Paris and the Parisians in 1835 Volume II Part 18

The lovers have a long talk; but she does not tell him a word about the killing, for fear it should bring him into mischief,--though where he got in, it might be easy enough for her to get out. However, she says nothing about "_les choses_" behind the curtain, but gives him a kiss, and sends him away in high glee.

No sooner does he disappear, than Angelo and the Tisbe enter, and a conversation ensues between the three on the manner of the doomed lady's death that none but M. Victor Hugo could have written. He would represent nature, and he makes a high-born princess, pleading for her life to a sovereign who is her husband, speak thus: "Parlons simplement. Tenez ... vous etes infame ... et puis, comme vous mentez toujours, vous ne me croirez pas. Tenez, vraiment je vous meprise: vous m'avez epousee pour mon argent...."

Then she makes a speech to the Tisbe in the same exquisite tone of nature; with now and then a phrase or expression which is quite beyond even the fun of the Vaudeville to travestie; as for instance--"Je suis toujours restee honnete--vous me comprenez, vous--mais je ne puis dire cela a mon mari. _Les hommes ne veulent jamais nous croire_, vous savez; cependant nous leur disons _quelquefois_ des choses bien vraies...."

At last the Tyrant gets out of patience.

"ANGELO.

"C'en est trop! Catarina Bragadina, le crime fait, veut un chatiment; la fosse ouverte, veut un cercueil; le mari outrage, veut une femme morte. _Tu perds toutes les paroles qui sortent de ta bouche_ (montrant le poison).

"Voulez vous, madame?

"CATARINA.

"Non!

"ANGELO.

"Non?... J'en reviens a ma premiere idee alors. Les epees! les epees!

Troilo! qu'on aille me chercher.... J'y vais!"

Now we all know that his premiere idee was not to stab her with one or more swords, but to cut her head off on a block--and that _les choses_ are all hid ready for it behind the curtain. But this "J'y vais" is part of the machinery of the fable; for if the Tyrant did not go away, the Tisbe could have found no opportunity of giving her rival a hint that the poison was not so dangerous as she believed. So when Angelo returns, the Tisbe tells him that "elle se resigne au poison."

Catarina drinks the potion, falls into a trance, and is buried.

(Victor Hugo is always original, they say.) The Tisbe digs her up again, and lays her upon a bed in her own house, carefully drawing the curtains round her. Then comes the great catastrophe. The lover of the two ladies uses his privilege, and enters the Tisbe's apartment, determined to fulfil his destiny and murder her, because she loves him--as written in the book of fate--and also because she has poisoned his other and his favourite love Catarina. The Signor Rodolpho knows that she brought the phial, because one of the maids told him so: this is another instance of the ingenious and skilful machinery of the fable. Rodolpho tells the poor woman what he is come for; adding, "Vous avez un quart d'heure pour vous preparer a la mort, madame!"

There is something in this which shows that M. Hugo, notwithstanding he has some odd decousu notions, is aware of the respect which ought to be paid to married ladies, beyond what is due to those who are not so. When the Podesta announced the same intention to his wife, he says--"Vous avez devant vous une heure, madame." At the Vaudeville, however, they give another turn to this variation in the time allowed under circ.u.mstances so similar: they say--

"Catarina eut une heure au moins de son mari: Le tems depuis tantot est donc bien rencheri."

The unfortunate Tisbe, on receiving this communication from her dear Rodolpho, exclaims--"Ah! vous me tuez! Ah! c'est la premiere idee qui vous vient?"

Some farther conversation takes place between them. On one occasion he says--like a prince as he is--"Mentez un peu, voyons!"--and then he a.s.sures her that he never cared a farthing for her, repeating very often, because, as he says, it is her _supplice_ to hear it, that he never loved anybody but Catarina. During the whole scene she ceases not, however, to reiterate her pa.s.sionate protestations of love to him, and at last the dialogue ends by Rodolpho's stabbing her to the heart.

I never beheld anything on the stage so utterly disgusting as this scene. That Mademoiselle Mars felt weighed down by the part, I am quite certain;--it was like watching the painful efforts of a beautiful racer pushed beyond its power--distressed, yet showing its n.o.ble nature to the last. But even her exquisite acting made the matter worse: to hear the voice of Mars uttering expressions of love, while the ruffian she addresses grows more murderous as she grows more tender, produced an effect at once so hateful and so absurd, that one knows not whether to laugh or storm at it. But, what was the most terrible of all, was to see Mars exerting her matchless powers to draw forth tears, and then to look round the house and see that she was rewarded by--a smile!

After Tisbe is stabbed, Catarina of course comes to life; and the whole farce concludes by the dying Tisbe's telling the lovers that she had ordered horses for them; adding tenderly, "Elle est deliee--(how?)--morte pour le podesta, vivante pour toi. Trouves-tu cela bien arrange ainsi?" Then Rodolpho says to Catarina, "Par qui as-tu ete sauvee?"

"LA TISBE (_in reply_).

"Par moi, pour toi!"

M. Hugo, in a note at the end of the piece, apologises for not concluding with these words--"Par moi, pour toi," which he seems to think particularly effective: nevertheless, for some reason which he does not very clearly explain, he concludes thus;--

"LA TISBE.

"Madame, permettez-moi de lui dire encore une fois, Mon Rodolpho.

Adieu, mon Rodolpho! partez vite a present. Je meurs. Vivez. Je te benis!"

