

Poor M. Viennet had a specimen of this to his cost.
M. Viennet was a man of parts and talent ; he was
loyal to a fault, brusque to a degree that might
be mistaken for good-nature, all his defects ag-
gravated, by an amount of self-esteem, which was
no doubt justified by his merits ; unfortunately his
conceit and his merits pulled different ways. He
a very successful, satirical poet, and considered
himself a tragic writer of genius. One day, then,
he made his appearance in Mdlle. Rachel's dressing-
room.

4 You probably do not know me, mademoiselle.
I ,nn Yirnnet'

'Oh, monsieur, 'lied in her most wheedling

voice, 'who does not know .... Vicnn

198 5/lr/x Years of Recollections

* I have been told that you would like to create a
new part.'

' I am dying to do so.'

' I have brought you a most admirable part.'

4 There is no need to add the superlative.'

* I want no compliments, and have no wish to sell
you a pig in a poke. I do not ask you to enact my
tragedy, but simply to let me read it to you. True,
I am perfectly certain that when you have heard
it . . . .'

' And I feel equally sure.'

* Then you are agreeable to my reading it ? '

'Am I agreeable, M. Viennet? I am only too
pleased. Nay, if you will permit me to say so, too
proud that you should have selected so humble an
artist as myself to be your interpreter.'

' Very well ; when shall it be then ? To-morrow ? '

' Yes, say to-morrow.'

' At two o'clock ? '

' Yes, at two o'clock.'

Thereupon Viennet departs triumphant, but trium-
phant without surprise, calm, as becomes a man who
has simply received the homage due to him.

' She is really very nice and charming this young
tragedienne,' he says to everyone he meets. ' A good
deal of brain, taste, and tact. She is absolutely bent
on playing my Roxane.'

Next day he calls at the appointed hour.

* Madame is not at home.'

Si.i'fy Years of Recollections 199

He calls again the next day.

' Madame is not well.'

On the third day he rings the bell in a perfect
rage. Her man-servant opens the door.

' Mademoiselle Rachel ? '

4 Will you please step in ! '

At last; thinks poor Viennet, as he is being shown
into a small drawing-room, where an elegant young
man with the ribbon of the Legion of Honour in his
buttonhole, is already waiting.

* Will monsieur give me his card,' says the man.

' My name is sufficient Viennet.'

' I will go and see if Madame is at home,' with which
the man opens the door of a second room, and our poor
poet overhears Mdlle. Rachel saying to the servant :

' M. Viennet ! Tell him that I am sick of him.'

The reader may fancy the fury of our poor poet,
especially when the young fellow smiles. 'You would
not think it a laughing matter, monsieur,' says
Viennet, * if like myself you had come for the third

'Oh, M. Viennet,' interrupts the young fellow, still
smiling, 'that's a mere nothing compared to what she
would do to you if you were her lo\ <

The recollection of this incident was not calculate-']
to reassure me. Hut here is another story which
me still greatet anxiety.

In her >uiu; days Mdllc. Rachel had what

mi-ht IK- called her p 1C period. I am alluding

2OO T Years of Recollections

to the time when the Faubourg St. Germain had taken
her under its wings as the high Priestess of art. She
was asked to 1'Abbaye-aux-Bois, to meet the Arch-
bishop of Paris, so that he might hear her recite.
Her spotless fame was like a sacred fire, around which
some of the greatest ladies of France kept watch.
One of these, by no means the least illustrious or the
least clever, wishing to show her respect for the great
artist before the world at large, took her in an open
carriage in broad daylight for a drive to the Champs-
Elyse"es, her own daughter sitting with her back to
the horses. On their return from this drive, Mdlle.
Rachel flung herself at the Duchess' feet, exclaiming
in a voice broken by emotion and tears : ' Oh Madame,
such a proof of esteem from you is more precious to
me than all my talent.' The emotion of the actress
was fully shared by the Duchess and her daughter,
who both asked Rachel to rise, and embraced her.
Shortly afterwards, Mdlle. Rachel takes leave. The
grand drawing-room led into two smaller ones.
Mdlle. Rachel crossed these latter two without having
noticed that the Duchess' daughter had accompanied
her as a mark of respect and sympathy. When she
gets to the last door, Mdlle. Rachel opens it, turns
round, and fancying herself quite alone, simply puts
her finger to her nose and inflates her cheeks like
Gavroche when he wishes to express his contempt for
men and things in general.

Unfortunately this last door had panels of looking-

Si.vfy Years of Recollections 201

glass which reflected the actress' movement, into the
second drawing-room, where the Duchess' daughter
was still lingering. She catches sight of Rachel and
her expressive pantomime, rushes back to her mother
and, choking with indignation, tells her what she has
seen. She herself told me the story some time after-
wards, and while telling it could scarcely suppress
her emotion. I pointed out to her that she took the
matter much too seriously, that Mdlle. Rachel was
really not so ungrateful as she appeared, that she was
neither indifferent to the Duchess' good opinion, nor
failed to appreciate her kindness to herself. The
matter was simply this, when she reached the door,
the small mischievous imp that lives in her brain,
popped out of its box and began to jeer at her real
feeling.

My philosophical leniency may have merely sprung
from the wish to keep up my own courage, but
later on this foresaid little imp, when I began to
think of him, caused me much uneasiness, -and my
forebodings proved correct.

On her return from Russia, Mdlle. Rachel told me
plainly that she had no intention of ever playing
1 Medee.' I was furious and commenced an action
against her which I won. She appealed and lost
again. She was cast in six thousand francs damages
which I divided between the Society of Drair.
Authors Society of Authors. I then published

my piece, and the rapid sale of several edition

2O2 ty Years of Recollections

abled my friends at the Academy to construe this
into a valid claim to the vacant chair. I had my re-
venge, but it was after all an unsatisfactory one, see-
ing that the foremost condition of the success of a
play is its representation on the stage. I still craved
for further reparation, when the luckiest chance of
my whole life, perhaps, brought me in contact with
a tragic actress of genius, to wit, Adelaide Ristori.

' Mede"e ' transformed into ' Medea' became for that
grand interpreter the means of a veritable triumph, in
which I had my share. My tragedy, taken by her to
every capital in Europe, and even to America, trans-
lated successively into Italian, English, German and
Dutch, was enacted everywhere except on the stage
for which it had been written.

But the most surprising result of my success, was
my reconciliation with Mdlle. Rachel. With one of
her characteristic, generous impulses, she was the first
to applaud my success, instead of being vexed at it.
She was thankful to me for having taken up my own
cudgels and avenged myself in that manner, even
upon her. My step invested me with a certain
grandeur in her eyes, and she was the first to hold
out the hand of friendship under circumstances I shall
never forget. She was at Cannet and dying. Pure
chance brought me thither, and I immediately went
to see her. I was told that her days were spent in
those alternate periods of illusion and sombre clair-
voyance which are the invariable symptoms of organic

Years of Recollections 203

diseases. ' For six hours a day I am full of hope,
during the rest I am plunged in despair/ she kept
on saying. Her terrible sufferings now and then
became plastically manifest in attitudes replete with
statuesque and noble grace, attitudes of which she
was perfectly conscious, for your great dramatic
artist never forgets his ego even amidst the most
cruel bodily and mental suffering. He is actor and
spectator in one.* However real his despair, he
watches the rendering of it. Mdlle. Rachel felt that
her poses as a young invalid were elegant to a
degree ; she looked upon herself as a beautiful
statue personifying ' Grief.'

As she was too ill to see me when I called, she
sent word that she was deeply affected by my visit,
and would I call again. When I did return, her
sister handed me a letter dictated by her. It was
full of affectionate expressions of regard as well as of
regret for the past, and ended with the following
passage which affected me doubly : both by its proof
of her confidence in me, and by the gleam of hope it
expressed.

1 A hicntdt, we shall meet again either here or in
You are the author who most truthfully
rays woman's nature. Promise me that you
will write me a part for my re-appearam

* Two or three hours before his death, Quin suddenly awoke to
consciousness. ' I should like to be conscious to the very last, to see
whether I look the correct reading of my character,' he said.

2O4 .S/.r/r Years of Recollections

Three days later, she was dead. Something of her
remained behind.

The reader will remember her heartrending sobs
at the rehearsal of ' Adrienne,' her fear of dying
young, and that sad phrase : ' Soon there will be
nothing left of what was once Rachel.'

She was mistaken, however, something does re-
main of her, the halo round her name !

We link it almost naturally with that of another
young and sublime artist, taken away like Rachel, in
the prime of life. We speak in the same breath of
Rachel and of Malibran.

CHAPTER VI

A Portrait-Gallery. Samuel Hahnemann, the Inventor of Homoepathy.
How I became acquainted with him. Hahnemann and his Wife
at my little Daughter's Bedside. A physical Portrait. His Direc-
tions.' Throw Physic to the Dogs.' He predicts the Crisis to a
Minute. He saves my Daughter's Life. The Paris Faculty of
Medicine disgusted. A Doctor a la Moliere. It would have been
better that this little girl should have died. The Origin of Hahne-
mann's System. His Language. His religious Belief. The Sen-
tence under my Daughter's Portrait. Madame Hahnemann. Her
History. Her Faith in her Husband. Hahnemann's Dietary. His
Death at eighty-three. Chretien Urhan. An ascetic Musician.
His physical Portrait. How he reconciled his Religion with his
Art. He gets a Dispensation from the Archbishop of Paris to
play in the Orchestra of the Ope*ra. How he did play. A Vision
and what came of it. His Visits to my Wife. A Lesson to a
Lady of Title. His Reverence for the Composer's Idea. Ho in
troduces Schubert to Frenchmen. Jean-Jacques Ampere. Jean.
Jacques' Father. Absentmindedness of the- Father and Son.
Ampere's personal Belongings. The Difference between the
Father and Son intellectually.

I

SAMUEL HAHNEMANN was one of the great revolu-
tionaries of the nineteenth crntury. It was he who
towards 1835 began a revolution in mcdiYal

!i still lasts I am not discussing the system,
I am simply

An accident for which I could not be sufficiently
ful brought me in contact with him at tin-

206 .'y Years of Recollections

moment when his reputation was fast changing into
fame. I contributed, perhaps, something to this, and
the story of the intimate friendship that sprang up
between us may aid the reader in gaining an idea of
that extraordinary and superior human being.

My little daughter, then about four years old, lay
dying ; our family physician, who was attached to the

Hotel-Dieu, Dr R , had told one of our friends

in the morning that her condition was hopeless. Her
mother and I were watching perhaps for the last time
by her bedside : Schoelcher and Goubaux were with
us, and in the room was also a young man in evening
dress, who three hours before was a stranger to us.
His name was Amaury Duval and he was one of the
most promising pupils of M. Ingres.

We had wished to preserve at least a visible re-
membrance of the dear, little creature we were al-
ready bewailing as lost, and Amaury, at the urgent
request of Schoelcher* had left a reception in
order to paint that sad portrait. When the dear
and charming fellow, who was only twenty-nine then,
entered the room, deeply moved by our despair,
neither we nor he suspected that a few hours later he
should render us the greatest service anyone could
render us, and that we should be indebted to him for

* Victor Schoelcher, already mentioned ; one of the most magnificent
types of the honest straightforward, incorruptible Republican. He was
on the barricade with Baudin and Esquiros on the 3d December '51,
when Baudin was killed. TR.

.y Years of Recollections 207

more than the image of our daughter, namely, for
her life.

He took up his position at the foot of the cot, the
light of a lamp which had been placed on a high
piece of furniture fell on the face of the child. Her
eyes were already closed, the dishevelled hair was
falling on her temples, the small face and hands were
almost as white as the pillow on which her head re-
clined, but childhood itself is invested with such
charms, that her approaching death seemed to shed an
additional grace on her features. Amaury spent the
greater part of the night in making his sketch, the poor
fellow furtively wiping his eyes now and then, lest his
tears should drop on the paper. Towards morning
his drawing was finished, and influenced by his own
emotion, he had simply drawn a masterpiece. He
just going, accompanied by our affectionate and
heartfelt thanks when all of a sudden he stopped.
' Look here,' he said, ' seeing that your doctor has
declared the case to be hopeless, why not call to your
aid that new system of medicine which is beginning
to make so much noise in Paris, why not send for
Hahnrinann.' 'He is right,' exclaimed Goubaux,
' Hahm-inann is my neighbour, he lives in the Rue de
Milan, opposite i! I do not know him, but that

will make no din I am going to him and will

\ him back with me.' When Goubaux got to
Hahnemann's there were at 'y people in

the waiting room. The servant explains that he

Sixty Years of Recollections

must wait for his turn. ' Don't talk about waiting,'

shouts Goubaux. * My friend's daughter is dying ;
the doctor must go back with me immediately.' ' But,
monsieur,' protests the servant. ' Yes, I understand,
I understand,' says Goubaux, * I came in last What
does that matter. " The last shall be the first," says
the Gospel.' Then turning to those around him, he
adds, ' Is it not so, mesdames ? Am I not right in
supposing that you will give me your turn,' and with-
out waiting for an answer, he makes straight for the
doctor's consulting room, opens the door and
interrupts a consultation. ' Doctor,' he says to
Hahnemann, ' I know I am acting in defiance of all
regulations and conventionality, but you must put
aside everything and come with me. I want to
take you to a little girl of four who will surely die if
you do not go to her ; you cannot let her die, can you ? '
And his irresistible fascination produces its usual
effect ; an hour afterwards Hahnemann and his wife
enter the sickroom accompanied by Goubaux.

In spite of all my trouble and grief, in spite of my
brain racking with pain for want of sleep, I could not
help comparing the man who entered the room to one
of the characters from the weird tales of Hoffmann.
Short, but well-knitted and walking with a firm step,
wrapt in a furcoat from nape to heel and leaning on
a thick cane with golden knob, he walked at once to
the bedside. He was close upon eighty then, with an
admirable head of long and silky hair combed back-

Sixty Years of Recollections 209

wards and carefully arranged into a roll round the
neck ; eyes, of a dark blue in the centre with an
almost white ring round the pupil, a proud, command-
ing mouth with protruding lower lip and aquiline
nose. After having cast a first look at the child, he
asked for particulars of her illness without taking his
- off her for an instant. Then his cheeks flushed,
the veins in his forehead stood out like whipcord and
in an angry voice, he exclaimed, 'Fling all those
drugs out of the window ; every vial and bottle that's
there. Take the cot from this room, change the
sheets and the pillows and give her as much water as
she will drink. They have lighted a furnace in the
poor child's body. We must first of all extinguish
the fire. After that we'll see.' We timidly objected
that this change of temperature and linen might
prove very dangerous to her. ' What will prove
fatal to her,' was the answer, * is this atmosphere and
the drugs. Carry her into the drawing-room, I'll
come back to-night. And above all, give her water,
as much water as possible.'

He came back that night, he came back next morn-

and began to give her medicines of his own. He

expressed no opinion as to the final issue, but merely

said each time, ' We have gained another day.' On

the tenth day the danger grcu all at once imminent.

hi Id':, knees had almost become rigid with the

chill of death. At eight o'clock at night he made

e, and remained lor a quarter of an

VOL. II o

2 1 o * of Recollections

hour. Apparently he was in a state of intense
anxiety, and after having consulted with his wife,
who always accompanied him, he handed us some
medicine saying, ' Give her this, and be careful to note
whether between now and one o'clock her pulse be-
comes stronger.' At eleven o'clock I was holding my
daughter's arm, when I fancied I felt a slight modifi-
cation in the pulsation. I called my wife, I called
Goubaux and Schoelcher. Let the reader picture to
himself the four of us, looking at the watch, counting
the beats of the pulse, not daring to affirm anything,
fearing to rejoice until a few minutes had elapsed,
when we absolutely flung ourselves into one another's
arms, the pulse had 'gone up.' Towards midnight
Chretien Urban * entered the room. After looking
at the child, he drew to my side, saying with an air
of profound conviction, ' My dear M. Legouve", your
daughter is safe.' ' She is a trifle better,' I answered,
scarcely knowing what I said, ' but as for her being out
of danger, let alone on the way to recovery . . .' 'I
tell you she is safe,' he insisted, then bending over
the cot by which I was sitting alone, he kissed her
on her forehead and went away.

A week later, the patient was, in fact, on the road to
recovery. This cure assumed the importance of an
event in Paris, I might almost say that it created a
scandal. I was not altogether unknown and people

M. Legouve" has given a portrait of Chretien Urhan which will be
found in the following pages. TR.

.V/.r/r Years of Recollections 211

freely used the words * miracle and resurrection.' The
whole of the medical faculty showed itself intensely

annoyed, poor Dr. R- was taken to task by all his

colleagues; very animated discussions took place both
in society and at the Faculty. One physician was
not ashamed to say aloud in M. de Jouy's drawing-
room : * I am very sorry this little girl did not die.'
The majority of the doctors confined themselves to
repeating the parrot cry : ' It's not the quack who
has cured her, but nature ; he simply benefited by the
allopathic treatment left to him by his predecessors.
To all of which objections I simply made the same
answer I still make : * What does it matter to me
whether he was the cause or the means of saving her ?
What does it matter to me whether she was saved at
his hands or between his hands? Was she as good
as dead when he entered my house ? Was she cured
when he left it? I wish to know no more than that
in order to be everlastingly grateful to him. Though
I may prove faithless to his doctrine, I will not be
faithless to his memory, and to me he will always
remain one of the most potential men I ever met.'

The very way in which he comvived his doctrine

is in itself a portrait. Was it calculation, self-intr

desi; .me that led to the conception, did he

arrive at it by purely scientific research ? Not at all.

tern sprang from his heart. A physician of

the hi^he^t rank, numbering among his patients the

.ul and wealthy in Germany, he claimed

212 Sixty Years of Recollections

one day the co-operation of one of his colleagues for
his youngest child. The case was very serious and
the most drastic treatment resorted to. All at once,
after a terrible night of suffering on the part of the
little one, Hahnemann, beside himself with pity and
grief, exclaimed : ' No, it is not possible that God
should have created those dear and innocent beings
for us to inflict such tortures upon. No, a thousand
times " No." I will not be the executioner of my
children.' And aided by his profound knowledge of
chemistry begotten from long study, he rushed as it
were in quest of new remedies and built up a com-
plete medical system of which his fatherly affection
was virtually the foundation. Such was the man, and
as he was then, he had always been. The powerful
structure of his face, his square jaws, the almost in-
cessant quiver of his nostrils, the constant twitching
of the mouth, the corners of which had dropped from
age, everything attested conviction, passion, power.
His language was as original as his character and
figure. One day I asked him why he always pre-
scribed water even to people in good health. ' What
is the use of crutches to people who have got sound
legs, and wine is after all no better than crutches.' It
is also from his lips that I heard that strange sentence
which, taken in its absolute sense, is apt to puzzle one,
but which, if properly understood goes to the very
foundation of medical science : * There are no dis-
eases, there are people who are ill.' His religious

Si.i-fy Years of Recollections 213

faith was as intense as his medical faith. I had two
striking proofs of this. One spring day on entering
his room, I said : ' Oh, monsieur, what a beautiful
day.' * They are all beautiful days,' he replied in his
calm and grave voice. Like Marc-Aurelitis he lived
in the bosom of a harmonious universe. When my
daughter was quite recovered, I showed him the
charming drawing of Amaury Duval. He looked for
a long while and with intense emotion at the picture
of the dear little creature he had snatched, as it were,
from the jaws of death, at the little creature, such as
he had seen her for the first time when she was on the
brink of the grave, then he asked me to give him
a pen and he wrote at the bottom :

4 God has blessed her and saved her.

SAMUEL HAHNEMANN.'

He simply looked upon himself as a minister who
countersigns the orders of his master.

1 1 is portrait would not be complete without that of
his wife. She never left his side. In his consulting-
room she sat at a small table close to his desk, work-
ing like him and for him. She was present at all his
consultations, whatever the sex of the patient, and the
subject of the consultation. She took all the symptoms
down in writing, gave her advice to her husband in
nan and prepared all the medicine. She accom-
panied him in the rare instances of his visiting a
patient at his own home. But the most notable fact
in connection with herself was that I lahnemann was

14 y Years of Recollections

the third old man to whom she had linked her ex-
istence in that way. She had started with a painter,
then passed on to an author and finished up with a
doctor.

Here is her history. When between five-and-
twenty and thirty Mdlle. d'Hervilly (that was her
maiden name), handsome, tall, elegant, with her
fresh and youthful face set in a frame of fair
curly hair, her small blue eyes as piercing as
any black ones, links her fate to that of a cele-
brated pupil of David. Without marrying the
painter, she becomes wedded to his style of painting
and might have signed more than one of his can-
vasses, as later she signed the prescriptions of Hahne-
mann. When M. L - died, she turned to poetry,
represented in this instance by a poet who was
seventy, for as she went, her taste for old men de-
veloped. Fired by the communion with the poet,
she took to writing short poems with the same ardour
she had shown in painting historical pictures, and
the poet having departed this life in the course of time,
she became somewhat tired of septuagenarians, and
married Hahnemann who was eighty. After that she
became as great a revolutionary in medical science as
she had been a classicist in literature and painting.
One day when complaining to her of the dishonesty
and want of loyalty of a servant whom we had been
obliged to dismiss, she said: 'Whydidyou not tell
me of this before ? We have remedies for that kind

Sixty ) 'cars of Recollections 2 1 5

of thing.' Let me hasten to add that, notwithstand-
ing this ingenuous remark, she was gifted with a very
remarkable intellect, and a touching skill as a sick
nurse. No one better than she understood the art
of alleviating the patient's suffering by numberless
small contrivances. To the pious ardour of a sister
of charity she added the ingenious delicacy of a well-
bred woman of the world. Her solicitude for Hahne-
mann was truly admirable. He died as it was fit he
should die. Until his eighty-fourth year he was the
most eloquent proof of the value of his doctrine.
Not a single ailment, not a single lapse of memory
or intellect. His way of living was simple, without
the slightest affectation of rigorism. He never drank
pure water or pure wine. A few spoonfuls of cham-
pagne in a decanter of water was his sole beverage,
and in the way of bread, he ate every day a small
baba.* ' It's more tender and easy for my old teeth,'
he said. In the summer when the evenings were fine,
he returned on foot from the Arc de Triomphe, and
stopped on his way home at Tortoni's to eat an ice.
One morning, on getting up, he felt less well than
usual. He took some medicine and said to his \\iie,
' If this does not act, my is serious.' Next

morning he felt weaker, and twenty-four hours later,
he passed away without pain, and recommending his
soul to God.

His death affected me greatly, and few men have

* A kind of sponge cake, sometimes soaked in rum or sherry.- '

216 .y Years of Recollections

impressed me with the idea to the extent he did
of being superior to their fellow-creatures. Then how
did I come to abandon his doctrine? Purely from
admiration of the man. It requires more than mere
confidence to be a follower of homoeopathy, it wants
faith. The theory of infinitesimal doses is so entirely
opposed to commonsense that one must blindly
believe in the man to be able to believe in the thing.
With the disappearance of Hahnemann my worship
fell with the object of my worship, and his successors
seemed to me such an immeasurable distance behind
him, that gradually and also owing to a new friend-
ship I had contracted I returned to the medical
creed of my forebears, in which I am likely to die. I
owed, nevertheless, this tribute to Hahnemann, and
my ex-voto will be all the more valuable, seing that it
is offered by an apostate.

II

During the first years of Louis-Philippe's reign
there was seen on the Boulevards every evening
about six, a short man, almost bent double, if not
absolutely humpbacked, and wrapt in a long light blue
coat. His head reclined on his chest, he was appar-
ently lost in deep thought, his eyes were invariably
turned towards the ground. His ashen-grey com-
plexion, his long nose, like that of Pascal, his ascetic
look which reminded one of a mediaeval monk, pro-
voked the question on the part of those who saw him,

Si.vfy Years of Recollections 217

'Who is this man?' The surprise became greater
still if they happened to see this cenobitical-looking
individual stop at the angle of the Rue Marivaux and
enter the doors of the Cafe" Anglais. But the surprise
changed into stupor if in about an another hour they
happened to see him emerge from the fashionable
restaurant, cross the road in the direction of the Rue
Le Peletier, disappear into the ' artists' entrance ' to the
Academic Nationale de Musique (otherwise the Opera)
and finally take his place among the musicians in the
orchestra. Who was he ? He was, in fact, a kind of
fourteenth century monk, pitchforked by accident
into the Paris of the nineteenth century and into the
: a. His name was Urhan, and his parents, as if
foreseeing what he would be, had named him Chretien
(Christian).

Chretien Urhan had two creeds. His soul was
equally divided between faith and music. He never
missed going to mass, strictly followed every penance
of the Catholic Church, fasted every day until six
o'clock, never tasted flesh, making his dinner of fish
and milk at the Cafe" Anglais, and played the first
violin at the Opera. What had induced him to
occupy a desk there? Assuredly he had not done
so without many in 1 violent struggles

with his conscience. His mysticism f,>rl>ade him to
co-operate in the interpretation of works put under
the ban of the Church, to be an active performer in
that amalgam of temptation and seduction, but on

218 Years of Recollections

the other hand, he believed nearly as much in Gluck,
Mozart and Rossini as in God, and he not only
worshipped religious music but dramatic music. To
give up listening to and playing ' Orphe/ * La Ves-
tale,' ' Guillaume Tell/ ' Les Huguenots,' etc., would
have driven him to despair. What was he to do ?
He got out of it by a dispensation and by a com-
promise. The dispensation was granted to him by
the Archbishop of Paris, who could not refrain from
smiling when Urhan came to ask him for permission to
play the violin at the Opera. The compromise was
simply a matter between himself and his conscience.
He promised himself to play with his back turned to
the stage and he kept his pledge. The temptation of
the eye was, at any rate, avoided in that way. He
never allowed himself to glance at an artist, at a piece
of scenery or a costume. The thing answered more
or less in the concerted pieces when the whole of the
orchestra was playing, but Urhan was first violin
(leader), as such he alone accompanied certain pas
of the ballet. These pas are as it were duos between
the instrumentalist and the ballerina ; in a duo the
executants should look at one another ; their looks
are the only means of communion. Urhan did not
trouble himself about that. At the beginning of the
piece he took up his instrument as one takes up one's
' beads/ and with his eyes closed he played the air
of the ballet, conscientiously, religiously and with a
great deal of expression, but without the least concern

Si.vfy Years of Recollections 219

for the ballerina. If she danced out of time, so much
the worse for her. I verily believe that if she had
slipped, Urban would have gone on till the end as
if nothing had happened.

Every one of his actions was stamped with the

same originality. I have often been in the room

when he called on my wife, whom he liked very much.

He would sit down by the fire, remain for a quarter of

an hour without uttering a \vord, then rise and say :

4 Good-bye, dear Madame Legouve, I felt the need of

seeing you.' One of his oldest friends, a lady to whom

he was in the habit of writing very often, has shown

me a letter of his in which the ordinary lines are

suddenly replaced by a bar of music, after which he

adds : ' Words failed to convey my idea, so I thought

I had better tell you what I wanted in music.'

Finally, he came to tell me one day how, while

strolling in the Bois de Boulogne, he had heard a voice

saying to him, ' Write this,' and how that voice had

there and then sung an air to him, how he ' noted the

air from that voice's dictation. Then handing me a

: of music, he added: 'Here is the piece, but

ig that it is not of my composing, I'll not assume

; -edit of it, and will call it " Transcription. 11 ' And

that, in fact, was the title under \\hich it appeared

with a short explanatory preface to it. The oddest

isiness though, was his constant

aty to me t<> write an article for some paper on

melody. ' Hut above all,' he said, 'do not in

22o , Years of Recollections

to point out its origin.' I felt in an awkward position.
On the one hand, I did not wish to refuse him, lest I
should vex him ; I did not wish to ridicule his version
of the affair, lest I should hurt his feelings ; I did not
wish to appear to believe in it, lest I should make
myself look ridiculous. After cudgelling my brain
for awhile, I managed to satisfy him and got out of
the difficulty with flying colours. But only one
Journal consented to print my miraculous story La
rette de France.

As a rule such eccentricities lend to laughter, but
no one ever dreamt of laughing at Urhan. Few men
of his time enjoyed greater consideration. The
sincerity of his faith, the austerity of his life, his
ardent charity (he gave away all he earned) com-
manded the respect and admiration of everyone.
People instinctively felt that he was what they
honour most and justly, a sterling individuality. His
dignity as an artist had become proverbial. This
dignity did not only spring from his self-respect, but
from a reverence for his art. I can quote a striking
proof of it. The Marquis de Prault, a very intelligent
amateur of music, had organised a series of matinees
of chamber music at his mansion in the Faubourg St
Honore and had confided their direction to Urhan,
who at the same time played the first violin. On one
occasion a young duchess (the Marquis' matinees had
become the fashion, society was delighted to air its
real or assumed appreciation of high-class music), a

.SY.r/r Years of Recollections 22\

young duchess, elegant and handsome, enters the
room in the middle of a piece, and after causing the
little flutter of excitement she was probably bent
upon causing by her late arrival, sits down and en-
gages in small talk with the lady next to her.
Urban gives a sharp rap on his desk, stops the
quartet, puts his bow under his arm, looks vaguely
around him until the noise has ceased and when
silence reigns once more gravely recommences the
piece da capo. I pledge you my word that from that
day forward no one ever made a noise at the matinees
of the Marquis de Prault. At the termination of the
performance I went up to him and congratulated him
on what he had done. ' I will never allow anyone to
show a want of respect in my presence, to a master-
/ he replied calmly. He had not felt hurt on
his own account, but on that of Beethoven.

As a^ virtuoso, Urhan only occupied a secondary
rank. There were a dozen more skilful violinists
than he in Paris, but he made up for his relative in-
rity as an executant by a gift as rare as it is
[oils, he had an individual style. Urhan's style
due to his profound knowledge of all the great
masters, also to his religious and unbending respect
heir works. He would no more permit any at-
tempt at altering their character in their execution,
than he would permit their perf'Tn:

Habeneck himself Qftefl had a hard tussle with him
on the sub; ially in the organisation of the

y Years of Recollections

concerts of the Conservatoire in which he (Urhan) had
proved himself one of the foremost and most useful
of auxiliaries. Any attempt of Habeneck to curtail
words or to suppress a few instruments in the render-
ing of a symphony met with the most determined
protest and opposition from Urhan, and on one occa-
sion when the double bass parts had been eliminated
from the Choral Symphony, Urhan drew attention to
the sacrilege in an article and signed it.

Urhan had a still more individual merit. As a rule
the admirers of the past have a contempt for the
present. Their admiration of the old masters becomes
complicated in virtue of their contempt for the new.
Their cult is a jealous, narrow, exclusive cult. They
build for themselves a kind of small Olympus whence
they do not emerge, and the entrance to which they
strenuously defend. Urhan's love of the old masters
was only equalled by his passionate admiration for
the masters of our time, and even of those of ' to-
morrow.' Urhan was as it were a musical sleuth-
hound, and he also brought the apostle's zeal to bear
upon this. It was he who introduced Schubert to
Frenchmen. Schubert is somewhat shelved to-day,
nevertheless, he caused a musical revolution among
us. He showed us that one might and could write
masterpieces of one page. To a certain extent, and
from a particular point of view, one might call him
the La Fontaine of music, because he crams as much
science, as much art, as much pathos and as much

Sixty Years of Recollections 223

thought into a few bars as La Fontaine did into a
few verses. Before Schubert, the great dramatic com-
posers, Mozart, Gliick, Rossini, Auber, Harold, HaleVy
and others considered it incompatible with their art
to write short compositions, the writing of which they
left to the composers of songs. Schubert has killed
the ' romance ' and created the ' melody/ in which
branch of musical art Weber, Gounod, Massenet,
Delibes, Paladilhe have since th'en ' created ' a whole
series of short but delightful masterpieces.

Well, it was Urhan who introduced the first lied of
Schubert to Frenchmen ; it was Urhan who, with
matchless energy and perseverance, found a trans-
lator, a publisher, and finally a public for him.
Finally, and as a finishing touch to this portrait,
when Liszt conceived the idea of organising the
concerts at the Salle Erhard (Erard), in order to
secure as brilliant an execution for the sonatas, duos
and trios of Beethoven as had been given to sym-
phonies, he selected Batta as his 'cellist, and Urhan
as his violinist. \Ve shall not meet with the like of
t'rhan as a musician again. He belonged to the race
of mystical artists of the Middle Ages. Whenever I
watched him caressing his instrument at the Opera,
: like looking at a picture of Fra Beato Angelico
painting in his cell. One might well apply to him the
much-abused term, 'the heaven of art,' because to
him art and heaven meant the self-same thing.

JJ4 5tVr Ydirs of Recollections

III

I met Jean-Jacques Ampere for the first time while
I was a candidate for a vacant chair at the Academie-
Fr;ingaise. At seven o'clock when we sat down, quite
by accident, next to one another at the hospitable
board of the Comte de Belle- Isle, one of the most
delightful dilettante I have known, we were strangers ;
at nine o'clock, there had sprung up a bond between
us. We had, at any rate, one point in common,
he was the son of a man of genius; I was the son
of a man of talent, and we had both been brought
up in the worship of our respective fathers, and with
the happy burden of an honourable name to sustain.
In addition to this, my multifarious tastes responded
to his multifarious gifts. From the first moment I
felt amazed at the fertility and spontaneity of that
imagination. Since then, I have known him most
intimately ; I was sincerely attached to him, and in
order to define his character accurately I have been
compelled to invoke the names of the most brilliant
and illustrious in legend and history preserving, of
course, all due proportion in my comparisons. One
thing is, however, certain : the most insatiable con-
querors never pursued their conquests with the feverish
passion of J. J. Ampere in quest of a masterpiece, a
monument or a discovery* What was his specialty ?

* Jean-Jacques Ampere, the son of the eminent savant J. C. Ampere
whose name is best known in connection with the first experiments in
electric telegraphy in France. Jean-Jacques' is familiar to all students
of French literature. TR.

Sixty Years of Recollections 22$

Well, his specialty was everything. Poetry, the
drama, archaeology, history, criticism, everything
attracted him, and nothing seemed sufficient. After
the dead languages, the modern ; after the modern,
hieroglyphics, after the study of books, the study of
countries, after the study of countries, the study of
men. At twenty he went to live for three months near
Goethe in order to gain an accurate knowledge of the
high-priest of contemporary poetry. He was not a
traveller, simply an inhabitant of every country on
the face of the earth. He was just as much at home
in Rome, in London, in Heidelberg as in Paris.
Added to this, a thorough man of the world and
conversant with the usages of the best society every-
where, for he had been welcomed in every intellectual
and artistic set in Europe. He knew all their under-
currents, all the little foibles and hobbies of the men
and women of which these sets were composed. This
familiar knowledge, together with his immense and
universal scholarship made him the most extraor-
dinar '. have ever met with. From one end

of Kurope to the other, people said 'the charming

Amp

That adjective greatly annoyed M. de R^musat to
whom it was also frequently applied. He was i

tin \\onl implies something superficial, artificial,

.vhich no more suffices to paint the character

Of Am:* r than that of the author of ' Alu-lanl. 1

Ampere's soul was to the full as richly endowed as
VOL. II i'

S of Recollections

his mind. The generosity of his feelings was only
equalled by the tenderness of his affection. But he
could be contemptuously indignant as well. An
ardent advocate of liberty like his master and friend
M. de Tocqueville, the Coup d'Etat drove him to a
state of veritable fury. For thirteen long years he
never ceased to launch his invectives both written
and spoken, in prose as in verse, against the new
empire, and more than once he was within an ace of
being seriously compromised. Two love - passions
equally odd, filled the whole of his existence. At
twenty he fell madly in love with a woman of forty ;
at sixty he conceived an ardent affection for a girl of
twenty. Both passions were the more durable inas-
much as neither was shared, and only ceased with the
death of the object of it. Odd to relate, for every-
thing in connection with him is odd, that heart, al-
ways in bondage was the companion of a character
stubbornly and savagely independent. The slightest
restraint was odious to him, he would be slave to
nothing. He never had a home, he rented a room, no
matter where, by the month or by the day as fancy
dictated. He never bought any furniture ; all his
earthly possessions in that way consisted of a trunk
if that can be called furniture in which he stored his
manuscripts, books, toilet requisites and clothes. The
latter, to tell the truth, did not take up much room.
He never had more than one coat ; when it was worn
out, a fact of which he himself was never conscious, a

.SY.r/r Years of Recollections 227

lady of his acquaintance replaced it by another, of
which substitution he was equally unconscious. I
said just now that he would be slave to nothing: I
was mistaken. He was slave to his manuscripts.
One day when wo were both going to Gurcy, the
country seat of Mme. de Haussonville, he came to the
station, wearing round his waist a belt, to which was
attached a bag containing his papers and to which he
seemed to be rivetted, looking not unlike a convict.
He could not help laughing at himself.

Those precautions sprang from his fear of his own
forgetfulness and absent-mindedness, and the apprehen-
sion was not unfounded. He was the true son of his
father, whose absent-mindedness had become legend-
ary with the pupils of the 6cole Polytechnique and the
instances of which were handed down from generation
to generation. M. Ampere wiping his face with the
cloth intended to wipe the black board, and turn-
ing to his pupils with his face a mass of chalk ; M.
Ampere beginning to work out a problem on the
back of a cab which happened to be standing still at
the moment and running after his diagrams when the
vehicle started ; M. Ampere leaving his little girl for
a whole day in a waiting-room ; M. Ampere entering
his drawing-room in full dress, j uevious to going to tin-
Academy, coat, waistcoat, cocked hat, sword, in short,
LVC the must indispensable article of
\\V11, his son was worthy of him. One day at
Mine. C- here he spent the last years of his

228 SLi'fy Years of Recollections

life, surrounded by watchful care for his every comfort,
he entered the dining-room in a distracted state, just
as they were sitting down to table. ' I can't make it
out,' he said, * I don't know what I have done with the
key of my room. I have looked for it everywhere and
cannot find it.' ' Ask the servant.' ' I have asked ;
he has not got it.' 4 Where can you have left it ? '-
' That's what I can't make out. I have looked every-
where, in the drawers, in the wardrobe, in my little
cupboard, I can't find it anywhere.' * Did you say
you had looked in the chest of drawers ? ' asked the
sprightly hostess. * Yes.' ' In the chest of drawers
in your room ? ' ' Yes.' ' Then you did get into your
room.' ' Of course I got into my room, seeing that I
am telling you that I looked everywhere.' ' But how
did you get into your room ? ' * Parbleau, with my
. . . True,' he exclaimed, * I got in with my key.
That is really too funny, it must have been in the
lock, and it is there still.' There is no need to
describe the laughter which hailed the last words.

Unlike his father, his absent-mindedness never in-
terfered with his affections, which neither distance,
time, nor place, could diminish, let alone efface. One
day while at Rome, near the first woman he wor-
shipped I am alluding to Mme. Recamier a letter
reaches him from his father, claiming his immediate
return to Lyons, where the elder Ampere happened
to be at that time, a letter couched in the most affec-
tionate terms. He tears himself away from the

Sixty Years of Recollections 229

woman he loves, and arrives in Lyons, his heart al-
most breaking. He is welcomed with open arms,
next morning at breakfast his father takes his seat,
evidently lost in thought and without uttering a

i. Suddenly he looks up and says, 'Jean-
Jacques/ (he had named his son Jean-Jacques in re-
membrance of Rousseau), 'Jean-Jacques, it is very
odd, but I fancied that the sight of you would give

;reater joy than it has done.'

Those very comical and artlessly cruel words would
never have been uttered by the Ampere with whom
I am dealing.

In fact, no two men could have been more like and
at the same time more unlike than that father and
that son. Those two superior intellects had two
characteristics in common, fertility of invention and
the faculty of initiative. But the moment they are at
work, the bifurcation commences. While the father,
confining himself strictly to science, evolves from his
concentration on one point two or three immortal
discoveries, the son like a river which has broken its
dams, expands his genius over a hundred different
works. Are we to regret this? No. In circum-

)ing hi>. .sphere of action he might, perhaps, have
produced a more enduring work, but he would not
have been himself, namely, that multiple being,

;ed with electricity and emitting sparks at every
shock. His works are merely ..ml ' works.

de la I.itUT.itureau Trei/ieine Sifccle,' his

230 Sixty Years of Recollections

1 Histoire Romaine a Rome,' his archaeological studies
are more or less forgotten, because there have been so
many imitations of them. The domain of thought is
like America, there are two classes of labourers there,
the pioneers who make their way into the backwoods,
clear the land, carry light and life where there was
nought but solitude before them, and the architects,
the builders who raise houses and monuments and
virtually efface the trace of the labours that served as
the foundations of theirs. Ampere was a pioneer.
He was more than that. He deserved a better title,
which was given to him finally by a very eloquent
voice. On the day of his funeral, the scholarly and
brilliant M. Haureau suddenly felt some one grasp his
arm. It was a man of about forty, who in a tone of
deep, intense conviction said to him, ' Monsieur, he
whom we have just consigned to his last resting-place
was a great citizen.' The man who spoke thus was
Montalembert.

CHAPTER VII

The Portrait-Gallery continued. Two Dramatic Counsellors. What
constitutes a Dramatic Counsellor ? Germain Delavigne. A
Trio of Sucking Playwrights. Scribe and the two Delavignes at
work. Their Thursday's Dinners. An Exchange of Subjects. A
Witticism of Louis Philippe. M. MaheYault. Dramatic Coun-
sellor and Art Collector. M. MaheVault's one Client. M. Maher-
ault's Father. The Origin of the Comedie-Fransaise of To-day.
The Actors of the old Comedie-Francaise during the Reign of
Terror. The Difficulties of constituting the Comedie-Francaise.
Council's Opinion. The Way it is Received. Virgil's Timidity.
A IVench Counterpart of Sir Fretful Plagiary. Scribe's Way of
accepting Advice. An Anecdote of Gouvion Saint-Cyr. How the
Abbe' was introduced into 'Adrienne Lecouvreur.' Maherault's
Passion for the Drama. Mahdrault as an Art Collector. The Sale
of his Collection.' If after Death the Shades can feel.'

I

OF .ill the productions of the brain, dramatic works

the mo ptiblc of improvement by sug-

u from the outside. And yet young authors

are often told not to depend upon the advice of others.

'Above all, try to be yourself,' repeats the would-be

critic. 'Avoid your originality, your individuality

being tampered with.' To all of which I reply by

pointing to Moliere who not only consulted his

mt, but the Prince de Conde besides. When

iSY.r/r YAWS of Recollections

the first three acts of 'TartufTe' were finished, Molicre
read them to the Prince. ' Your piece wants an
additional scene, Moliere.' ' What kind of one,
Prince?' 'People will be sure to accuse you of
scoffing at religion, anticipate their criticism by
marking the difference between real and sham piety.'
Result : the admirable lines, beginning with

'11 est de faux devots ainsi que de faux braves.'

It seems to me that what has been useful to
Moliere cannot be altogether useless to others.
Besides, there are facts, which in themselves settle
the question. In the poem, the novel, the historical
or moral work the author appeals directly to the
reader. When he has written ' The End ' at the
bottom of his manuscript his work is virtually finished.
When the playwright has penned the same word he
is only half-way. A book is a self-dependent work,
not so a play. It has virtually two births : at the
first, the author may lay claim to the ' sole paternity,'
but at the second, when it leaves the swaddling
clothes of manuscript to make its appearance on
the stage, the intermediaries between it and the
public are numberless. The licenser of plays and
his readers, the managers, the actors, the spectators
at the dress rehearsals are so many counsellors with
whom the author discusses, against whom he defends,
at whose suggestions he demolishes, certain parts and
reconstructs other parts of his work. We have but

.y Years of Recollections 233

to ask the most skilful playwrights and they will tell
us how much they owe to advice from the outside.

Unfortunately the efficient dramatic adviser is rare
indeed. Neither natural brilliancy, nor a cultivated
intellect is sufficient to fit him for the post. I have
known men of sterling intellectual merit, remarkable
writers whose opinion on a book was equivalent to a
verdict and who at the hearing of a piece emitted
opinions altogether valueless. On the other hand, I
have known men of the world with little or no know-
ledge of literature whose impressions of a play were
infallible as a test of its worth with regard to the
public. And why ? Because the judgment of a play
requires before even-thing, a great deal of intuition,
instinct, I might say, the gift of divination. When
a piece is read to you, you have not to appreciate it
as it is, but as it will be. The stage will altogether
transform it, hence in listening to it, your mind's eye
must see it beforehand as it will be on the stage, you
must foresee or guess what that perspective of the
is likely to add to or take away from it ; you
must, by a kind of foreknowledge, enter into the pre-
judices, take count of the susceptibilities of that
highly strung and many-sided collective being we call
the public. This or that phrase which passes un-
noticed before three or four list< nines, all at
once, in a large play-house, enormous: proportions. In
some ca i matter of latitude; a play
that Is in one quarter may be a failure in

:v Yt-tjrs of Recollections

another. This should certainly be considered. Then
there is the interpretation, the surrounding circum-
stances, and the fickleness in judgment. Hoffmann,
the erstwhile and clever writer of the Journal des
Dt ( bats meets a friend a few hours before the first per-
formance of his play; ' Les Rendez-vous Bourgeois.'
1 1 want you to come with me to-night to see a piece
which will be hissed . . . three hundred times in suc-
cession.' The true dramatic counsellor detects even
the possible success behind the initial failure.

It has been my good fortune to know two such
eminent dramatic counsellors. The first bears a name
rendered illustrious by someone else, but to the lustre
of which he has largely contributed : I am alluding
to Germain Delavigne.

Truly an amiable and original character if ever
there was one, this Germain Delavigne He has put
his name to a great many comedies, in none did his
name figure by itself on the title page. He was
incapable of writing a piece without a collaborates,
not because his intellect was barren, for I have rarely
known a more fertile, a more subtle, a more versatile,
but because his dearly prized indolence prevented him
from accomplishing by himself the hard travail of
bringing forth a dramatic child. No one was less like
the lark of La Fontaine.

Elle batit un nid, pond, couve et fait dclore
A la hate ; le tout alia dti mieux qu Ml put.'

He did not mind building a nest, provided someone

< of Recollections 235

else would put the egg into it. He did not mind lay-
ing the egg, provided someone else would incubate
it He did not mind incubating it provided someone
would hatch But above all, no hurry-scurry. He
was utterly incapable of hurrying over anything.
His imagination was not the hoyden, skipping and
hopping about ; it was the demure little fairy, quietly
active, doing a great deal of business with very little
noise.

His brother and he had been schoolfellows of
Scribe. As soon as *they were emancipated from
bondage, they met every Thursday, and when the
dessert was on the table, communicated to one another
their plans with regard to work. Casimir submitted
the sketch of a tragedy, Scribe the idea of a vaude-
ville, Germain submitted nothing at all. He simply
brought to the common fund his exquisite taste and
his inventive faculties, which he applied in modifying
and improving the work of the other two. With his
kindly, ruddy and placid face, his bright and clever
smile, he enacted the part Chapelle filled at the
suppers at Auteuil, or rather between his two over-

companions, always 'pregnant with somctl

nacted, as it were, the deputy-father, suggesting

an idea to the one in want of an idea, an epigram to

the other who asked for an epigram, a bit of advice

\\hen then- was need of a bit of advice ; in short, he

their disposal the fruit of his vast reading.

'I am going to look through Germain.' said Ca-imir,

236 Sixty Years of Recollections

when in want of a piece of historical, anecdotal or
artistic information, and the living book immediately
replied, falling open of its own accord at the exact
place wanted. The contrast in the character of the
three companions was shown in their habits when at
work. Casimir Delavigne worked marching up and
n the room, Scribe never left his chair, Germain
never left his couch. He had scarcely got out of bed
when he lay down again on the sofa. He spent his
existence on his back like an Oriental, only, instead
of smoking he took snuff, and instead of dreaming,
he read.

The following trifling fact shows this dramatic
counsellor at work. Scribe brings him ' Genevieve,
ou la Jalousie paternelle.' The reader may be aware
that the piece deals with a father who shows every
suitor for his daughter's hand the door, because he
cannot make up his mind to part with her. When
Scribe has finished reading his piece, Germain says :
1 Your piece is an impossibility. Your father is a
downright egotist who sacrifices everything to him-
self. As for loving his daughter, he does not love her
a bit.'

Scribe takes his piece home with him and at their
next meeting reads his comedy which he has altered
and corrected. * This time,' Germain exclaims, * you
have made your father more impossible still ; he is
too fond of his daughter.' A profound remark
whence sprang the third and last form of that little

.V/.r/r Years of Recollections 237

masterpiece of delicate portraiture entitled * Gene-
vieve.'

The Thursday dinners were not only devoted to
consultation, there was an exchange of subjects, a
borrowing and lending of denouements. One day
Casimir makes his appearance in a state of great con-
sternation, he is at an utter loss for the denouement of
the fifth act of ' l'cole de Vieillards,' the final situa-
tion persistently eludes his grasp.

' One moment,' says Scribe, ' I am just putting the
last touches to a vaudeville, entitled, " Michel and
Christine," and have hit upon an ingenious device for
settling matters satisfactorily, the device would suit
y>ur piece admirably, you may have it and welcome.'
'And what will you do?' Til keep it just the
same.' ' And what about the public ? ' * The public,
the public will not find it out. No one will suspect
for one moment that the denouement of a little, one-
act piece and that of a grand five-act comedy in verse
can be the self-same thing. You may take it without
just as I will keep it without remorse.' Scribe's
:i proved correct, not a single critic noticed the
likeness, but, of course, the denouement of the vaude-
ville appeared charming, while that of the comedy
i-d weak. A thin thread suffices to tie a short
act together, it must be untied with a deft and !
hand, but a grand w< >rk iv< juii force and vigour

in its solution than in its conception.

Those kind' uiges ga to another very

238 .V/.r/r Years of Recollections

curious incident. Casimir was turning over in his
mind a lively, amusing, spirited subject for a two-
act comedy ; it was to be founded on a diplomatic
misunderstanding ; a young fellow who has been sent
to a small State in Germany in search of a particular
costume for a ball is mistaken for an important
diplomatic envoy. On the same day that Casimir
had made up his mind to work out this plot, Scribe
and Germain appear at the weekly meeting with a
plot with which they profess themselves delighted ;
the story of a young princess of eighteen who with all
her grace, coquetry, finesse and ignorance has, more-
over, a secret affection which sets her heart aglow, and
is all of a sudden thrown amidst the intrigues of a
small court. She steers her course among the suitors
for her royal hand with as much skill as, and a good
deal more sprightly gaiety than, Penelope herself.
Both plots meet with the same enthusiastic reception,
and the three companions part from one another with
the applause awaiting the two pieces already ringing
in their ears. A few days elapse when one fine
morning Scribe gets the following letter from Casimir :
* My dear friend, I cannot get your princess out of
my head. I am positively in love with her. I want
you to give her to me. My diplomatist seemed to
please you. Take him. Let us make an exchange/
Very well,' says Scribe, 'let us make an exchange.'
And the transaction resulted in the idea of Casimir
developing into * Le Diplomate,' and that of Scribe

Si.vty Years of Recollections 239

and Germain, being embodied in ' La Princesse
Aurclie'; that is, Casimir had bartered a success for
a failure. On which fact Scribe commented by say-
ing : 'Germain and I would have had the same
success with " La Princesse Aurclie " as we had with
" Le Diplomate," for we would have made a two-act
comedy out of it and not a five-act. Furthermore,
we would have written it in prose and not in verse.
It is the verses that ruined Casimir. He writes them
too well and they are too pretty ; the material was
too thin to stand the embroidery and the coat
cracked. That is the result of being a poet.' Then
he added, laughing : * That kind of thing could never
happen to me.'

A final trait to the picture of that friendly and
brilliant trio. In the days when they had not made
a name for themselves, the three companions often
went to the Theatre- Fran^ais to wind up their
evening. * Ah,' they said, ' if we could only get a

ing on that stage.' A few years afterwards,
tluy still dined together and went to finish up their
evening at the Thcatre-Fran^ais, where on one of

c occasions they were playing * L'l^cole des
Vieillards,' and ' Valeric.' (iermain iX-lavi-ne's name

not "ii the bill, but his spirit and epigram pervaded
both pieces. He aluay> remained the prime cnnsult-

n after the Thursday dinners
1C a time uhen they did cease, in
he day when the two Delavi

240 \\ws of Recollections

got married. 1 advisedly say the day, for they both
got married on the same day which circumstance
elicited a clever mot from Louis-Philippe. The
brothers went to apprise him of the impending
change in their condition. ' We are both going to
get married on Thursday, sire.' ' Indeed, and at the
the same hour ? ' * Yes, sire.' ' And in the same
church ? ' ' Yes, sire.' ' And to the same woman ? '

II

Our second dramatic counsellor also deserves a
place among the cabinet pictures of the nineteenth
century.

On the 5th June 1879, there died in Paris at the
age of eighty-four a gentleman of whose * life ' and
death the public were made aware at the same time
by some short obituary notices in the papers. His
name was M. Maherault

Who and what was M. Maherault ? An unknown
man who deserves to be known for three different
reasons. He was in turns and at the same time an
eminent administrator, a very valuable dramatic
counsellor and a noted art connoisseur and collector.
Having entered the Ministry for War when very
young, he rose gradually to the most important
positions, solely in virtue of the services he rendered.
The Due d'Orleans, struck by his high administrative
capacities 'and his views on military reform said one

Si.vfy ' Years of Recollections 241

day, ' Monsieur Maherault, you shall be my Minister
for War.'

The death of the Due made an end of those
brilliant expectations ; at the advent of the Second
Republic, he was at the head of a department and was
promoted to the post of secretary-general, on which
occasion Scribe wrote him the following charming
letter :

1 MY DEAR SECRETARY-GENERAL, Long live the
Republic and your wife and mine, and Lisbeth and the
whole of your family which is virtually ours. We
furthermore beg to thank the actual government for
discharging the debts of the Monarchy. Yours under
all reigns,' E. SCRIBE.'

In 1851, General de Saint-Arnaud wished to include
him in the reorganisation of the Council of State, on
the sole condition that he should attend the reception
of the Prince- President that night at the Elyse"e.
Maherault simply replied : * If I possess no other
claims to the promotion, that visit will not provide
me with any ; if on the other hand, as I believe, I
have some claims, the visit is use-less, and the condi-
tion offensive ; I will not go to the Elysee.' He kept
his word, and VTOfl not appointed. Such was the man

public capa

As for his second role, that of dramatic counsellor.

it for the benefit of one author, but

with a vengeance; It :;cra-

\ol.. II Q

242 ;r Years of Recollections

tion to say that the maintenance and increase of
Scribe's glory had become a profession with Mahe-
rault Each morning, however pressing his adminis-
trative business, he called on Scribe on his way to the
Ministry, and as a matter of course, found the
playwright at work. The visit often lasted only a
few minutes, just long enough to go in, to say ' How
do you do,' to cast his eyes over the half-finished page
on the writing table, to sniff the air of that study, and
to inquire if things were going all right, whether there
was not some matter with this or that manager in
which he, Maherault, could be of use, and to go out
again. More often than not, Scribe did not stop his
work, did not get off his chair, but, his eyes fixed on
his paper, went on writing, merely saying : ' Oh, it's
you ; how are you ? How is your wife ? ' The scene
meanwhile, was proceeding apace. But every now
and then, Scribe put down his pen, saying ? ' You are
the very man I want ; you remember the situation
that puzzled me yesterday. I think I've made it all
right. Just listen to it.' Then when he had finished
reading: 'Well, what do you think of it?' If
Maherault happened to say, ' I don't think you have
got hold of it ; I am not altogether satisfied, and I'll
tell you why ; ' Scribe invariably replied in his
quietest manner : * Very well, you had better go now,
I'll just see who is right, you or I, and I'll read you
to-night what I have done.' In what way had
Maherault become entitled to this confidence ? By

of Recollections 243

his affection for Scribe, no doubt, but more so by
his education, or rather by his being the son of his
father.

If the Com^die-Fran^aise wishes to show its grati-
tude, nay, to discharge a debt, it ought to place in its
crushroom and in a prominent the most prominent
, the bust of the elder Mahe"rault ; but for him
there would be no Comedie-Fran^aise to-day. The
year 1793 had suppressed the Com^die-Fran^aise
under circumstances which graphically depict the
period itself At the eighth performance of' Pamela'
(adapted from Richardson's novel) by Francois de
Neufchateau, the following two lines were frantically
applauded

' Ah ! les persecuteurs sont les seuls comhmiu:
Et les plus tolerants sont les plus raisonnables.'

For the sake of the period itself, I sincerely trust

that the applause was not due to the supposed literary

merit <f these lines, but be this as it may, 'a patriot

in uniform,' says Le Saint Public, rose from his seat in

the balcony, and shouted in an indignant voice : ' No

political tolerance ! Political tolerance is a crime.'

The famous actor Fleury replies to the interpellation

and the public applauds still more frantically. The

i uniform is hooted out of the place, and

day there comes an order from the Committee

of I'ublic Safety to close the Theatre and take- the

actors to prison. Mine. Roland relates in her

that one eveni: was startled by

244 r Years of Recollections

the sound of loud laughter and song proceeding
from the passages of the prison, on inquiry she
found that the comedians of the Theatre-Frangais
had arrived, they were accused of preaching modera-
tion, of a want of civic zeal, nay, of conspiring in
favour of royalty, by having performed a play of
reactionary tendencies. They took their incarceration
in such a cheerful spirit that one of them said, ' How
well we did play to-night. I suppose it was the
threat hanging over us that spurred us on. We
simply showed our accusers that we did not care a
snap of the fingers for them. We'll perhaps be
gullotined, but never mind, it was a capital perfor-
mance.' I have got an idea that it is only French
artists who could make that kind of thing a pretext
for playing with greater spirit and brilliancy. When
the Reign of Terror was at an end, the Directory
established, and Frangois de Neufchateau had become
a minister, his great anxiety was to reconstruct the
Theatre-Frangais. It was the least he could do for
it Unfortunately the Theatre-Frangais was by
then a name and nothing more. Overthrown by the
Revolution, it had split up into three inferior theatres,
three companies under the direction of three enter-
prising managers, all three of whom were fast going
to ruin.

One bankruptcy followed hard upon another
nothing therefore seemed easier than to effect a re-
conciliation between those members who had been

Si.vtr Years of Recollections 245

united so long and who while separated were suffer-
ing dearly for that separation. Seemed ; in reality
nothing was more difficult than to bring about that
juncture. There were obstacles of all kinds ; material

icles ; several of the older and not a few of the
most eminent members having gone to the provinces
and even to foreign countries. Then there were
political obstacles ; the most ardent party-feeling
divided many ; there were the republicans on the one
hand, the royalists on the other, and all were equally
irreconcilable and fanatically incensed against their
opponents. The charming Mdlle. Contat, whom the
dearest reminiscences bound to the monarchy, ex-
claimed : ' I would prefer being guillotined not only
with regard to my head, but from head to foot rather
than appear on the same boards with that horrible
Jacobin of a Dugazon.' Added to this there was the
vexed question of professional vanity. More than

of those actors on joining a second-rate company
had become a leader, nay a star. The non-com-
missioned officers had become captains, and the cap-
tains colonels. True, we have seen in our da

ich marshal redescend by his own will to the
simple rank of a general of division in the very army
of which but the day before he had been the chief,
but in the army of actors such abnegation of si
unknown. An understudy who has happened to be-
come the 1 man in his own line consent to

me an understudy once more, a star consenting

246 '} Years of Recollections

voluntarily to re-enter the group of nebulae ? Perish
the thought ! There was, finally, the question of
pounds, shillings, and pence, the salaries were most
uncertain, but considerably larger in the case of
temporary engagements ; this or that leading actor
had only signed with the impressario with a solid
guarantee for the whole of his money, in that way the
concern might go * smash ' but the actor himself was
safe. The difficulty, therefore, was to remove those
many obstacles, to satisfy conflicting claims, to silence
rival passions, to conciliate opposing interests. To
do this required little short of a miracle, and the
miracle was accomplished by the elder Mahe"rault.
Francis de Neufchateau gave him plenary powers and
in fact, put the whole of the burden of the work on
him, Mahe"rault put his heart and soul in the busi-
ness. * You are undertaking an impossible task,' said
Saint-Prix, the actor to him ; ' you do not know the
race you are dealing with, they will kill you with pin-
pricks.' ' They may if they like,' replied Mahe"rault,
' meanwhile I'll put fresh life into them. I want the
Comedie-Frangaise to become a national institution, I
wish the artists to have a home of their own and the
home to be called " The House of Moliere, Corneille,
and Racine." ' He proved as good as his word.

On the nth Priarial of the year VII of the First
Republic (3<Dth May 1799) the walls of Paris displayed
the following bill, ' Re-opening of the Theatre- Frangais.
11 Le Cid " and " L'cole'des Maris." The sight of that

Years of Recollections 247

poster repaid M. Maherault for all his trouble ; he
never would take any other reward.

Brought up by such a father, there is no need to
say much about the education of the son. The
passion for the theatre was in his blood. He was
barely two years old when taken to the playhouse for
the first time, Marie-Joseph Chewier (the dramatic
author) was his godfather and Mme. Vestris (his god-
mother). He got as much schooling at the wings of
the Come"die-Franc / iise as at the College de Navarre.
He lived and grew up between Talma, Fleury, Mold
and Mdlle. Contat, and for twelve years every success
at the Com&die-Fran^aise found an echo as it were in
the brain of that lad. In his case the doctrine of
predestination does not admit of a moment's discus-
sion, nature meant him to be a dramatic adviser. The
most characteristic trait in connection with this func-
tion is that he brought both his taste as a dilettante
and his methodical spirit as an administrator to bear
upon it.

Maherault was the very opposite of Germain
Delavigne. The latter never put his advice in writing.
I the distinctive mark of his judg-
ments, such conciseness suited his indolent tempera-
ritical subtleness scarcely required
than a phrase to express its view. Maherault
! much more than a single hearing to form an
opinion, nor in a single line.

No one knew this better than Scribe, and when he

24$ ty Years of Recollections

had finished and read his piece to him, he simply
handed it over to him, after which Maherault began
to state his real advice, his advice, pen in hand.

I have before me a file of papers, labelled, ' My
Remarks on Scribe's pieces, before their performance.'
These ' remarks ' are nothing less than so many
analyses of ten, twelve pages each, I have seen some
of twenty-five pages.

Maherault analyses the work act by act, scene by
scene, character by character, almost line for line.
Not a single contradiction escapes his vigilant eye,
not an error but what he points it out ; I say ' points
it out,' I might say pursues, for he brings the im-
placable honesty of the conscientious head of a
department to bear upon his functions. His sincerity
often trenches upon harshness, as for instance : 'These
verses are deplorably weak, they contain neither an
epigram nor an original thought. The bad prose
they are intended to replace was far better.' We are
confronted with the bluff, not to say rough, honesty
of intercourse which Montaigne claimed from genuine
friendship. I greatly honour Maherault for that
sincerity, but I must confess that I admire Scribe
as much. He shows his exceptional character in
this as he does in everything.

The authors who consult their friends may be
divided into three .classes : the humble who have no
confidence in themselves, the vain who never lack
confidence in themselves, and the men of parts, the

Si.i'ty 1 'cars of Recollections 249

men of strength, who listen to, appreciate, and benefit
by, everything. At the first critical remarks that
fall from your lips, the humble are sure to exclaim :
* Indeed you are right, it is very bad.' And they are
ready there and then to condemn the whole of the
work and to throw it into the fire. One is always
obliged to snatch their ' ^Eneid ' from their hands.
But that class of author is not very numerous.

The vain ones look surprised, smile disdainfully,
and show great irritation. They are the grandsons
of Oronte.* Ancelot t was a type of that kind.
After having listened to one of his comedies and over-
whelmed him with the adjectives, 'delightful,' 'charm-
ing ' exquisite, a listener ventured timidly to remark,
'The second act is perhaps a little too long/ T think
it too short,' replied Ancelot emphatically. Then
come the masters of their craft, whose distinctive
trait is not only to ask for advice, but to listen to it,
to profit even by bad advice, to interpret the listener's
silence, to read on his face the effect of their
words, to allow for the character and intelligence of
each of their counsellors, in short, to judge their
judges ; tin's is the characteristic of superior men.
Some short fragments from the correspondence of
the two friends will tend to show in what manner the

The Oronte of Moliere's 'Misanthrope, 1 not the one
des Femmes.' TK.

i he sometime Director of the Vaudeville and member of the
Academic-Fran vaise. TK.

250 ; Years of Recollections

one gave advice, in what manner the other profited by
it

SfcRICOURT, 24^ September, 1842.

' I have entirely reconstructed the fourth act, mind, from the first to
the last line, and considerably altered the others. Will you and can you
let me read them to you once more, if it be not trespassing too much
on your friendship ? '

1 S6RICOURT, October, 1845

' I will have finished my second volume (this time it was a novel) in
three days. I'll bring it to Paris to you and put it to school with
you for a while. The first volume has fared too well at your hands for
its brother not to claim the same care.

' Since you went away, 1 have read all your remarks on my three
acts, or nearly all, for your remarks, dear friend, are an astounding and
gigantic bit of work, and like everything you do, conscientious to
a degree. From what I have read, you are perfectly right ; all your
notes are in excellent taste, and marked by profound criticism, but I
am really at a loss whether to thank you or not, for now I feel bound
to attend to every one of your suggestions and that will take me a long
while.'

Maherault in addition to the subtle critical faculty
which he brought to bear upon his functions of
dramatic adviser, had two qualities essential to the
part. He only advised you to do that of which you
were capable. I was always complimenting him upon
that acute perception, and one day I told him in con-
nection with this a capital anecdote about Gouvion
Saint-Cyr which I had from M. Guizot.

Gouvion Saint-Cyr was only second-in-command
to General in Spain. The enemy was harass-
ing our army corps, and there was a doubt whether
we ought to give battle or retreat. The general-in-
chief summons a council of war at which Gouvion
Saint-Cyr strongly pronounces in favour of a retreat,
which advice is adopted. An hour before the time

Si.rty Years of Recollections 2 5 i

fixed for striking the tents, the general-in-chief is
severely wounded by the bursting of a shell during a
reconnaissance. Gouvion Saint-Cyr assumes the com-
mand, immediately countermands the retreat, gives
battle and wins the day. * Why did 'you advise the
general-in-chief this morning not to give battle ? '
asked one of his officers. ' Because he would have
lost it,' was the answer.

Maherault's second merit was that he belonged to
what I would call the inrcuthc advisers, to those
intellects which are both active and sensible at the
same time, who without even substituting their judg-
ment to yours, show you your own road and complete
your own idea. One day, while we were reading
' Adrienne Lecouvreur' to him, Maherault said ' Your
piece wants another personage. 1 ' And where, in the
name of all that's sensible are we to put your ad-
ditional personage?' 'We'll put him in the place of
one who is ahead}- there. 1 'What do you mean?'
' What I say ; you have got a Due d'Aumont who
very insignificant part He is only a kind of
: newsman. Why not put a little abbe in his
(.-?' 'Admirable,' exclaims Scribe, 'that will be
a genuii ;itury figure. An actress, a

princess, a military hero, and an abbe; n<>\\ the

is complete.' And in fact, that one n
introduced into the action, modified all >ur lighter

,allantry,'cvci\ tl .:ned

a different complexion when tl.

252 .V ivt_ r }'<-<!> -s of Recollections

from his lips, and he ran and fluttered and buzzed
throughout the piece like some winged creature.
1 You are entitled to author's fees,' we said to
Maherault, laughing.

The cause of Maherault's thorough knowledge of
scenic conditions was his inordinate love of the drama.
As I have said, he had commenced going to the play
when he was two years old, and he still went at
eighty. Scribe had had him put on the permanent
and * first night ' free-list everywhere and he was to
be seen everywhere, operas, comedies, farces, melo-
dramas, scratch performances, rehearsals, he never
missed anything. He always arrived before the lever
de rideau. When he went to the theatre, the dinner
at his house was earlier than usual, lest he should miss
a scene. One day, while they were rehearsing a piece
of his son-in-law's, M. de Najac, Mahe"rault was eighty-
two then, he jumped over a seat so lightly that M.
Saint-Germain who is as sprightly in ordinary con-
versation as he is on the stage, said to the author : * I
have just noticed your young pickle of a father-in-law
jumping from the pit into the stalls.' Towards his
latter days, his doctor having forbidden him to leave
home unless the weather was favourable, his son-in-
law was bound to come to his room after every
premiere, no matter how late, and to give him full
particulars of the performance ; he would not wait
until next morning.

Assuredly it was not his physical strength that

]'t'tirs of Recollections 253

kept him young in body as well as in mind until the
last moments of his life. He had just sufficient
muscular substance to carry him through, it was a
second passion which often proved but one and the
same with the first, a passion as healthy and ardent
as that of the sportsman, the passion of the art

collector.

Ill

Art collectors who are millionaires have no doubt a
claim to the world's consideration ; I have known
some very able connoisseurs among them, but they
always lack the two great marks of the collector,
they are not called upon to make sacrifices and to
give themselves trouble. With them it is in nine
cases out of ten only a question of vanity. They as
it were commission someone else to have taste for
them, they find the money and on the strength of
their representative's knowledge they are promoted
to the noble rank of amateurs. But to ferret out bit
by bit and in the course of many years, a collection of
tic objects which constitutes in itself a work of
art, to discover what was unknown, to appreciate at its
tistic value what had been misjudged, to
tten talent, t< > itate the

art productions of a whole period, to be running

hither and thither, to compare, to take counsel, to

part of one's well earned rest, to stint

in one's ban is, to do all

this in order to get together, after forty

ty Ycdrs of Recollections

hard work, as did M. Sauvageot for instance, a col-
lection worth several hundred thousand francs out of
a \ varly salary which never exceeded four thousand,
that's what I would call science, patience, and pas-
sionate love and taste for art. And Maherault who
throughout his life had never anything but his
government place to depend on has left an altogether
rare collection of drawings, prints and engravings of
the eighteenth century. That was the period he
had selected as his domain in which he took up a
distinctly separate, albeit small space, namely, in
everything that bore upon the drama.

It was he who designed for the magnificent col-
lection of stage dresses by Martinet fifty or sixty
portraits of the principal Paris artists in their best
parts, for he drew very well, and among his papers,
I find the following charming note :

'MY DRAWINGS IN SEPIA

' The scene of the Armchair from " Le Mariage de Figaro." Scene
from 4th Act of Chenier's u Henry VIII." Scene from 4th Act of
Ch^nier's "Charles IX." Scene from 2nd Act of Legouve"'s " Mort
de Henri IV."'

And at the end of the notes I find the price put
upon the drawings by Maherault :

'CHARLES IX, 25 francs.
PHILIPPE II, 25 francs.
'HENRI IV, 25 francs'

Total 75 francs. Not a very high figure, but how
eloquent in its very modesty ; how well it shows us
the saving penny by penny of the poor collector

.S'/.r/r }' t 'tirs of Recollections

No doubt, Maherault must have thought it hard to
sell his personal work at such low prices, but equally
no doubt, he was watching for the opportunity of
purchasing the work of someone else and those 75
francs filled him with joy for they enabled him to
buy the drawing of some master which may be worth
300 francs to-day. Heaven alone knows how many
times he found himself face to face with Sardou at
the dealers' in eighteenth century prints. He knew
every amateur, he had turned over every portfolio of
value, he studied and annotated every catalogue, he
attended every sale. One ran against him in every
nook and corner of Paris, hurrying along, pale, tall,
thin, with his white beard gleaming, his near-sighted

peering into every shop window, his coat partly
buttoned, the whole man looking like one of the
n his collection, like an old portrait of
some forgotten artist, giving one the impression of
some oddity. And an oddity he was, assuredly.
Perhaps the reader would like to know the dimly
defined idea he was f.r ever pursuing, or, rather, the

that haunted him ; well, it was the idea of the
future sale of his collection.

The day of the sale of his collection is to the col-

r the last day of judgment. That day virtually
i mines whether he is to be classed among the
connoisseurs or among the dupes. That da)* just-
or condemns the sacrifices he has made in the in-
dulgence of his passion. For the collector not only

256 .SY.r/r Years of Recollections

stints himself; I have known some (though Mah-
rault was not of the number) who, in order to increase
their collection have grudged their families their daily
food; they stifle the still small voice of their con-
science with the excuse that at the sale their collec-
tion like the trusty servant of the gospel will remit
to their heirs ten times the talents with which it
had been entrusted. Maherault often said to his
daughter : * I hope to leave you a " magnificent
sale." '

The sale took place a twelvemonth after his death,
I fancy that on that day the shade of Maherault
which must be diaphanous indeed, if our shade re-
semble our body, must have found means to slip into
that auction room, in which he spent so many hours
of his life and have quivered with pride and joy when
it heard the auctioneer state the splendid total of
the proceeds four hundred and twenty-five thousand
francs. Thus, ' if after death shades feel,' it must
have been one of his red letter days in Paradise.

CHAPTER VIII

The Portrait Gallery continued. M. Etienne de Jouy, the Father of
the Parisian Chronique. The Salon of M. de Jouy. M. de Jouy
as a Benedict. Mdlle. de Jouy, afterwards Mme. Boudonville.
M. de Jouy's Guests. M. de Jouy's Talent for Parody. M. de
Jouy as a Librettist and Dramatist. A Glimpse of Talma. The
Libretto of ' La Vestale.' A First Glimpse of Meyerbeer. The
Libretto of 'Guillaume Tell' suggested by Mme. Boudonville.
Intended for Meyerbeer A Silhouette of Rossini,

I

DURING the greater part of Louis-Philippe's reign,
the two rival schools of French literature had virtu-
ally selected two drawing-rooms as their respective
headquarters ; those of M. Nodier and of M. de Jouy.
Tlu-M- t\v> names may be taken as the two standards
under which the opposing factions fought. I was
a frequent visitor to both these centres, but so much
has been written about that presided over by M.
Nodier that I will only speak about M. de Jouy's. I
have met many interesting personages there, one of
the most curious was undoubtedly the host himself.

A few years before the great revolution, M. de Jouy
began life as ;i ' middy ' in the King's navy and took
part in several naval engagements against the English,

VOL. I! K

2 ; S Sixty Years of Recollections

losing two fingers in one of these, the name of which
I forget. If at that time someone had told him that
one day he would be a famous litterateur^ poet and
member of the Academie-Frangaise, he would cer-
tainly have been greatly surprised. At that period
he was a handsome, brave, and somewhat foolhardy
young fellow, a kind of eighteenth century d'Ar-
tagnon, tall, robust, with charming features, a quan-
tity of fair hair, drooping in wild, unkempt locks on
his shoulders, a pair of magnificent, large blue eyes,
a mobile mouth, an inexhaustible flow of animal
spirits, and in excellent health. The world smiled on
him, and he smiled on the world. Literature and
poetry occupied but a small space in his mental ex-
istence, his whole library consisted of a small volume
of ' Horace ' from which he quoted constantly, and of
one book of Voltaire's which he carried upon his
person. When he came to Paris, he made his debut
in literature as a general opens a battle, by two
cannon shots, the libretto of ' La Vestale ' first,
then later on ' L'Ermite de la Chausse d'Antin.'
As far as the latter went, everything about it was
positively new, its form, its title, its subject, and its
author. In his capacity of a man of the world, and
addicted to its pleasures, as a brilliant and somewhat
pugnacious talker he recorded the incidents of his
daily life while recording the daily existence of the
big city. What we call ' Parisianism,' took its start
with ' L'Ermite de la Chausse'e-d'Antin.' The school

.'y Years of Recollections 259

of the modern chronique (causerie^ gossip, table-talk,
call it what you will), sprang from ' L'Ermite de la
Chaussee-d'Antin.' This or that chapter of 'L'Ermite'
would make an admirable comedy in itself. ' Le
1'arrain ' of Scribe is taken from a page of ' L'Ermite.'
One of the most remarkable scenes of ' Les Faux
Bonshommes ' (Barriere's), I mean the scene of the
imaginary castles (chdteaux en Espagne, castles in the
air) enacted by the husband a propos of the death
of his wife is borrowed from ' L'Ermite de la Chausse"e-
d'Antin.' The most curious fact, though, in connec-
tion with all this was that in a little while the author
and his work became, as it were, one. People called
him the 'Hermit,' he accepted the title and with it
the part to a certain extent. Being the owner of a
small dwelling-house in the Rue des Trois Freres,
(actually a part of the Rue Taitbout), he conceived
the idea of giving it the appearance of a hermitage.
He built a tiny chapel in his little garden. Truly the
divinity inhabiting that chapel was Voltaire and he,
M. <le Jouy, was the officiating priest. His dressing
gown was a monk's frock, the belt a rope. The way
to his study was by a steep, winding staircase, the
' bannister ' of which was also a rope, in this instance
knitted. In addition to this, M. de Jouy, thoi
still young 'doubled ' the two parts of the proverbial
(-har.u trr, he remained a devil, while becoming a

lit.*
* There is a French proverb to the effect that when the devil gets

260 Sixty Years of Recollections

( The salon of M. de Jouy ' is the first line of the
synopsis of this chapter. M. de Jouy had, in fact, a
salon, which in the literary acceptation of the term, it
is a rare and difficult thing to have. It is not given
to everyone to have a salon, however rich, powerful
and aristocratic he may be. The first and foremost
requisite in a salon is a woman to enact the hostess.
Now, it so happened that M. de Jouy, though
married, had no wife. He was too fond of other
men's wives to have remained attached for any length
of time to his own. Shortly after his marriage with
a young English girl, of very high birth and of a
distinctly original turn of intellect, there was a separa-
tion. I am afraid I have used the wrong word ; for
there was neither separation nor scandal. The tie
was not severed, it was simply unfastened. There
was not the slightest grievance against the wife ; there
was no serious cause of reproach against the husband,
unless it was that he gradually lost the habit of going
home. Luckily the union, though short, had borne
fruit : a daughter, who was brought up by her mother
until she was sixteen. But she often saw her father,
she worshipped both her parents and bore a remark-
able likeness to both. She had in addition to the
mother's refined heart and lofty sentiments, the
brilliancy and lively temperament of the father and
these qualities, enhanced by that strong moral sense

old, he becomes a hermit. Everyone knows the English version : When
the devil was sick, etc. TR.

Sixty Years of Recollections 261

which often forces itself upon young people placed in
difficult situations, had made her a charming and
altogether individual woman. Throughout her life
she endeavoured, not to reunite those who were
parted, their utter dissimilarity of character effectu-
ally forbade such an attempt, but to bring them
more or less together.

M. de Jouy willingly lent himself to the idea, for
his position as a man separated from his wife affected
him no more seriously than his position as a married
man. Wedlock had been such a trivial thing with
him, that he failed to regard it as a chain, let alone as
a sacrament. I remember as if it were yesterday, his
saying to me in connection with 'Louise de Lignerolles,'
in which I had attempted to depict the often terrible
consequences of the husband's adultery : ' But my
dear boy, all this is simply so much nonsense. Who,
in the name of all that's good, gave you the idea of
building five acts and a tragic catastrophe on the
ulillo of a husband who happens to have a
mistress. You are assuredly not under the impression
that you are going to draw tears from anyone with
that kind of thing?'

When his daughter was sixUvn, she returned to his
roof and kept house for him. It was not an easy task.
The reader has heard of the sentence Mme. Nc
the wife of the austere Minister, wrote in her po
book : ' Not to forget to re-compliment M. Thomas'

262 Sixty Years of Recollections

on his ' PetnHde.' * M. de Jouy's gatherings were not
altogether made up of people who had constantly to
be ' re-complimented,' namely, poets and litterateurs.
There were a good many orators and political men,
such as Manuel, Benjamin Constant, the latter with
his fair hair, and German-student look, flitting from
group to group, and scattering his brilliant paradoxes
broadcast. Added to these came the beauties of the
Restoration and the Monarchy of July, such as Mme.
Sampayo, Mme. de Vatry, Mme. Friant, ' sailing
through the dazzling halls, their brows bedecked
with flowers,' as the poet says. There was, further-
more, a crowd of foreigners of both sexes, attracted
thither by the great reputation of the host. On one
or two occasions I met Rostopchine there, and heard
him talk. Well, M. de Jouy's daughter, married to a
young and charming staff-officer, M. Boudonville,
steered her course amidst all these celebrities, careful
of their susceptibilities, of their jealousy of one
another, without giving umbrage to anyone, without
committing a single blunder or mistake. She con-
stantly reminded me of those skilful gondoliers, glid-
ing so deftly and gracefully through the network of
the canals in Venice. Her father's jovial, cordial and
spontaneous temperament provided the lighter notes
in the entertainment. His was, no doubt, the liveliest
imagination I have ever known. Conversation meant

* The original word is relouer, which is as questionable French as
're-compliment,' is que;tionable_English. TK.

Sixty Years of Recollections 263

to him what champagne means to other people. It
stimulated, nay, intoxicated him. Towards midnight,
he took the conversational bit between his teeth, and
the drollest conceits followed one another like rockets
at a display of fireworks. One evening the conversa-
tion turned on Victor Hugo whom he detested, and
forthwith he gave us a parody of ' Lucrece Borgia,'
which as a side-splitting burlesque surpassed by far
that of ' L'Harnali, ou la Contrainte par cor,' by
Duvert and Lauzanne.* Being such a fire eater as to
stutter and stammer in his excitement, M. de Jouy's
bursts of anger became positively comic. The slightest
attempt to criticise one of his favourites, to question
this or that lofty idea, to defend this or that platitude,
called forth a torrent of exaggerated language which
istibly reminded one of Alceste. f And people
,hed at him as they laugh at Alceste, they liked
him as they like Alceste ; he virtually showed me
how the part of Alceste should be enacted so as to
be comic throughout while never ceasing to be sym-
pathetic. I remember a remark of his which is thor-
oughly characteristic of the spontaneity of his mind.
1 Ie was sitting on a small couch between his daughter
and a foreign guest who was overwhelming him with

* The title of this burlesque is in itself a burlesque. I will en-
deavour to explain it to the reader, th-u-li I am by no means sure of
succec ill 1 which stands lor ' Ik-mani* is a corruption

of ' I'hallali,' the 'death 'sounded by the Fremh huntsman. ('nirainte
par cor* may mean imprisonment for debt (contrainte par corps), suffer*
ing from a corn, or coercion by means of a hunt:
knows the important part the hunting-horn plays in ' Hernani.'- !

Here's Alceste in ' Le Misanthrope.'-

264 Sixty Years of Recollections

hyperbolical compliments. * Do you hear what this
gentleman says of me, my dear ? ' he laughed. * Well,
he does not express by a hundredth part what I think
on the subject.'

The literary life of M. de Jouy may be summed up
by three dates, which again may be summed by three
names : ' La Vestale,' ' L'Ermite de la Chaussee
d'Antin ' and ' Sylla.'

'Sylla 'was one of the most startling successes of
the century. It has been asserted that the success
was entirely due to a wig, because Talma appeared in
it with the Napoleonic lock on his forehead. Those
detractors had best be referred to the words of
Alexandre Dumas, who without being compelled by
the least official mission made the journey from Paris
to Saint-Germain on the day of M. de Jouy's funeral,
in order to sing the praises of the bold novelty of
the fifth act of that play on the author's grave. To
this eulogy I would like to add two significant traits
of Talma's talent. The fourth act was founded on a
scene which inspired both the author and actor with
great hopes, while at the same time they were greatly
afraid of it. Sylla falls asleep, and in the midst of his
slumbers his victims are supposed to uprise before
him like the terrible phantoms of Shakespeare's
* Richard 1 1 1.' It was expected that this ' somnambu-
lism of remorse ' would be productive of an enormous
effect as enacted by Talma. But a great practical
difficulty attended with great danger presented itself.

Sixty Years of Recollections 265

How should Sylla fall asleep ? The supposed dif-
ficulty would provoke a smile nowadays, but at that
time the question was a grave one. Was he to fall
asleep in a chair ? Under such conditions the effect
would be lost. Was he to fall asleep on a bed ? In
that case he would have had to lie down before the
public, and how could he risk doing such a thing ?
That an actor should deliver his lines seated or walk-
ing up and down was admissible, but lying down.
Heaven forfend the thought, it would show a posi-
tive disrespect to the public. Talma was in a great
state of excitement Fortunately, he was not the
man to give in easily when he fancied he had got
hold of a tremendous effect, so he bravely has a
couch placed on the stage, and when the terrible
scene draws nigh, seats himself on it in a careless,
matter-of-course way. Then he delivers his first lines,
his hands resting on his knees. At the next few lines
he lifts one of his arms, extends one of his legs and
puts it, without seeming to pay attention to it, on the
bed. He goes on speaking while stretching it at full
th, the other leg follows suit, his body gradually
leans back, his head finally reclines on the pillow and
Sylla is asleep, without the public having noticed
were, that he was 'going to bed.' How skilful
one had to be in those days in order to be bold.

I feel reluctant to dismiss the piece without record-
ing another stroke of genius in Talma's 'by-play/
In the third act there is a very magnificent

266 Sixty Years of Recollections

whore the dictator, surrounded by his courtiers, is
reminded of the people who are being butchered out-
side by heartrending and hostile cries. Immediately
afterwards one of the crowd rushes on to the stage
and makes straight for Sylla, exclaiming :

1 Combien en proscris tu, Sylla ? '
1 Je ne sais pas '

is the answer.

The reply befits the author of the Cornelian Laws,
and Talma according to his inspiration, the tone of
the man of the crowd, the countenances of his
courtiers, uttered that terrible sentence in different
fashions. On some nights he merely allowed it to
drop negligently from his lips, superciliously, as if
paying no attention whatsoever to his words and pro-
ducing in that way a horrible contrast to the fury of
his interlocutor. On others, he would hiss the
phrase at him like a wild beast and with such violence
as to terrify his audience. He was a great genius
indeed. It was not a successthe actor scored, it was a
genuine triumph. Let me hasten to add, for the sake
of the author, that from that day forward, M. de Jouy
ceased to be ' L'Ermite ' to become * the author of

" Sylla." '

II

The libretto of ' La Vestale ' had raised M. de Jouy
to the position of our foremost lyrical poet and
procured him the patronage of the men whom I con-
sider the most wretched in creation, the dramatic

.;: Years of Recollections 267

composers. Can the reader imagine a more terrible
martyrdom than that of a Jupiter with a Minerva in
his head or brain and no axe or hatchet at hand to
deliver him. The operatic composer is in a still
worse plight. Not only can he not bring forth by
himself, but he cannot conceive by himself. His
brain may be teeming with grandiose, striking ideas,
quivering with life; they are cursed with barrenness
unless he find what we term a poet to embody them.
Consequently M. de Jouy was positively besieged by
th .sc unhappy petitioners in quest of a libretto. One
day a young fellow, of a distinctly Jewish cast of
countenance, below the middle height, dressed in very
good taste, with excellent though reserved manners,
and the address of a gentleman calls upon him. He
is the bearer of a letter of introduction from Spontini,
his name is Meyerbeer, he is the composer of several
Italian operas, among others the ' Crociato,' and
anxious to write for the Paris Ope>a. Spontini has
recommended him to his librettist as a musician of
great promise. Mme. Boudonville was working in
study, seated near the window looking
out upon the garden. The poet and the musician
begin to talk, various subjects, names and titles are
<1 one after another, some are received with
more or less favour, others are scornfully rejected,
when all at once Mme. Boudonville who had, up till
then, been listening without saying a word, timidly
in the conversation. 'I fancy,' she says, ' that

268 Sixty Years of Recollections

the story of Guillaume Tell would make a capital
subject for a libretto. He combines all the necessary
features, he is a grand character, he is the hero of a
very interesting situation ; his surroundings would
furnish a very excellent local picture.' ' Bravo,'
exclaims M. de Jouy. ' Admirable,' adds Meyerbeer,
and there and then the plan is drawn out, the out-
lines of the principal characters put in, etc., etc.

And now, how did it happen that Rossini composed
the music of Guillaume Tell,' and that Meyerbeer did
not compose it ? I am unable to tell, nevertheless, I
am thankful to Chance or Fate, seeing that to it we
owe the masterpiece of modern music. Nowadays
the libretto of ' Guillaume Tell ' is very severely
handled, the verses are constantly being ridiculed, but
I never heard anyone make greater sport of them
than M. de ijouy himself. ' My dear Jouy,' said
Rossini to him one day, ' I have taken the liberty to
change a word in the chorus that accompanies Mdlle.
Taglioni's dance. You wrote

'"Toi que 1'aiglon ne suivrait pas."'
(Thou whom the eaglet would not follow.')

' I have put instead

"Toi que 1'oiseau ne suivrait pas.'"
('Thou whom the bird would not follow.')

' And I am much obliged to you for doing it,' ex-
claims M. de Jouy. 'The eaglet does convey the
idea of a dancing bird, does it not ? ' ' Then why

Sixty Years of Recollections 269

did you put that eaglet there ? ' asked Rossini, laugh-
in-. ' I didn't put it there, it's that idiot of a
Hippolyte Bis,' says M. de Jouy. ' Then why did
you take that idiot of a Hippolyte Bis for your
collaborateur? ' inquires Rossini, laughing louder than
ever. ' Why, why ? Because I am a good-natured
idiot myself, who does not know his own mind. I
was told that he is poor, but clever, that he had
written a tragedy on Attila which was performed at
the Odeon. ... I never saw his tragedy, but they
were always quoting a line which was considered
sublime :

4 " Ses regards affames devoraient 1'univers." '

those confounded " hungry looks " that have
cd all the mischief. Hippolyte Bis called me a
great "poet, after that I became like a bit of putty in
his hands, and allowed him to introduce in my libretto
a lot of verses which will be a standing disgrace to
me with posterity for centuries and centuries. For
thru- N no mistake about it, thanks to you, I am
immortal and while tlu-iv is one opera left, they'll go
on singing verses, like that one

\ux reptiles je I'abandonne
leur horrible faim lui repoiul d'un tombeau."*

4 And to think that I ha\v put my name to them.
Oh, the brut

All th ned and was said on the Boulevard

Montmai tiv just by the Passage des Panorama

270 r Years of Recollections

we happened to run against Rossini, who had just
come from home. He had a fortnight's stubble on
his chin. ' You are looking at my beard/ he said.
' This is in consequence of a vow I made. I am just
finishing my orchestration, and lest I should be
tempted to go out to dinner or an "at home," I
have taken an oath not to shave myself until my
work is finished.

' Are you pleased with what you are doing ? ' asked
M. de Jouy.

* It isn't bad/ he replied with a smile. ' It's Gluck,
with ideas of my own. My chief exertions bear on
the recitatives and basses. You had better notice the
ballet music also, it is somewhat sad, as befits a people
in that position. But you may make your mind easy,
friend Jouy. There are perhaps a few verses that are
bad, but the libretto is all right, and I trust I shall
not spoil it.'

The result is known to everyone. On the first
night the overture met with a tremendous success
The first act also produced a great effect, and the
second was simply one long triumph from beginning
to end. The third and fourth acts met with a some-
what chilling reception, and on entering M. de Jouy's
drawing-room at midnight, Rossini said, ' It is a quasi
fiasco*

The life that had began so brilliantly ended
placidly and sweetly, though somewhat sadly. Dur-
ing his latter years, when he was already very old

Sixty Years of Recollections 271

M. de Jouy lost the use of his legs, his imagination
forsook him and even his intellect became clouded.*
Well, a strange thing happened, which proves that
our dominant faculties die last within us and remain
standing amidst the ruins of our organisation like a
column amidst the wreck of an overtoppled temple.
Kven when his reason was partly gone, the fast
gathering darkness was lighted up now and again by a
sudden flash of wit. One day, during one of his usual
outbursts of temper, for, alas our defects as well as
our good qualities adhere to us he suddenly pushed
his daughter away from him, saying, ' Go to the
devil.' . . . Then he added all of a sudden and with
a charming smile, ' Don't trouble yourself, he would
not take you.'

I have seen few more touching sights than that of
that father and daughter. Their parts had positively
become reversed. He had become her child, she his
mother. She chided him, and every now and then a
look, a gesture, an expression of his face showed that
he was conscious of that reversal of parts, and that he
i-d a kind of gratification from it. Instead of
feeling humiliated, he seemed to be lovingly affected
by it His son-in-law had been appointed governor
of the castle of Saint-Germain, and it comforted the
old man to end his days in that splendid historical
dwelling. It afforded him an unexpected pleasure on
the Sundays and holidays; his roomy armchair was
* M. dc Jouy died in 1846 at the age of eighty-two TK.

272 ;; Years of Recollections

taken to the magnificent circular balcony with its
superb forged iron railing. Wrapped in an ample
dressing gown, his eyes fixed on the large open
square, he sat watching the arrival of the young
couples and joyous groups that had come to spend
their leisure day in the country ; he rarely took his
eyes off them as, amidst loud laughter, they made
their way to the rustic drinking shops, the small
restaurants and tiny theatre ; he tried to get a glimpse
of them as they rested beneath the spreading branches
of the natural arbours, he strained his ears to catch
snatches of their songs, resounding through the open
windows, and at such times there was a momentary
gleam of youth and gaiety on the withered, wrinkled
features. The fast waning imagination had conjured
up, for an instant only, one of the chapters of
' L'Ermite de la Chauss^e-d'Antin.'

CHAPTER IX

The Portrait Gallery continued. Lamartine. Lamartine's Pride.
Hi- Manias. Lamartine's opinion of himself and of La Fontaine.
His opinion of Rossini. Beranger's opinion of one of Lamartine's
Poems. Lamartine's kindness. As a Statesman. His first
appearance in the Chamber. His wonderful capacity for grasping
a Subject. His hatred of the Napoleonic Legend. His Prophecy
with regard to the ultimate result of it. Lamartine and an Anecdote
of Turner, the Painter. How ' 1'Histoire des Girondins' was com-
posed. Lamartine goes to see an old Member of the Convention.
Lamartine's Impecuniosity. The Revolution of '48. A Glimpse of
a Revolutionary. Lamartine at the Hotel-de-Ville. Lamartine
misjudged. Madame de Lamartine. Her Devotion. Lamartine's
Funeral.

I

Tin-: UK is one thing which has never failed to strike
the marvellous instinct of the public in recognis-
ing genius at its first cry. The moment the man of
us appears, the moment he speaks, the hearts of
all go out to him and proclaim him king. It would
seem as if all his future achievements are written be-
forehand in what he has just accomplished. The
(lcl)Ut contains, as it were, the advance .summary of
a long life of glory. Apologising for the comparison

1 to a poet, I feel inclined to say that it
VOL II 8

274 .SY.r/r Years of Recollections

is the splendour of a magnificent sunlit day, entirely
foretold in the first ray at dawn.

This was the case with Lamartine. ' Les Medita-
tions ' had not * been out ' four-and-twenty hours, and
lo and behold, by some nameless phenomenon of
moral electricity, that name, unknown the day before,
was already on everyone's lips. M. de Talleyrand
himself, startled by the noise, took the book and read
it from beginning to end in a few hours snatched
from sleep, and that same morning he wrote to one
of his friends : ' Unto us a poet has been born this
night.'

I will not stop to analyse the numerous poetical
beauties of Lamartine's works ; I am in too great a
hurry to come to the man to linger with the poet.

Lamartine has been too often accused of pride, and
in support of the accusation people always quote that
famous reply of his to a father who had taken his son
to see him : ' Well, Monsieur de Lamartine, what do
you think of my young fellow ? ' ' He was not
sufficiently moved at the sight of me,' replied the
poet. To those who take the trouble to think, and
who knew Lamartine, there is not the least sign of
pride in this. He was not thinking of himself when
he uttered the words, he was thinking of some great
reputation. He would have never said what he did
say if he had meant to apply it to himself ; in apply-

Years of Recollections 275

ing it to every man of renown, he was right, and more
than right. A young man incapable of admiration is
not a young man. Furthermore, I am going to tell
the reader something which will astonish him. La-
mart ine was unpretending, of course relatively un-
pretending. Some of his pretensions were, to say
the least, very odd ; for instance, he thought himself
a great economist, a great authority on wine growing,
and a great architect. ' Young man/ he said one day
to the son of one of his friends, * take a good look at
me, there, just at the forehead, and you'll be able to
say to yourself that you have seen the greatest living
authority on money matters.' Victor Hugo's fame as
a poet gave him not the least concern, but he envied
M. Duchatel his reputation as the first authority
on wine growing. ' He is only an amateur,' he said.
' I am, as it were, a piece of the vineyards on our
slopes.' Finally, every visitor to Saint-Point was
taken to see a horrid little portico, painted in
startling colours, and made up of two columns
in heaven alone knows what style, or rather belong-
ing to all styles. ' My dear fellow,' he used to say,
' half-a-century hr -pie will make a pilgrimage

to conn- and see this. My poetry will be forgotten,

they will say, "there is no doubt about it, the
man who did this knew how to build."' To believe

self clever at doing things of which one has not
:,iry notions does not in itself con-
stitute a claim to originality, hut it is assuredly an

276 Sixty Years of Recollections

original trait in a man's character not to overrate his
talents in the art of which he is a perfect master, and
here we touch upon one of the most curious sides of
this very complex nature. Modesty, with the superior
intellect is, after all, but the spirit of comparison.
Well, when Lamartine compared himself to his con-
temporaries, he considered himself very great, but
when he compared himself to geniuses of the first
water, or even to himself, that is, when he drew a
parallel between what he had done and what he might
have done, he was, I repeat, modest. One day, I
ventured to say to him, ' I wish you to explain to me
a fact which seems to defy explanation at my own
hands : I like La Fontaine's verses as well as yours,
I have an equal facility for learning them by heart ;
I experience an equal pleasure in repeating them to
myself; but at the end of six months I still know the
verses of La Fontaine and no longer know yours.
What is the reason ? ' 'I am going to tell you,' he
said. ' La Fontaine writes with a pen and even with
a graving-tool, I write with a brush ; he writes, I
merely colour, his outlines are clearly drawn, mine
are vague ; consequently it is very natural that his
should remain stamped on the memory and that
mine should become gradually effaced.' Struck and
moved by the justice and simplicity of the answer, I
went on. * Nevertheless,' I said in a tone of deep
conviction, 'no French poet has been more richly
endowed than you. You have as much genius as the

Si.rty Years of Recollections 277

gre'atest among them.' ' It may be,' he replied smil-
but I have not as much talent ; talent, my dear
friend, is the thing acquired by work and will. I
have never worked, and I cannot correct. Whenever
I have tried to rewrite some verses, I have only made
them worse. Just compare me to Victor Hugo as a
versifier, why, I am a simple learner compared to
him.' ' You are much more like that other spoilt
child of the Muses, and who, like you, never knew
what it is to make an effort or to engage in a struggle,
and who produced his notes in the same way you
produce your verses, I mean Rossini.' ' Don't put me
on a level with Rossini. Rossini has produced works.
He composed "Guillaume Tell," "Othello," " Le

. : er." I have only produced essays.'
He did not exactly mean what he said, he perhaps
counted on my admiration to contradict him, and he
would have felt greatly astonished if I had taken his
definition literally; nevertheless, behind this exaggera-
tion of terms I might almost say of blasphemy, there

a true and sincere to borrow the clever

>n of Cardinal de Ret/, l.amartine recognised

the fact of not ha\ ,-n his worth full play.

People have often hinted that the disdain with whirh

poke of his own verses was only so much
tation. nothing better than a comedy. No man
of 8 comedian than Lamartine. A diplo-
mat .and SO at times as to be
almost I- ; id ing to the trick of

278 i Years of Recollections

vulgar ' posing/ He had a sincere disdain for his
poetical grandeur, because he felt himself to be a poet
very superior to his works, and above all, a man
very superior to the poet, as will be seen directly.
Hence there was in his vanity as an author a kind of
simplicity and unaffected good humour which added
to his powers of fascination. I cn hear him ask me,
as if it were to-day : ' Did you read my last verses in
' Le Conseiller du Peuple ? " * No.' ' Then read them,
my dear fellow, they are very pretty.' Then correct-
ing himself, ' Well, I mean rather pretty.' He took
his own measure, he judged himself, and what is more
rare, he allowed others to judge him. Beranger had
become very enthusiastic about ' Jocelyn.' * My dear
friend,' he said to Lamartine, ' it is a masterpiece of
poesy, emotion, and inspiration.' Then he added with
a mischievous smile, characteristic of him : ' But what
a pity about those three or four hundred lines which
you gave your concierge to compose.' What did La-
martine do ? Laughed ; for he thought the criticism
very clever and amusing and went repeating it every-
where. That is very unlike the * genus irritabile
vatum! There never was in fact, an instance of self-
respect less irritable and less prone to irritate. All
the petty passions of poets, envy, hatred, vindictive-
ness, were foreign to his character. He proved that
well enough in his poetical war with Barthelemy.
The poor creature had held him up to public
indignation, to scorn, to ridicule. Well, in his admir-

.SY.r/r ) \\irs of Recollections 279

able ' 6pitre a Nemesis,' Lamartine could never rise
to anger nor descend to contempt, he stopped at mere
disdain. And even then, as if the feeling were
unbearable to him, he tears himself away from it, he
his wings, soars beyond, and interrupting his
dithyrambic, he addresses the offender in words of
evangelic kindness and forgiveness.

1 Un jour, de nobles pleurs laveront ce delire,
Et ta main etouffant le son qu'elle a tire",
Plus juste, arrachera des cordes de ta lyre
La corde injurieuse oil la haine a vibre*.

4 Pour raoi, j'aurai vide" la coupe d'amertune
Sans que ma Ifcvre meme en garde un souvenir,
Car mon ame est un feu qui brule et qui parfume
Ce qu'on jette pour la ternir ! '

i I ere we have Lamartine in his natural grand
attitude, and this " 6pitre a Nemesis/ marking as
it were the first steps of the poet in the path of
public affairs, brings me naturally to the orator and

to the statesman.

II

One evening in the last years of his life, Lamartine

ted by his fireside, his head reclining on his

t, in that somnolent state which had become

habitual with him, and which was a condition between

sleeping and dreaming. A couple of friends were

seated not far away from him and talking in a low

voice. The co; >:i gradually growing more

animated, tl; -usly raised the:: . and

the 1 to the otiu-r: I would sooner have

280 T Years of Recollections

written " Les Meditations " than founded the Second
Republic.' Lamartine, giving a big yawn, turned
round and asked : ' What were you saying, dear
friend ? ' The friend slightly correcting the sentence,
replied : ' If I had had the choice, I would sooner
have written " Les Meditations " than founded the
Second Republic.' ' Well,' answered Lamartine, ' that
proves to me that you are only a simpleton.' With
which he rose from his chair and in a second threw
off his drowsiness. ' Let us put aside my own indi-
viduality, look at the general question, and judge the
immense superiority of the statesman over the poet.
The one racking and exhausting his brain in marshal-
ling words and harmonising sounds ; the other, being
the real Word, that is the thought, the word and the
act in one, realising what the poet only dreams, seeing
all that is great and good in him convert itself into
facts and beneficent facts, into beneficent facts which
not only benefit the generations present, but often
extend to most distant posterity. Do you know
what it means to be a great Statesman ? It is a poet
in the act of transforming his words into deeds.' To
act, the need to act, the hope to be able to act was
in fact, the constant preoccupation of him whom the
world chooses to regard as a mere sublime dreamer.
His most ardent admiration was reserved for Voltaire.
And the reason ? ' Because,' as he said, ' there is not
a single line of his that does not virtually constitute
an act : not a word that fell from his pen or lips that

.< of Recollections 281

did not play its part in public affairs. Voltaire was
for forty years the greatest event of his century.
Hence people say the age of Voltaire, as they say the
age of Louis XIV, and the age of Pericles.'

To complete the portrait. One day, in one of those
rare moments of effusion in which he showed the
whole of his thoughts, for beneath the semblance of
spontaneity and candour, he was very secretive, and
perfectly self-controlled, keeping in his inmost soul
certain hidden recesses into which no one, not he him-
self perhaps, penetrated, one day then, he exclaimed :
1 That one might be a Napoleon, less the sword at his
side/ Here we have the thought lying deepest in
Lamartine's heart. To rule over a great nation by
the force of thought, to command by the force of
intellect. To be the conqueror of his epoch, its do-
minant power without shedding a drop of blood, and
without imposing upon men any other yoke than that
of justice, pity and generosity. ' Dreams and visions/
it will be said. Hut he managed to realise such a
:i for three months, and In- pursued the vision

The aneients named the poets TY//V.V, which means
prophet. No man deserved the name better than
Lamartine. lie wafl a seer. Some nameless instinct
of divination : ! to him, at t time, i;

public crises, and the part he should play in them.
When one p at ion with I .ady Stan-

in his 'Voyage en Orient,' 1 at

r Years of Recollections

the clearness with which he marks to himself his own
goal, and with the consistency he proceeded towards
it. If we study his character from the year 1832, we
cannot fail to be struck with it At his first appear-
ance in the Chamber, he is asked to which party he
intends to belong : ' To the socialistic party.' The
word had never been heard in a parliamentary as-
sembly. ' Socialistic,' remarks his colleague, ' what
does that mean? It is only a word.' ' No,' replies
Lamartine, ' it is an idea.' ' But on which side are
you going to sit ; there appears to be no room for
you on any of the benches ? ' 'In that case,' replies
Lamartine with a semi-satrical, semi-confident smile,
' I'll take my seat on the ceiling.' A strange
reply, no doubt, but characteristic of him and
showing his nature. He always went by instinct
to the spot whither wings only could carry him and
support him when he got there.

Superficial minds are apt to compare Lamartine as
an orator, to a virtuoso who, when he has finished
with his bravura songs, launches into poetical dithy-
rambics, and often out of sheer fancy concerns him-
self with a few practical questions ; for the reader
should remember that he was one of the most ardent
defenders of railways against Arago ; but to those
who think, every one of his speeches shows the
carefully premeditated conduct of the political man
who shirks no problem, because he foresees that the
day may come when he will have to solve them all.

Si.vt}' YCJTS of Recollections 283

One curious fact will show his powers of assimila-
tion. The discussion of a grand project for a canal
was clown in the order of the day. The deputy who

to defend it falls ill on the very morning of the
debate. The interested parties are advised to entrust
Lamartine with the task. They go to his house and
are told that he is in his bath ; nevertheless, they are
admitted and after waiting a little while they are
enabled to tell him their business. ' But I don't
know a single word of the whole of that business,'
protests Lamartine. ' We are going to tell you all
about it,' is the answer. ' But there is not a man in
the Chamber who is less of a civil engineer than I am.'
1 That does not matter, a man like you can earn his
diploma in a few moments.' ' Very well, tell me what
I am to do.' They begin telling him while he
remains in his bath, they continue their instructions
while he is getting out of it ; they never cease while
ig, they stay to breakfast and keep on

liing him ; and tw. hours later Lamartine delivers

a business speech, which is voted on all sides a

marvel of clearness and accuracy. The was

at, and the surprise greater still ; everyone

lively astounded, everybody except Lamar-

hi in self. ' I have been aware for many years of
my Capacities as a practical man,' he said. ' Tin-
people refuse to believe in them I. om-
posc<: rfaapfl they would have believed it" tin-
had. Till.. i innately then- arc- some

Vfars of Recollections

good ones among them, nay some beautiful ones ;

\\hat has ruined me in their opinion.'
: times, his foresight found vent in the rostrum, in
words of prophecy. When the Chamber wished to
the bill for the return of Napoleon's remains,
Lamartine protested. The strange union of liberalism
and imperialism under the Restoration had alw r ays
shocked him. To him it was nothing less than a lie.
He refused to be influenced by the fact that all the
great poets of the period, French as well as foreign,
Manzoni, Lord Byron, BeVanger, Victor Hugo and
Casimir Delavigne had constituted themselves to
coryphaei of Napoleon's immense glory. While fully
admiring the genius, he kept relentlessly looking for
the tyrant behind the conqueror, and launched against
him that terrible anathema.

4 Rien d'humain ne bntuit sous son epaisse armure.'

This 'coupling 'of liberty and despotism seemed to
him on the part of liberty nothing less than adulter-
ous ; as a consequence he uprose against that
triumphal return with all the strength of his eloquence.
No more admirable words ever resounded from that
rostrum, and when he felt himself vanquished at last
he flung as a parting cry that solemn warning which
to-day strikes us as one of the prophecies of the
Cassandra of old ' Be it so then, seeing that nothing
isfy you. Bring back his remains. Take
column " as a pedestal for his statue ... it is,

Sixty Years of Recollections 285

after all his work, his monument, but I entreat you
to write at least on the base "To Napoleon only."
T<> Napoleon alone).

In a little while Lamartine's opposition grew more
and more conspicuous, though he never entered into
any conspiracy or plot, whatever might be its aim.*
No one was less of a conspirator than he, first, because
to conspire means to be several, and because he liked
to march alone ; secondly, because his generous dis-

:ion disliked any and everything savouring of
clandestine machination. But his speeches, his con-

ition and eventually his books conspired for him ;

ublished ' Les Girondins' which was both a book
and an act.

As a book it possesses a kind of peculiar merit,
which is pretty well indicated by a sentence of
Lamartine himself. On the day he ascended Mount
Lebanon for the first time he was so deeply moved by
the grandeur of the spectacle that there and then, and

to face with the spectacle itself, he improvised a

nificent description of it. One of his companions,
a young officer could not help remarking: ' Hut \\here
do you see all this, Monsieur <le Lamartine? I fail

* I may be allowed to antii ipate in}' nairativc by ji:
whi-h sun determin.-r from

y refused to take pan in the

; icn the leaders of the b
merits had fina pie to meet them in the ;

! reasons, hesita:

ceed thitlu .1 ' I will go, though I had no

but my shadow.'

;ets led indirectly to the revolution of '48. TR.

-So }'t'ars of Recollections

to percc '-^v tiling of what you are describ-

I don't wonder at that. I am looking at the
scene with the eyes of a poet. You are looking at it
with the eyes of a staff-captain.'* Here we have the
merit and the defect of Lamartine as a historian at
the same time. No one has depicted the grand days
of the Revolution with greater force; no one has
given more striking portraits of the principal actors
in that drama. The reason why ? Because he sees
them in the aggregate both with his bodily eyes and
with those of his imagination ; because he transforms
without disfiguring them ; in one word, because he is
a poet Unfortunately, he is not sufficient of a staff-
captain, hence, we have got an eloquent, fascinating
book, full of pathos, and admirable just as a whole,
but far less perfect in the matter of detail, which
imperfection brings home to our minds the difference
between accuracy and truth. Lamartine had read a
great deal, but at random, unsystematically, and as
fancy prompted him. He was as it were, unprovided
with the capital of instruction, he had not even a
library. A few volumes scattered about his room,
trying to constitute themselves into a compact body,
though even then they would not have had a permanent
abiding place, made up the whole of his baggage as

* A similar anecdote is told of Turner, when he showed his picture
of 'Covent Garden' to a lady who had come to visit him. 'Very
beautiful indeed, Mr Turner, but I have been to Covent Garden also,
and I fail to see it as you do.' ' Don't you wish you could, madam ! '
said the painter somewhat bluntly. TR.

}' t (trs of Recollections

far as study was concerned. When in want of a book,
he sent to the nearest bookseller's for it and read it as
barristers read a brief, with that marvellous intuition
which enables them to put their finger on the very
passages they want, as if those passages had been
written in red ink. That was Lamartine's method.
I le devoured books, guessing half the time what was
in them, assimilated their contents, transforming the
latter as he went and passed on. Buchez and de
Roux's Ilistoire Parliamentaire ' had given him the
first idea of * Les Girondins,' he developed and com-
pleted the idea by the feverish perusal of works
pointed out to him by a friend ; then went in quest of
more personal information.

A curious story will enable us to get at the very core
of that strange book which has been so badly judged as
an act. Lamartine had been told that one of the last
remnants of the Convention, one of the members of the
Committee of Public Safety, and one of the most
faithful friends of Robespierre was still alive; Dr
Soubem'ellc, who was living in one of the Parisian
faubourgs. One morning at about ten Lamartinc JHV-
himselfat his domicile. The old man he was
v-thrcc 'ill in bed. On seeing the illus-

trioii tcr his room, I )r Soubcrx ielle gets

into a sitting posture, without -howin- tin- sli- 1
emotion at or intercut in the advent of the bearer of
that -iv.it name. The men of that by-one period
did not trouble themselves much, and had but

jss Sixty Years of Recollections

admiration for anyone unlike themselves. Slightly
inclining his head, covered with a cotton nightcap,
the old member of the Convention asked in a curt
and trenchant voice : ' What is your business with
me, monsieur ? ' 'I have come to ask you for some
correct particulars of the Convention, the history of
which I am writing.' * You ! ' says the old man, look-
ing fixedly at him ; then, with one of those vigorous
expressions which formed part of the dictionary of
yore, ' You haven't got guts enough to write that
history,' * saying which he lies down again. La-
martine was not a bit shocked at the answer either
in the spirit or substance. That past participle did
not frighten him in the least. In fact, he made fre-
quent use of it himself, though it jarred somewhat
with the general character of his poetry ; but, as
Pascal has it, the human heart is made up of con-
trasts. Consequently, he refused to take No for an
answer, and finally obtained some valuable par-
ticulars.

The book produced an enormous sensation and
had a considerable influence on the events of the
time, not because it was, as has been unjustly said, an
apology of the Reign of Terror ; if it had been that,
everyone would have shrank from it in horror and dis-
gust, but because it was the apology of the Republic.

I have considerably toned down the expression in English ; in fact,
it would have been difficult to find the exact equivalent for the French
verb, or rather the past participle of it, used by Dr Soubervielle. TR.

Years of Recollections 289

:artine reinstated the latter in its proper place in
TV by presenting it in a poetical and grandiose
form ; he purified it by lifting it out of the mire of
atrocities of which it had been the victim rather than
the accomplice; he stirred France to ideas of glory
and liberty which seemed so many satires on that
pusillanimous policy more or less tainted with the
bourgeois spirit, the policy of abandoning the lead
to other nations, which I must confess, I have
not the courage to blame under the present
circumstances, for after all what is a secondary
position compared x to dismemberment and mutila-
tion ? But in those days we still had the right
to have national susceptibilities and to foster grand
aspirations. ' Les Girondins* responded to those
thoughts. Lamartine translated that undefined agita-
tion of the public mind by the words which have
become historical : ' France is intensely bored.' In
short, like the grand seabinls, he felt that the storm
1 plied his wings towards a distant goal
ed. One of his friends, un-
:it direction in which his i<h

tending, and ha\ ; 1 him the reason, he replied

textually, as follows * I see whither France is travcl-
ril be waiting for her on the road ten \

I'll be there and she'll take me up by the
.md I may be useful to her. . . . ' The u
then: ave led us to the I ltel-de-\*illc.

n. T

290 Years of Recollections

III

Lamartine's dream has been realised ; after ;i
storm of twenty-four hours he stands at the helm.
His unaffected greatness was admirable to a degree.
During three months he governed, administrated,
moderated, ruled, electrified the mob without an
illegal act, however trifling, without resorting to
violence or armed force, without firing a shot, with-
out shedding a drop of blood. With what did he
govern ? With simple words. When men swayed
by the most furious passions and the most urgent
needs, driven by the most fatal theories knocked at
the doors of the Hotel-de-Ville, he' merely left the
Council, stepped on a chair, spoke for a quarter-of-
an-hour, asking ingenuously of those who accom-
panied him : ' Is that right/ and the passions subsided,
the roars and yells ceased, the savage brutes grew
subdued ; it was no longer a scene from contem-
porary history that was being enacted, but a scene
from mythology. Such things had not been seen
since the days of Orpheus.

There were some magnificent days in Lamartine's
tence during those three months. W T hich was
the most magnificent? The day of the red flag?
No. That of the manifesto? No. That on which
he replied to the madman who clamoured for his
head : ' Would to heaven you had it on your
shoulders?' No. In my opinion the i6th April

Years of Recollections 291

and the 3rd May were the most memorable days
uf that three months' reign ; the 1 6th April because
on that day the great statesman showed himself at
the same time the most skilful of diplomatists ; the
3rd May, because on that day, Lamartine, in order
to save the city, sacrificed more than his life which
he had often risked with a smile on his lips, he sacri-
ficed his popularity.

I have in support of my contention some personal
and accurate details.

In March 1848, a house situated at the angle of the

Rue de Rivoli and the Place des Pyramides and

which had until then been used as the audit office of

the King's household, was taken possession of in a

free and easy revolutionary way by a young man

completely unknown three months before. He had

suddenly become very formidable by the publication

of a paper, the very title of which, ' La Commune

a standing menace. The young

fellow's name was Sobrier ; I knew Sobrier; he was

five- and si. \-and-twenty, honest, terribly in

and fanatical beyond compare. He had

i unquestionable proof of his sincerity, he offered

\vholeof his fortune, twelve thousand

mm. If all the /;/// /.vwerecom-

d to furnish like proofs, their number would

i Her than it is. Nothing tom lies

the i, disinter. ;d roiise< jiiently

Sixty Years of Recollections

great and genuine. On the eve or on the morrow of
great events, small bills of a reddish violet were found
posted up at the street corners, merely displaying the
laconic but threatening sentences: 'The people are
not satisfied with the events of yesterday. If the
provisional government commits such mistakes again,
two hundred thousand of us will go and remind them
of their duty. Signed Sobrier.' The mystery, the
brevity, the firmness of the style had the effect of
adding largely to the prevalent fear. True, people
laughed among themselves at those everlasting two
hundred thousand men who appeared regularly on
those bills and whom no one had ever seen, but they,
nevertheless, shook in their shoes. It was well known
that the house in the Rue de Rivoli was the head-
quarters of the Revolution, whence constantly issued
pass-words and orders which the working population
obeyed.

On the 1 6th April Paris was thrown into a great
state of excitement by the rumour that a formidable
popular movement was impending. I happened to
be passing the door of Sobrier's ministry and went in
to get the news. The yard, the staircases, every nook
and corner resounded with the rattle of rifles ; sentries
everywhere. As a matter of course, I was going upstairs
when a sentry barred the way. ' You can't pass here.'
1 1 always pass.' ' What is your business, citizen ? ' 'I
wish to see Monsieur Sobrier.' ' Citizen Sobrier is en-
gaged. ' That may be, but he will see me.' < Your

ty Years of Recollections 293

name, citizen? ' ' Monsieur Legouve.' I am bound to
admit that I took a kind of fiendish delight in flinging
broadcast the l monsieurs ' in the sanctuary erected to
the cult of the civic virtues. All at once the sentry
notices an apparently important personage coming
down the stairs. 'Citizen,' he yells, 'here is citizen

uvc who wishes to speak with citizen Sobrier.'
' Let him go up.' ' Much obliged, monsieur,' I
answer, and in another moment I find myself in a
vast room where I behold Sobrier bending over a big
table, his loins girded with a crimson sash with a pair
of pistols sticking out of it and rapidly filling in small
bulletins which he hands to orderlies crowding
round him. 'You are just in time,' he said when

ai-ht >ight of me. ' I want recruits, and I'll take
you.' ' One moment,' I answered, laughing, ' I am
not so easily taken as all that ; before I enlist, I must
know with whom, for whom, and against whom I am

^ to fight.' ' I am going to tell you.' Thereupon,

all his bulletins bavin- been filled in and distributed.

he leads me to a window recess and says : 'It is

not!: than a question of saving Paris from

wholesale massacre and burning.' ' I don't understand.'

' There are people who arc born scourges of humanity

Blanqui is one. While I am talking to you, he

around him a hundred thousand madmen

and who obey hi .mmands ; in an

hour from now they'll start from the Champ de Mars

:ited to inert and maivh to

2^4 t of Recollections

the Hotel-de-Ville ; they'll overthrow the government
and butcher everyone who resists them, having made
up their mind to set fire to everything in the event of
their getting the worse.' Vastly exaggerated as the
story seemed to me for in those days we failed to
conceive the possibility of such monstrous things
Sobrier's face and tone of voice produced a deep im-
pression. ' Oh ! ' he exclaimed, clutching his head,
while the tears stood in his eyes ; ' Oh, and I who
dreamt of an angelic republic.' Then interrupting
himself for a moment, he went on, in an intensely ex-
cited, energetic tone. ' We must prevent this at all
costs, and prevent it I will. I have promised La-
martine.' ' Lamartine,' I repeated, ' you saw Lamar-
tine ? ' * Yes, he sent for me during the night. We
talked together for nearly an hour : it's all over, I am
his, body and soul. My dear Legouve, what a man,
what a sublime republican and what a magnificent
strategist. He himself drew up the whole of my plan
of attack. I am going to mass my men in the streets
adjoining the route Blanqui will take, and when his
vanguard and the front ranks of his main body shall
have passed, I cut his band in two ; he shall find my
two hundred thousand men between himself and the
Hotel-de-Ville, and I defy him to advance.'

The plan succeeded. The Hotel-de-Ville was pre-
served from destruction, the provisional government
maintained, the city saved, and the day that had
been looked forward to with fear and trembling, was

Years of Recollections 295

converted into one of triumph for the friends of
r ; so that, subsequently, when he was accused
of having conspired with Sobrier, Lamartine was
able to answer with a smile : ' Yes, I conspired with
Sobrier as the lightning conductor conspires with the
lightning.'

The 3rd May completed the work of the i6th
April. Deeply impressed with the great services
rendered by Lamartine, the Assembly proclaimed its
intention of vesting in him alone the provisional
rnment. He declined the honour. Then the
Assembly proposed that, at anyrate, Ledru-Rollin
should be excluded from the direction of affairs,
which proposal was still more energetically declined
Lamartine. This act with which he has been
most frequently reproached, redounds most to his
honour. He did not like M. Ledru-Rollin, the hitter's
Jacobinistic opinions were repugnant to Lamartine,
who was not even affected by Rollin's real oratorical
talents. Hut Lamartine foresaw well enough that if
Ledru-Rollin was not a member of the government, he
would, perhaps, be its adversary and that with Ledru-
11 added to the army of riot and disorder, riot
and disorder ini-ht score the victory. In fact, it
would be difficult for anyone to say what the revol-
utionary movement of the i 5th May and tlu- terrible

June would have been, if on the first of i
days, Ledru-Rollin had left the side of L.unartine and
on tl :id headed the revolt. People failed to

J- /> ) >#>-.$ <?/" Recollections

see the profound wisdom of Lamartine, they raised
the cry of treason. The defenders of the party of
moral order of that time accused him of having
from sheer ambition and weakness compounded with
the revolutionaries, from which it will be seen that
the proverb to the effect that ' the days succeed one
another, but are not like one another,' does not apply
to parties in the State. The conduct of Lamartine
was admirable in that respect, inasmuch as he foresaw
calumny and announced beforehand the ingratitude
which would be his lot. On the day he started from
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to repair to the
Assembly in order to show it the necessity of elect-
ing M. Ledru-Rollin, he said aloud : ' Do you know
what I am going to do ? I am going to save Paris
and lose my popularity.' And he went. The elec-
tion over, he left the Chamber, got into a cab with
one of his friends, Comte d'Esgrigny, from whom I
have these particulars, and after a moment's silence
remarked : ' My dear fellow, the end has come. In
another month, I'll only be fit to fling to the dogs.'
In the course of his existence he has been justly com-
pared to very great men indeed, but on that day he
deserved to have his name associated with the name
that remains purest in history, that of Washington.

His forebodings proved true ; in a few days, in-
fluence, prestige, everything vanished, leaving in their
stead, pain, disappointment, and bitterness. The
troublous days of June found him, as always, ready to

Sixty Years of Recollections 297

confront the danger, but they struck him a mortal
blow. He had foreseen them in despair, and ex-
pressed his anguish in one of those sentences, both
ic and vulgar, which sprang rather than fell from
his lips like a kind of explosion. 'We'll not get out
of this, except by a tremendous sweep of the broom in
the blood-stained streets/ All the subsequent events
equally bitter, and the presidential election of
the loth December (the election of Louis-Napoleon)
filled his cup of patriotic grief to the brim. It was
not the loss of power that broke his heart, but the
knowledge that his work was being destroyed, the
Republic overthrown, and liberty becoming a mean-
ingless phrase, the sight of a nation enthusiastically
prostrating herself before the name which had pro-
voked his loudest curse. It seemed as if the sound
of that name aroused the prophetic instinct once
, as if it enabled him to see the penalty we should
to pay one day for this fetichism, and like
Brutus on the plains of Thessaly, he uttered the cry
of despair: ' The >lc are unstable as sand. I

ought to have had myself killed on the steps of

--Philippe's tin--

And now I have come to th<e dark and la-l years
which were- to him but a pr ainst

the servitude of debt, during which, it must be
admitted, he often failed in dignity from sheer pride.
I lew, is too apt to remember what ! d to

him. apt to forget what he owed to himself.

298 Sixty Years of Recollections

I will not stop to discuss the subject, remembering
! do that delightful reply of Saint-Marc Girardin
before whom some one charged Lamartine with
improvidence and dissipation. 'There may be some
truth in what you say, but I know many people who
have put their names to as many bills and who have
not put their names to ' Les Meditations." '* Besides,
we ought not to forget that his trials became sancti-
fied as it were by his unremitting labour, that the
devotion shown under them invested them with a
poesy of their own. Lamartine was no longer the
Lamartine of old, the idea frequently eluded his grasp
while the pen, like "Walter Scott's, still laboured on,
laboured on without ceasing, to pay what he owed.
Heaven vouchsafed to him an admirable auxiliary in
that labour ; one instance will suffice to prove it.

Lamartine had taken up his quarters for the time
being at Saint-Point. One evening one of his friends
came to stay with him for a little while. ' Yours is
indeed an opportune visit,' said the poet. ' I have
just put the last touches to a long article on B^ranger
for the Siecle. Here are the proofs, read them, you
will be delighted, it is a magnificent essay.' In due
time the friend goes to his room and to bed, and
begins reading the proofs. It had just struck mid-
night when there was a knock at his door. ' Who is it ? '

* In order to preserve as^much as possible the epigrammatic turn of the
remark, I have taken a liberty with the French text which runs, 'Mais
je connais tant de gens qui en font autant ft quinon pas fait " Les Medita-
tions.'" Tu.

Years of Recollections 299

he asked. ' It is I,' replied a gentle voice, ' Mme. de
Lamartine, I wish to speak to you.' ' I can't open,
madame ; I am in bed.' ' Never mind, the door is at
the foot of your bed, just open it a little way and take
this.' The friend does as he is told and takes a paper
from the hand appearing in the aperture. Then he
closes the door and reads : * There is on page 1 3 a
passage that worries me. I fear it will hurt M. de
Lamartine with the readers of the Siecle. Could it
not be modified in this way ? ' The modification was
excellent. The friend had just finished copying it on
the margin of the proof when there was a second
knock. 'Is that you, madame?' he 'asks. 'Yes,
open your door as you did before and take this second
paper.' And again he reads. ' On page 32, there is
another passage which,' etc., etc.

Is it not charming, this devotion, that purity of
mind which for the moment forgets all convention-
ality ; that purity which for the nonce dispenses with
modesty, is it not touching indeed ? For we should
bear in mind that Mme. de Lamartine was not only
one of the iim^t -.aintlike of women, but a puri-
tanical besides. And in sax-ing this, I am putting it
mildly, she wafl an Knglishxvoinan xvho added Hritish
prudery in exvry form to Freneh <1 ' \\ every form;

neverthr bravely kn

young fellow's door, undeterred by his answer that

he JN in bed and quietly hands him through a 'door

txvo little not- with their

3OO 'r.irs of Recollections

correspondence. The end of the story is worthy of
the beginning. Next morning at the breakfast table
Mme. de Lamartine starts interrogating her accom-
plice by means of signals and looks, and he in his
turn and by the same means conveys to her that
the corrections have been made. ' Well, dear friend,'
says Lamartine, ' have you read my " B6ranger ? "
' Of course I have.' * Magnificent, isn't it' * Mag-
nificent is the word, still there are one or two pass-
ages. . . .' ' Don't ask me to make any changes ;
I'll not make any, the thing is perfect' ' No doubt
it is, still, if you will permit me to show you two
slight modifications. . . .' Saying which, he hands
the corrected proofs to Lamartine, who casts his eyes
over them and exclaims : ' Excellent, very just indeed.
You are perfectly right' Then turning to his wife,
he says : * These things would never have struck you,
my dear.' Mme. de Lamartine simply bent over her
plate and smiled.

This admirable companion through good and evil
days, had to leave the man in whom her life had been
centred to battle with the world. Not quite alone,
though, for she had the comfort in leaving him, to
bequeath, as it were, a devotion equal to hers, a'
daughter's devotion, which tenderly watched over the
last sad years, so full of anguish, of the poet, which
vigilantly watches to-day over the poet's posthumous
fame. The memory of Lamartine has its Antigone.

His obsequies were marked by a pathetic incident

Years of Recollections 301

His remains were taken to Saint-Point, and left the
rail at Macon. It was winter and snowing fast, as
the hearse slowly wended its way through the small
communes and boroughs scattered along the route.
At the entrance to each village stood the priest wait-
ing for the coffin to offer up a prayer. The bells of the
different churches never ceased tolling, they answered
one another, and announced to the more distant ones
the approach of the funeral procession. At a short
distance from Saint-Point an old peasant stood weep-
ing on his doorstep. 'You may well cry, my good
man,' said Jules Sandeau, taking his hands in his
own, 'you have sustained a great loss.' 'Indeed,
monsieur, he was an honour to our commune,' was
the answer. The old peasant spoke the truth, La-
martine was an honour to the commune as he was to
the province, to the province as he was to France, to
I-Y.mcc as he was to Europe, as he was to humanity
at large ; he was an honour to manhood it

What I wish to study finally in Lamartinc is the

;;/</;/, that is, one of the strangest and most original

being^ the wrld ha* produced. ( )ne's astonishment

in him never CC8 -rything in him was both in

harmony and in contrast. The aristocratic beauty <!"

and the splendid gait was marred by a care-

whkh K nous

ifl princely air and inborn d Kloquence

of tli and .striking kind, the- eUjn,

of the tribune, full of sentef* -\<\\ outlined like

302 s of Recollections

medals and powerful ideas translated into brilliant
language, the whole emphasised by a glass full of
wine he was for ever waving over the heads of the
terrified shorthand reporters. A crushing burden of
debt, the existence of which he could not have ex-
plained, for his wants were few, almost none ; he was
as sober and frugal as an Arab. Not a single ex-
travagant taste; in the way of luxuries he only cared
for horses. Not a single vice ; I am mistaken, he had
one, at any rate, he boasted of one, but the reason
why he broke himself of it is so strange that I give
it here as the finishing touch to his portrait.

' When I was young,' he said, ' I was a passionate
bier, but one night at Naples, I discovered an
infallible means of breaking the bank. Of course
from that moment, I could not go on playing, I was
sure to win.' I have got an idea that that kind of
gambler is not often met with.

It has often been said that God had endowed him
with almost every blessing, beauty, high-birth, courage,
genius ; but something more rare than all those gifts
had been vouchsafed to him, namely, the faculty to
use them at will. They were ever ready to obey his
call. No matter at what hour he was always ready
to speak, write, or act. If a great danger came upon
him in the middle of the night, when he was wrapped
in sleep, no cry of surprise started from his lips, he
displayed not a moment's fear. His heroism was
there as he arose, his courage awoke when he did.

s of Recoil a; 303

It was the same with his poetical genius. Hi>
r one day presented to him a young girl who
wished for some lines from his pen for her album.
Lamartine snatches up that pen and without a
moment's reflection, without a second's hesitation, he
writes as follows

' Le livre de la vie est Ic livre supreme
Qu'on ne peut ni fermer, ni rouvrir a son choix ;
Le passage attachant ne s'y lit pas deux fois ;
Mais le feuillet fatal se tourne de lui meme ;
On voudrait revenir a la page qu'on aime,
Et la page ou 1'on meurt est de"ja sous nos doi-

After which he hands the paper in a careless way

to his sister, who almost stupified by the beauty of

the lines and his evident indifference, exclaims :

' Forgive him, O Lord, for he knoweth not what he

doeth.' His facility for writing verse was, in fact,

such as to breed the thought that he was unconscious

of what he was doing. Did he not one day say to

a friend thoroughly engrossed in his work: ' What

you doing, sitting there with your head in both

'I am thinking,' was the an>\\vr. 'I low

strange,' remarked Lamartine; 'I never think, my

ideas think for me.' Truly, in the MI< -h a

irk one is almost inclined to suspect that like

miartine had a familiar demon, living

within, acting and speaking for him. In any

one feels bound n't that that demon \\

d him with
thing but pity and goodness. Kindr the

;o.j Sixty Years of Recollections

distinctive trait of that admirable being, the supreme
seal with which nature had marked him, the crown
she had set upon all his other merits. There was
a name-loss grandeur about Lamartine's kindness,
which grandeur, in fact, stamped everything he did.
\\\^ sympathy not only included the whole of
humanity, but every living thing created. Like
those saints of the Middle-Ages, who, it was said,
were bound by a mystical affinity to the dumb crea-
tures and whom legend represents to us as surrounded
by animals, accompanying their every step, while the
birds flutter overhead, Lamartine seemed to keep up
a mysterious connection with the lower creation. He
has painted it in words and images more telling even
than the lines of Virgil and Homer. So great was
the sympathetic power of his voice, look and mien
that he seemed able to command by some name-
less magnetic attraction the crowd of animals living
under his roof, to keep them around him, their eyes
fixed on his. Those dogs, birds, horses were not so
many objects of amusement to Lamartine as they
are to people with nothing special to do. He looked
upon them as comrades, nay, as he said himself, as
brothers. He interrogated, answered them, for he
seemed to understand them. There was a constant
communication, nay, communion between that superior
soul and those ' mere germs of souls.' I can see him
as it were but yesterday lying on the couch and con-
versing on very serious subjects with two broken-haired

.;: Years of Recollections 305

terriers squatted at his feet, while a small greyhound
was perched on his head ; the latter pretty animal
executing such sundry graceful evolutions now and
then that I could not help expressing my admiration.
>k at her,' said Lamartine, without turning round,
' she is listening, she knows we are talking of her, she
is such a little coquette. . . .'

There are, however, numberless people whose ex-
ceeding great love for animals leaves them none to
>w upon men. Lamartine did not belong to
these, his humanity oven extended to human beings.
1 1 is pity for, his generosity to, those who suffered was
boundless and inexhaustible, and one day when one
of his friends reproached him with some instance of
extravagant charity, he replied, 'You'll not enter
into the paradise of the good, you are not too good'
No one could have levelled that reproach at him ; I
leave the reader to judge for himself.

A poor young poet, of the name of Armand Le-
bailly, whm I knew, was slowly dying of consumption
at the Saint-Louis hospital. I induced Lamartine to

him a visit, feeling certain that his visit would do
the dying man more good than the visits of half-a-
hundred doctors. The moment we crossed the

te-Catherine ward, I ;ht of the poor

young fellow at the far end of the room. He was
sittin the stove-, his elbows on the table, and

his hands clutchii the Ion- hair <>n which

almost hid 1. At the sound of our steps hr

VOL II U

306 ) 'ears of Recollectiojis

looks up with a wild terrified stare, but the moment
he recognises my companion, stupefaction, joy,
pride, sympathy, all struggle for the mastery in his
features. Quivering like an aspen leaf, he rises,
comes towards us and has barely the strength to
bend reverently over the hand the great poet holds
out to him and to touch it with his lips. Lamartine's
conversation was simply a mixture of a father's
kindness and a poet's goodness. He spoke to Le-
bailly of his verses, he even repeated some of them,
no Sister of Charity could have been more admir-
able and considerate. In about a quarter-of-an-
hour we got up and seeing that the patient
wished to accompany him as far as the door,
Lamartine said, 'Take my arm and don't mind
leaning on it.' In that way we crossed that long
room between the two rows of its inmates, some
standing at the foot of their beds, others too weak to
get off their chairs, others again raising themselves in
their beds, but all taking off their caps as we passed.
The name of the illustrious visitor had transpired,
and had, as it were, thrown the whole of the hospital
into a state of excitement. Lebailly's eyes flashed
with pride as he looked to the right and left ; they
said as plainly as words : ' This is my friend, I take
his arm.' The poor fellow laughed and wept at the
same time; he had ceased to suffer for the time being.
When we got back to his carriage, Lamartine said :
' This poor young fellow is no doubt very ill, but he

\\u-s of Recollections 307

may linger for a long while, and it would be well for
him to have some comforts. Add this to what you
;oing to give him.' Therewith he handed me a
5OO-franc note. The reader may imagine my sur-
when, three days later, I learnt that proceedings
had been taken against Lamartine for a debt of 4000
francs, which he was unable to pay. Face to face
with a fellow creature's suffering he had forgotten
what he owed. ' Sheer madness this,' wiseacres will
exclaim. Xo doubt, it was sheer madness, but it is
an instance of sheer madness that may safely be
published, there is not much fear of contagion in
that respect.

And if I made it a point to wind up this sketch

with the account of that charitable impulse, it is

because it appeals to me as the most distinctive trait,

not only of Lamartine's works, but of his life : namely,

as something superhuman, superior to common-

e itself. Commonsense is a most admirable

quality in man ; cominonscnse prompts him to do

very good things indeed, but it is not the motive

a things. Commonsense makes neither

heroes, saint nor poets. Commonsense

would no more have sufficed t<> compose the ' Man i

t<> Kurope,' or to get the upper hand of the

rabble at the Hotel-de-Ville, than it would have

i :ed to wi Medita: \ndiTLamartine

ibled to delight the world, nay, to subdue

that wo 'iily for one >hrt day. it is bo

308 I 'ears of Recollections

he has ever taken his standpoint on a more lofty level
than that of the world ; because he has been a great
poet, trying to put his precepts into practice. There

. talk of erecting a monument to him ; if so, let
those responsible for the idea remember what the

cnts did. They crowded their forums with altars
dedicated to youth, beauty, and valour. Let them
raise a column dedicated to poesy, and place atop of
it the statue of Lamartine. That is his rightful place.
Right at the summit, looking up at the heavens, and
commanding the city of which he has been the glory
and the salvation. Let it be a statue which, like the
God of Day, shall uphold a golden lyre with both
hands.*

* The projected monument took the shape of a niggardly bust,
relegated to Passy, one of the suburbs of Paris. TR.

CHAPTER X

The Portrait-Gallery continued. Beranger. My first meeting with him.
His position in the World of Letters. His moral courage. The
Atheism of the XVIIIth century and ours. Beranger's Religious
Sentiments. His admiration for the Literature of Greece. His
influence over Great Men. Whence it sprang. His Wit. His
love of poor people and of young people. Three Letters.

I

IT would be sheer ingratitude on my part not to
devote some space to Be" ranger among the masters
of literature of my younger days. Though we were
never on very intimate terms, his influence over me
was very real. Three letters of his placed at the end
of this chapter will show him in one of his most
and least known sides ; namely, as a
literary advi

It was in the salon of M. de Joiiy that I met
i the first time. I IN position in that
Bfl a prominent one. His talent com-
ded admiration; his independent judgment, con-
ration, and h: il tendency, fear. I le boldly
the famous petition addressed to Charles X to

lying tin- plays of

310 of Recollections

the romanticists, and this in the face of the signatures to
that petition, for there was not a single one wanting,
not even that of his host. He had the courage to
take up the cudgels for Victor Hugo in that gather-
ing, to place the ' Iphigenia ' of Euripides above that
of Racine, he even dared to speak of God. In those
days a goodly number of classicists were frankly
atheistic. Let me explain. I do not mean the kind
of dogmatic, democratic, pedantic atheism from
which has sprung that intolerance of incredulity
which would gladly condemn to the stake those 'who
attend mass, just as in olden times they burned those
who did not go to mass, not the atheism that drew
from the brooding, savage Mallefille the * Don't talk
to me of God, it is the despot of Heaven.' No, the
atheism of the liberals of the Restoration savoured of
the light bantering tone of that of the eighteenth
century ; it was witty, good-natured, laughter-loving.
I remember Lemercier replying to someone who
spoke to him about the soul. ' Yes, I know, the soul
that leaves the body when we die. You remind me
of children who when they see a watch drop on the
floor and find out that it has stopped, exclaim in a
contrite voice : " Oh, the little thing is dead." ' Well,
it was amidst that sceptical society, at one of M. de
Jouy's Thursday dinners that Beranger, pressed to
sing a new song, boldly intoned ' Le Dieu des Bonnes
Gens.' At the sound of that first line

1 II est un Dieu, devant lui je m'inoline ; '

Sixty Years of Recollections 3 1 1

there was a general shock, almost like that at Mme.
d'Epinay's on the occasion of Jean-Jacques Rous-
seau's rising amidst the very impious sallies of Diderot
and Holbach and saying, 'Well, I, gentlemen, I
believe in God.' Beranger's attempt in this instance
was prompted by a dual motive. He wished, first of
all, to affirm his religious sentiments which were
much more intense than people generally imagine.
Beranger was not only a believer, but a Christian at
heart, if not by faith. His favourite book was the
Gospel. He often referred to the 'Sermon on the
Mount' as a masterpiece of grandiose eloquence and it
will surprise many to hear what he said to me one day,
towards the end of his life : * It often seems to me that
: rst PI! meet on my arnral in tJie other world will
be Christ:

His second aim was altogether literary. I am
unable to say whether, as some of his friends main-
tained, Beranger knew Latin, or whether, as he him-
self maintained, he did not know it. One thing, how-
rtain, he was by no means enthusiastic about
the literature of the Latins. His admiration was en-
ed for Greek poetry. 'Your Romans
compared to the Athenians are only so many bar-
he often said, and added: 'Athens is the
genuine land of art.' In his 'Voyage Iin.i ;i:i,iirr,'
there is an admirable picture <f his love for Greece.

' \ \ i.u faut-il IJK luisc Hom&re,

; , je fus G

312 Sixty Years of Recollections

Sous Pericles, j'eus Athenes pour mere ;

Je visilai Socrate en prison !

De Phidias j'encensai les merveilles,

DC 1'Ilissus j'ai vu les bords fleurir,

J'ai sur 1'Hymete eveille les abeilles

C'est la, c'ebt la, que je voudrais mourir . . . .'

Fed, as it were, upon Homer, Euripides, Sophocles,
nay Plato, he conceived the plan after his first
success, to raise the level of the song, to enlarge its
scope. He considered the title of ' successor to
Dsaugiers ' a mild kind of glory ; he aspired to
something better than to make Venus rhyme to
Bacchus. He wished to move his hearers, to make
them think, to put grand poetry into small couplets
and introduce into the burden of his songs not only
politics, but lofty questions of philosophy and ethics.
' Le Dieu des bonnes gens ' was his first attempt in
that direction and as he often told me afterwards, he
quaked more or less when submitting his work to that
distinguished and scoffing gathering. The success
was simply immense. He had been clever enough to
mingle with that confession of faith so many beauti-
ful lines, so much patriotism, so much grandeur of
imagery and now and then so much wit that they
condoned the belief for the sake of the talent. His
third strophe aroused the enthusiasm of everyone.

' Un conqueYant, dans sa fortune altiere,

Se fit un jeu des sceptres et des lois !
Et de ses pas on peut voir la poussiere

Hinpreinte encor sur le bandeau des rois ! '

There and then the song writer was voted not only

.SY.r/r Years of Recollections 313

cat poet, but a great lyric poet. His preponder-
ance in the literary world was singularly increased by
this.

It is difficult to get a correct idea nowadays of
the part played by Beranger at that period. He was
virtually the counsellor of the men of his time and no
one wielded a greater influence over his contempor-
aries. And yet, he by no means affected to possess
such influence, nay, more, he in no way courted
it. Very sober in speech, more sober in gestures, he
waited until people came to him, but while waiting,
he attracted. The most prominent men of that time,
Manuel, Benjamin Constant, Laffitte, Thiers, con-
sulted Beranger in everything they did. At the
: ut ion of July (1830) Talleyrand expressed the
desire to meet Beranger. But their relation to one
another was that of two great powers ; they were like
two sovereigns whose dignity prevents them from
making the first call. Beranger would not go to the
mansion in the Rue St Florentin where the Restor-
ation had been hatched ; M. dc Talleyrand could not
well mount the five flights of stairs leading to

r*a domicile. They confined them
talking to one another through intermediari---. there

.in interchange of diplomatic noi
I -.ttrr . MI, 1 inmanded the fricinUhi|

of tin- t inter the nineteenth

;l>naiid. I ..unart ine and I .amcnnais.

d that their genillfl was

3H " Years of Recollections

superior to his own, and yet all three submitted, as
it were to his dominion, all three made him their
confidant, their counsellor, their arbiter, their inter-
media rv in the most critical circumstances of their
li\v-. It was to him that Lamartine imparted his
dreams of financial speculation, Chateaubriand his
never-ending complaints of money worries, Lamen-
nais the misgivings of his conscience. Heaven alone
knows how many days he spent in letting in some
light upon the darkness of Lamartine's affairs. As
for Chateaubriand's, Be"ranger used to sum up the
situation in his jocular way : * What's the good of
talking ? It isn't the poor fellow's fault ; he has
never been able to do without a servant to help him
to put on his breeches.' With regard to Lamennais,
Bdranger did all he could to prevent him from fling-
ing away his priestly gown. ' Remain a priest,' he
kept on saying : ' remain a priest, you haven't the
right to cease being a priest. Part of your honour
is at stake. In your case, leaving the Church does
not mean abdication, it means desertion.' Lamen-
nais refused to be guided by him on that point, but
like Bcranger's other two friends, continued to re-
cognise the value of and to accept his advice in

everything else.

II

Whence came this singular influence on the part of
a mere writer of songs ? It sprang from three things :
first from his innate kindness. I never met with a kinder

Si.vty Years of Recollections 315

creature. He was charity personified. He lavished
his time, money, advice upon others, he was for ever
careering hither and thither, for the benefit of others.
This constant pre-occupation for others found vent
one day in a delightful remark of his. ' I wonder,' I
said, ' that it does not bore you to dine by yourself so
often. ' Faith,' was the answer, * I have got a sovereign
remedy against being bored. I never think about
myself.' I could quote hundreds of instances of his
generosity. A poor woman whom he esteemed and
liked very much came to confide to him her distress
and the impossibility of finding some one to lend her
some money. ' How much do you want ? ' asked
BeVanger. 'Three hundred francs.' In those days
three hundred francs was an important sum to
Beranger. ' Here they are/ says Beranger, going
t> his writing desk. 'I'll return them to you in
six months, Monsieur Ik-ranger. ' 'Take your own
time.' At the end of six months, the woman,
faithful to her promise, brings him the three hundred
francs, which he puts back into the drawer wh<
he had taken them. After a twelvemonth she
's once more to ask him to help her. He
goes to his writing d 9 out the three hundred

:id says, ' I felt certain you would be oh.
to ask for them again, and 1 put them there in
while. They wen- waiting for you.'

The second cause tiger's inline: his

marvelloiii commonse;i < The advl ,;ive you

316 i Years of Recollections

not only the best he could give but the best
that could be given to you. No one had the gift to
an equal degree of adapting the advice to the in-
telligence, character, position and resources of the
recipient. Finally there was the third cause of his
great influence. That sound sense always assumed
a pungent form and often a deeply philosophical.
It never ceased to be sound sense and there was
always an intellectual flavour about it. His conver-
sation was not only charming but fruitful in suggest-
ing ideas. It was delightful to look back upon. Not
once but a hundred times did I discover that this or
that idea, simply enunciated by Beranger in the
course of a conversation and the justice of which
had struck me at the time, gradually got hold of my
mind, developed and grew there, until it finally bore
unexpected fruit. It was like a living germ deposited
within my mind.

Beranger has been twitted sometimes with carefully
preparing his epigrams, with polishing them before-
hand and with repeating them after having used them
once. Admitting the truth of this the harm would
not be great, they were assuredly worth repeating.
When Alfred de Musset sent him his first poems, he
said : ' You have got magnificent horses in your
stables, but you do not know how to drive them.'
Then he added cheerfully : ' Never mind, you'll know
one day; unfortunately, it frequently happens that by
the time one does know, the horses are dead.' He

;; Years of Recollections 317

equally plain spoken with Lamartine who never
resented it. One day, while talking to him about
' Jocelyn ' for which he had an intense admiration,
he remarked ' What a splendid poem, my dear friend,
a poem full of genius of deep feeling and imagin-
ation. But why the deuce did you put those two or
three hundred lines in which must have been written
by your concierge?' Lamartine burst out laughing
and replied as frankly : ' Because, my dear friend, I
am suffering from the serious defect of not being able
to correct.' Lamartine was right, one of the last
editions of his contains Variants which are simply so
many blots ; whenever Lamartine changes an in-
different line, he puts a worse in its stead.

1'. not equally successful in his part of

poetical adviser to Victor Hugo. He intensely

admired I lugo's lyrical poems, but was by no means

enthusiastic about ' Le Roi s' Amuse.'* I le was afraid

of Victor Hugo's genius mistaking its direction, and

called his imagination to his aid in order to point

out. He conceived the idea of assuming the

name of Triboulet himself ' Pray, sire-,' he wrote, 'do

your fool leave to tug at your cloak and to tell

you in a whisper what people dare not say to you

And under that cover of the fool's cap and

bauble. the poet some very subtle-, just and

pointed, though withal mcaMin<l criticisms. V

and remarked in a

The original of ' The Fool's Revenge ' and ' Rigoletto.'-

318 .T Years of Recollections

way. ' 1 see very well what Beranger is driving at
with this letter. He certainly thought it very brilliant
and does not wish it to be lost to posterity, so he
said to himself: "At Victor Hugo's death, all his
papers will be published and my letter amongst them."
But I'll upset his plan and will burn the epistle.' To
which Beranger replied jocularly : 'If ever I feel
inclined to address something to posterity, I shall
certainly not select Victor Hugo as the carrier.' Let
me hasten to add that Beranger was as ready to hear
the truth as to utter it. One of his friends somewhat
impatient at hearing him adopt about himself an
humble tone which was not absolutely free from
affectation, objected to it. ' Look here, my dear
Beranger, why not have done with all this modesty,
which cannot be altogether sincere. After all, you
know well enough that you are very- talented.' For a
moment Beranger sat surprised at this home thrust
and remained silent, then answered : * Well, yes ;
when I look around me, when I read what is being
written nowadays, I come to the conclusion that I
am not devoid of talent ; but my dear friend, when I
begin to think of Corneille, Moliere, La Fontaine and
other great men, a sincere and profound spirit of
humility comes over me. Modesty, after all, is only
the spirit of comparison.' This is but one of the
sensible and judicious remarks that fell constantly
from his lips. In defining modesty, he at the same
time defined pride ; for if modesty can only be

-; ]'t' t ?rs of Recollections 319

maintained by comparing one's self to others, pride
can only effect an entrance when we neglect to com-

pare ourselves.*

Ill

Throughout his life Beranger has had two great
objects of predilection, poor folk and young folk ;
one of the lines of his song on Manuel runs :

' Coeur, tete et \ rns, tout e'tait peuple en lui.'

This line is virtually his own portrait ; he was of the
people, he understood and loved the people, he pre-
ferred their company to any other. The blouse and
the linen jacket pleased him a great deal better than
the broadcloth coat. If a working-man happened to
call upon him in the morning, he made him sit clown
to breakfast by his side. His great admiration for
Saint Paul sprang from the fact that Saint Paul while

. had remained a weaver.

for the interest he took in young people, 1 need

only consult my own recollections and proceed to

quote from them. for any and

yone who gave the faintest hope or showed the

promise of talent was such as to prompt him

frequently to go to b< without waiting for

1 M. Legouve* overrates Be*r.injjer's originality in this

whom M. I.i-^nuvtf mention- in the first

.or of his 'Recollections,' naim-lv, M. Renault ilc Saint-Jean
;>rovoked a sinv the Abbe* (aftr-

was nettle 1 at tin- l.uicr's 'pride of
iv what he really thought he wa
apart fi

surroundings,' was the answer ; 'a g<
them ' lU: i^-cr simply modified the propositi

3 2O :v Yctirs of Recollections

them to call upon him. The prize awarded to me by
the Academic-Franchise for my poem brought me a
letter from his pen. He wrote to me from ' La
Force,' where he was undergoing a month's imprison-
ment, and after having conveyed his gratulations
in the most flattering and sympathetic terms, he
invited me to go and see him. It is scarcely credible
but I neither went to see him nor replied to his letter.
Why, <h, why ? Because I was too timid, because I
felt a kind of false shame. Young people often suffer
from those unaccountable scruples. In those days
my admiration for great men was so intense that
more than once I went as far as their door without
having the courage to ring the bell. I remember that
every now and then while talking to M. Lemercier,
I suddenly stopped in the middle of a sentence,
saying to myself : * What's the use of telling him.
He knows every word of what I am going to say to
him.' It was absurd, but at that time I was ignorant
of the fact that youth in itself possesses such a charm
as to convert its awkwardness into gracefulness and
that people take an affectionate delight in watching
young people's confusion.

As soon as B6ranger came out of prison, I wrote
him a letter, expressing my regret and apologising
for my neglect which brought me the following reply.
I transcribe it in extenso and without expunging the
flattering remarks, because they testify to his loving
sympathy with young beginners.

Sixty Years of Recollections 321

'MONSIEUR, M. de Jouy had indeed apprised me of
your intending visit to La Force, and I felt proud to
think that a brow with the laurels fresh upon it would
stoop beneath the prison gates in order to come and
see me. I am glad that our friend told you of my
disappointment, seeing that to-day I am indebted to
it for a proof of your appreciation, which, believe me,
affects me very much. I read the verses to which
you owe your public success, long ago, and the poem
contains something even more precious than beauti-
ful verses ; the feelings which pervade the whole at-
i lofty soul, and I cannot but rejoice, monsieur,
to find that everything in you foreshadows the

liy bearer of an already illustrious name. It
only makes me more anxious to become acquainted
with you. If I knew the exact day you intended
calling, I would make it a point of remaining at
home to welcome you, for except on Thursdays I am

ly always running about on business, which
makes me afraid of missing your promised visit un-

you would be good enough to appoint the day.

Hut, after all, moiisu-ur, I have one other resource

left, namely, to call upon you, in order to express my

nd cordial feelings, and the interest which I

wards you.

'Your very humble servant,

BBS \ .

">ctof>tr 30, 1829.
II.

Sixty Years of Recollections

Here is his second letter. I had published a

me of poems under the title of ' Les Morts

Hi/arres' and sent him a copy, asking him at the

same time for his advice. It was his answer to my

request.

4 MONSIEUR, The most skilful way of getting
cd by the majority of men, and above all, by
those who are advanced in years, is to ask their advice.
I am perfectly certain, though, that no such inten-
tion prompted your request for my advice. If I could
harbour such an idea for a moment, the candour with
which every one of your lines is stamped would be
the most effectual appeal against such a suspicion ;
hence, monsieur, since you have appealed to my
candour, my praise will be somewhat stinted.

* I like the elegy to the memory of your father
exceedingly ; the sentiment by which it is inspired
throughout makes it touching from the first line to
the last. I should regret its greater perfection,
because a more correct style and a more concise
fnrm would hamper the expressions of your heart
and contrast painfully with them.

' But it seems to me that the subsequent pieces,
with the exception, however, of the fragment on
" Maria Lucrezia," which I except because it is full of
feeling like the elegy, would have required more
careful workmanship, a less "happy-go-lucky" phrase-
ology, a greater firmness of versification and often a

of Recollections 323

more sparing use of detail. Nowadays, monsieur,
finished versification has become compulsory. That
finish is often carried to the verge of affectation and
this may be the cause of your dislike to it. Hut
you are too enlightened not to avail yourself of the
good there may be in a thing.

By this time you are becoming aware of my
freely using the permission you have granted me ;
I may, perhaps, be led to abuse it.

' The title of your collection of poems, which
implies a premeditated choice of subjects, was cal-
culated to inspire me with a certain mistrust of the
subject themselves. I am inclined to think that
accident suggested two of the subjects to your mind ;
after that, you probably looked for the third and the
next Ought the real poet, and you are one, mon-
sieur. to proceed in that way without being compelled ?
poet's idea should be like the female flower; it
should await the fertilising dust the male flings into
air, and confides to the winds. A subject de-
liberately looked for will rarely command the inspira-
tion ution reijiiir

'And here I must interrupt myself for a moment,
i looking over what I have written, I feel s>me-
\\ha: d of the part you have assigned to

innocence of 1

For it is no doubt a \ , to make a

some .miniated s, >ng writer like m

hoolmaster ; and I < annot help

324 J 'ears of Recollections

laughing at it myself, though it will not prevent me
from treating the second heading of my sermon.

1^ Mort de Charles-Quint," monsieur, contains
some very noble passages, and the drama seems to
me as complete as the framework would allow.
Nevertheless, I prefer to it "Phalere" which is
founded upon a powerful and true idea, rendered
very happily. As for " Pompei," some passages struck
me as very inferior, but others gave me the impres-
sion of unquestionable merit, such as for instance that
of " The Slave " and that of " The Last Love Couple.' 1
The latter have reconciled me to the unsatisfactory
tone of the poem as a whole. If I am to sum up my
impression, monsieur, I will frankly tell you that
throughout the volume there is ample proof of real
talent, of inspired talent, but which lacks a deter-
mined purpose. You appear, up till now, not to
have asked yourself in what way to utilise the happy
gifts accorded to you by nature, and pending the
revelation in that respect by your own vocation, you
are beguiling the time with preludes on a lyre, the
whole resources of which you are already fully able
to appreciate.

'Yes, monsieur, I trust that, encouraged by the
memory of a father so justly regretted, you may add
to the 'glory of the reputation he has bequeathed to
you. As far as I am able to judge, you have only
to work and to persevere in order to accomplish
this.

Sixty Years of Recollections 325

' Pray excuse the length of this letter and my
frankness which is perhaps somewhat too great At
the age of twenty I had the pleasure of coming in
contact twice with the author of " Le Merite des
Femmes." As a matter of course we talked about
poetry ; he was kind enough to give me some sterling
advice which I have not forgotten. My letter, I trust,
will prove to you that I am not ungrateful. I only
regret my inability to discharge my debt more
hily. But I cannot help repeating : what induced
you to apply for literary advice to a song writer who
does not even know Latin?

* Pray, accept, monsieur, the assurance of my great
esteem and my sincere devotion.

'BERANGEk.

Starch 10, 1832.'

This is a curious letter in more than one respect.

To begin with, it shows the uncommon candour of

tiger, his great faculty of judgment and at the

same time a peculiar trait of his character. Like

most people fond of bantering others, he stood greatly

ir of being bantered ; like most clever people he

stoo< >eing selected as the victim of

T people ness or even of exposing himself

ion of being made such a victim. I le is

always on his ^ linst such a possibility 1

not hesitated for a moment to point out this

, that it diminishes in no way his

326 .y Years of Recollections

innate sentiments of justice, goodness and moral

force.

' Les Morts Bizarres ' met with but a meagre success
and I felt greatly discouraged. For a little while I
made up my mind to abandon poetry and to go to
the bar ; for a little while only. Nevertheless, I felt
in a state of painful uncertainty. I really did not
know which road to choose. My prize poem had no
doubt put my foot in the stirrup, but several roads
were open to me and I did not know which to choose.
I had reached that painful period when a young
fellow is feeling in his way. I made up my mind to
consult Beranger. Here is his reply

* Have you an idea, monsieur, of the awkward, nay,
the fearful predicament you place me in by honouring
me with your confidence ? Are you aware that you
are virtually asking me to preside at your literary
existence? No doubt, this is a great proof of your
esteem, and I cannot but feel greatly impressed by it,
but unfortunately this is not sufficient for me to accept
a mentorship of that nature. In your letter you
stand self-accused of not having been to see me
sufficiently often ; well, monsieur, this confession on
your part explains my hesitation to reply to your
letter, amiable as it is in that respect. How, in fact,
can one lay down a rule of conduct for a man whom
one has not had the opportunity and time to study.
Your reply will be that I have read your different

y of Recollections 327

essays. Is this sufficient, think you ? A few works
more or less able (for I am not so severe towards you
as you are yourself) only afford the measure of a
man's intellectual qualities. But how can I decide
with regard to the character of the man. " What does
that matter ? " most of our young men would say.
According to me, it matters much, especially in an
epoch like ours when one should look for no support
except from one's self. Without attempting a thorough
appreciation of your character, I have got an idea that
you possess dominant tastes which are bound to influ-
ence the tendency of your mind ; and unfortunately I
am absolutely in the dark with regard to those tastes.
You have the misfortune to be what people call a
young fellow in happy circumstances. From the
moment of your birth, fate has smiled upon you.
You yourself admit that but for that craving for
glory, nothing would be wanting to your happiness,
r mind, that happens to be your own particular
fad, I would fain cure you of it ; but when fate gives
:it, the chances are that she gives us one
thing too many. Well, my dear lad, go on pursuing

hich domes to us from tin-
middle of the wilderness, take care it does not drag
you thither. Then- ifl only one way open to you
to avoid such misfortune; try to In- useful. That is
law God imposes on every man, in literature
that law becomes more- stringent than ever. Do not
those who are content with art for .1:

3-S Sixty Years of Recollections

try to find out whether there does not exist within
yourself some creed of humanity or patriotism on
which you may hang your efforts and your thoughts.
You have a kind heart, a generous and liberal mind ;
as yet, the world cannot have succeeded in spoiling
them by its flatteries, it cannot have removed all
feeling of sympathy for your fellow creatures. Well,
that sentiment, if properly consulted, will prove a
safer guide in your studies and your work than
anything the most learned men can tell you ; such
a sentiment has sufficed to make of me, weakling as
I am, something ; something very fragile, no doubt,
but after all, something.

' My language, monsieur, will no doubt surprise you,
it is so utterly unlike anything you are in the habit of
hearing in your own set, but believe me, I am only
trying to explain the principles that have guided
my conduct since I attained the age of discrimina-
tion ; that hour struck very early for me, for at fifteen
I was obliged to assume the duties of a man and to
look to my own education. To those who would
oppose the example of a great poet to that of an
humble songster and who would tell you that Byron
had no faith, I would say that Byron, the representa-
tive of an aristocratic state of things, which is fast
tumbling to pieces and disappearing, could only have
had negative beliefs. But they were, after all, beliefs,
and there can be no doubt that his were, in a certain
sense, as strong as his genius was magnificent. Be-

y Years of Recollections 329

lieving, as he must have done, that the aristocracy was
the flower of humankind and seeing it blasted on all
sides, he could not but curse and reach that state
of misanthropy, furious and ironical in turns, which
has been so idiotically aped in France. But what
is misanthropy after all ? Simply a disappointed
ill-requited love passion.

' At your age the love passion is attended by hap-
pier results ; your heart is in the full flush of youth,
let its concern be for others as well as for yourself;
extend the scope of your investigations, and above
all do not be misled by the fictitious surroundings
amidst which happy circumstances have placed you.
Your mind and heart will soon find food for your

itations, and one day when you least expect it
their direction will be revealed to you. Nature has
mapped out the use for every faculty she bestows, we
only to go on looking for it long enough.
Lear ig that you are fit to learn ; med

seeing that you can command leisure to meditate ;
but, above all, let your concern be more for ot

' I feel that all this "senile drivel," will appear \
vague, nay, ridiculous to you; pray do not mind

:ig me so; you asked m ; Ivice, and I im-

parted my secret to you, it was the l>est way to show
that trust begets trust I sincerely hope that
you will look upon this letter as a proof of friendship
and esteem. I wish you to believe in those my

StJi'tv Yctu-s of Recollections

feelings for you and to consider me at your disposal
whenever you may want me. It will never be too
often. With all my heart, yours,

* BERANGER.'

I consider it wisest not to add anything to this
letter. Its publication is prompted by a deep feeling
of gratitude and by the hope that it may prove as
useful as it has proved to me, for this letter has often
stood me instead of counsellor.*

* Of all the portraits in this 'Gallery' there is not one so strikingly
' like ' as that of Beranger. What is perhaps more curious still with
regard to his literary influence is, that after many years it remains with
the educated classes. It is no uncommon thing to heafr people in the
best society clamour for a song of Beranger. There never was a soiree
at M. Thiers' in which his friend, Mignet a great professor, did not get
up and recite one. TR.

THE END

THIRTY-FIFTH THOl'SAXD OF THE

KREUTZER SONATA

TR.l. \'SLA TED FROM THE RUSSIAN OF COUNT LEO TOLSTOI

By H. SUTHERLAND EDWARDS

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THE ARCHBISHOP AND THE THREE OLD

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careful finish, deftness of handling, and sound workmanship show that the
writer has gained that command over her pen which is the first requisite of
successful authorship. The figure of the Arab woman, Zohrah, is drawn
with sympathy, and the slight yet sufficient plot is worked out with much
delicacy.'

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PQ Legouve*, Ernest
2337 Sixty years of

L23Z513 recollections
v.2