It is impossible in thus running through the piece to give you any adequate idea of the loose, weak, trumpery style in which it is written. It really seems as if the author were determined to try how low he might go before the boys and grisettes who form the chorus of his admirers shall find out that he is quizzing them. One peculiarity in the plot of "this fine tragedy" is, that the hero Angelo never appears, nor is even alluded to, after the scene in which he commissions la Tisbe to administer the poison to Madame. His sudden disappearance is thus commented upon at the Vaudeville. The Tyrant there makes his appearance after it is all over, exclaiming--

"Je veux en etre, moi ... l'on osera peut-etre Finir un melodrame en absence du traitre?

Suis-je un hors-d'oeuvre, un inutile article, Une cinquieme roue ajoutee au tricycle?"

In the preface to this immortal performance there is this pa.s.sage:--

"Dans l'etat ou sont aujourd'hui toutes ces questions profondes qui touchent aux racines meme de la societe, il semblait depuis long-tems a l'auteur de ce drame qu'il pourrait y avoir utilite et grandeur"

(utilite et grandeur!) "a developper sur le theatre quelque chose de pareil a l'idee que voici...."

And then follows what he calls his idea: but this preface must be read from beginning to end, if you wish to see what sort of stuff it is that humbug and impudence can induce the noisiest part of a population to p.r.o.nounce "fine!" But you must hear one sentence more of this precious preface, for fear "the work" may not fall into your hands.

"Le drame, comme l'auteur de cet ouvrage le voudrait faire, doit donner a la foule une philosophie; aux idees, une formule; a la poesie, des muscles, du sang, et de la vie; a ceux qui pense, une explication desinteressee; aux ames alterees un breuvage, aux plaies secretes un baume--a chacun un conseil, a tous une loi." (!!!!)

He concludes thus:--

"Au siecle ou nous vivons, l'horizon de l'art est bien elargi.

Autrefois le poete disait, le public; aujourd'hui le poete dit, le peuple."

Is it possible to conceive affected sublimity and genuine nonsense carried farther than this? Let us not, however, sit down with the belief that the capital of France is quite in the condition he describes;--let us not receive it quite as gospel that the raptures, the sympathy of this "foule sympathique et eclairee," that he talks of, in his preface to "Angelo," as coming nightly to the theatre to do him honour, exists--or at least that it exists beyond the very narrow limits of his own clique. The men of France do not sympathise with Victor Hugo, whatever the boys may do. He has made himself a name, it is true,--but it is not a good one; and in forming an estimate of the present state of literature in France, we shall greatly err if we a.s.sume as a fact that Hugo is an admired writer.

I would not be unjustly severe on any one; but here is a gentleman who in early life showed considerable ability;--he produced some light pieces in verse, which are said to be written with good moral feeling, and in a perfectly pure and correct literary taste. We have therefore a right to say that M. Hugo turned his talents thus against his fellow-creatures, not from ignorance--not from simple folly--but upon calculation. For is it possible to believe that any man who has once shown by his writings a good moral feeling and a correct taste, can expose to the public eye such pieces as "Lucrece Borgia," "Le Roi s'amuse," "Angelo," and the rest--in good faith, believing the doing so to be, as he says, "une tache sainte?" Is this possible?... and if it be not, what follows?... Why, that the author is making a job of corrupting human hearts and human intellects. He has found out that the mind of man, particularly in youth, eagerly seeks excitement of any kind: he knows that human beings will go to see their fellows hanged or guillotined by way of an amus.e.m.e.nt, and on this knowledge he speculates.

But as the question relates to France, we have not hitherto treated it fairly. I am persuaded that had our stage no censors.h.i.+p, and were dramas such as those of Dumas and Victor Hugo to be produced, they would fill the theatres at least as much as they do here. Their very absurdity--the horror--nay, even the disgust they inspire, is quite enough to produce this effect; but it would be unwise to argue thence that such trash had become the prevailing taste of the people.

That the speculation, as such, has been successful, I have no doubt.

This play, for instance, has been very generally talked of, and many have gone to see it, not only on its own account, but in order to behold the novel spectacle of Mademoiselle Mars _en lutte_ with an actress from La Porte St. Martin. As for Madame Dorval, I imagine she must be a very effective melodramatic performer when seen in her proper place; but, however it may have flattered her vanity, I do not think it can have added to her fame to bring her into this dangerous compet.i.tion. As an actress, she is, I think, to Mademoiselle Mars much what Victor Hugo is to Racine,--and perhaps we shall hear that she has "heaved the ground from under her."

Among various stories floating about on the subject of the new play and its author, I heard one which came from a gentleman who has long been in habits of intimacy with M. Hugo. He went, as in duty bound, to see the tragedy, and had immediately afterwards to face his friend.

The embarra.s.sment of the situation required to be met by presence of mind and a _coup de main_: he showed himself, however, equal to the exigency; he spoke not a word, but rus.h.i.+ng towards the author, threw his arms round him, and held him long in a close and silent embrace.

Another pleasantry on the same subject reached me in the shape of four verses, which are certainly droll enough; but I suspect that they must have been written in honour, not of "Angelo," but of some one of the tragedies in verse--"Le Roi s'amuse," perhaps, for they mimic the harmony of some of the lines to be found there admirably.

"Ou, o Hugo! huchera-t-on ton nom?

Justice encore rendu, que ne t'a-t-on?

Quand donc au corps qu'academique on nomme, Grimperas-tu de roc en roc, rare homme?"

And now farewell to Victor Hugo! I promise to trouble you with him no more; but the consequence which has been given to his name in England, has induced me to speak thus fully of the estimation in which I find him held in France.

"RARE HOMME!"

FOOTNOTE: