Old and New Paris Part 10

The Cafe Turc was the first of the French cafes-concerts or music halls; for, like so many of our dramatic entertainments, the music hall is an adaptation from the French. The English music hall differs, however, from the French cafe-concert about as much as an English farce differs from a French vaudeville. The cafe-concert may be looked upon either as a cafe at which there is singing, or as a concert where refreshments are served between the pieces and "consumed" during the performance. But whether you enter the place for the sake of art or with the view of sustaining nature, it is equally necessary that you should "consume"; and that there may be no mistake on this point, a curtain is at some establishments let down from time to time with "_On est prie de renouveler sa consommation_," and, at the side, in English, "One is prayed to renew his consumption," inscribed on it. The renewal of one's consumption is often a very costly proceeding.

To avoid being cla.s.sed with theatres, and, as a legal consequence, taxed for the benefit of the poor, no charge for admission is made at the doors of the cafe-concert. But at those where such stars as the once celebrated Therese are engaged, the proprietor finds it necessary to attach extravagant prices to refreshments of the most ordinary kind, so that a bottle of lemonade may be quoted in the tariff at three francs, a cup of coffee at a franc and a half, and even the humble gla.s.s of water at fifty centimes. In England the music hall proprietor would be often glad to obtain a dramatic licence. He has no fear of the poor before his eyes, and would be only too happy to combine with the profits of musical publican those of the regular theatrical manager. Why he should or should not be so favoured has been argued at length before the magistrates and duly reported in the columns of the newspapers.

The result has been that, as a rule, the London music hall proprietor does not give theatrical performances, though he often ventures upon duologues and sometimes risks a dramatic trio. The argument of London managers against music hall proprietors may thus concisely be stated: the manager cannot by the terms of his licence allow the audience to smoke and drink in presence of a dramatic performance; and, correlatively, the music hall proprietor ought not to be allowed to give dramatic performances while smoking and drinking are going on.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ATTEMPTED a.s.sa.s.sINATION OF LOUIS PHILIPPE.]

Paris is celebrated above all the capitals of Europe for its cafes; and the beverage which gives its name to these establishments seems to have been known earlier in France than in any other European country. Coffee was introduced into central Europe in 1683, the year of the battle of Vienna; and from the Austrian capital the use of coffee spread rapidly to all parts of Germany. The circ.u.mstances under which the Austrians first became acquainted with it were somewhat curious.

The Turks had brought with them to Vienna an imposing siege train. No European power possessed such formidable artillery; and their stone b.a.l.l.s of sixty pounds each were not only the largest projectiles ever fired, but were regarded as the largest which by any possible means could be fired. According to the ingenious, but incorrect, view of one of Sobieski's biographers (the Abbe Coyer), the amount of powder requisite for the discharge of a missile of greater weight would be so enormous as not to give time for the whole of it to become ignited before the ball left the cannon.

Kara Mustapha, the Turkish general, had also brought with him a number of archers; and when a letter from Sobieski to the Duke of Lorraine was intercepted by a Turkish patrol, the doc.u.ment was attached to an arrow and shot into the town, accompanied by a note in the Latin language to the effect that all further resistance was out of the question, and that the Vienna garrison had now nothing to do but accept its fate.

The Turks, moreover, brought to Vienna an immense number of women, whose throats, when the Turkish army was forced to retire in headlong flight, they unscrupulously cut. The stone cannon b.a.l.l.s of prodigious weight, the arrows, and the women could all be accounted for. But the Turks left behind them a large number of bags containing white berries, of which nothing could be made. Of these berries, however, after duly roasting and pounding them, an Austrian soldier, who had been a prisoner in Turkey, made coffee; and as he had distinguished himself during the battle, the Emperor granted him permission to open a shop in Vienna for the sale of the Turkish beverage which he had learned under such interesting circ.u.mstances to prepare.

According to another less authentic anecdote, the use of the mysterious white berries found among the stores of the defeated Turks was first pointed out by a Turkish soldier who had been working in the trenches before the besieged city, and had so fatigued himself by his ceaseless toil, that he fell asleep and slumbered on throughout the whole of the battle, undisturbed by the cavalry charges, the musketry fire, and the explosions of the artillery with its terrible sixty-pounders. When at last, after sleep had done its restorative work, the exhausted soldier woke up to find himself in the hands of the Christians, he was terribly alarmed. But his life was spared, and in return for this clemency on the part of his enemies he taught them how to make coffee.

Parisians, however, pride themselves on having known coffee fourteen years earlier than the Viennese. It is said, indeed, that an enterprising Levantine started a coffee-house at Paris in the very middle of the seventeenth century, and not later than the year 1650.

The name of the stimulating beverage that he offered for sale was, as he wrote it, _cahoue_. But the unhappy man had not taken the necessary steps for getting his new importation spoken of beforehand in good society; and, no one knowing what to make of the strange liquor he wished to dispense--hot, black, and bitter--the founder of the first coffee-house or cafe became bankrupt.

The French, however, during, the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were sworn friends of the Turks, whose power they played off on every occasion against that of the hated Empire. Vienna might, indeed, on two occasions have been captured, plundered, and burnt by the infidels for all France cared to do towards saving it. France, on her side, was viewed with favour by the Turks; and in 1669 an amba.s.sador, Soliman Aga by name, was sent by the Porte on a mission to Louis XIV., at whose court he made known the virtues of the berry which long previously the Arabs had introduced throughout the East.

Properly presented, coffee met in Paris with a success which elsewhere it had failed to attain, and before long it became the rage in fas.h.i.+onable society. When it was at the height of its first popularity, however, Madame de Sevigne condemned it, saying that the taste for coffee, like the taste for Racine, would pa.s.s away. Racine, in spite of the beauty of his at once tender and epigrammatic lines, is not much read in the present day, and is scarcely ever acted. Coffee, on the other hand, is as popular now as in the days when Pope wrote his couplet on

"Coffee, which makes the politician wise, And see through all things with his half-shut eyes."

"There are in this capital," wrote the author of the "Tableau de Paris" more than a hundred years ago, "between six and seven hundred coffee-houses, the common refuge of idleness and poverty, where the latter is warmed without any expense for fuel, and the former entertained by a view of the crowds who make their entrance and exit by turns. In other countries, where liberty is more than an empty name, a coffee-house is the rendez-vous of politicians who freely canva.s.s the conduct of the Minister, or debate on matters of State. Not so here!

I have already given a very good reason why the Parisians are sparing of their political reflections. If they speak at all on State matters it is to extol the power of their sovereign, and the wisdom of his counsellors. A half-starved author, with all his wardrobe and movables on his back, dining at these restaurants on a dish of coffee and a halfpenny roll, talks big of the immense resources of France, and the abundance she offers of every necessary of life; whilst his only supper is the steam arising from the rich man's kitchen, as he returns to his empty garret."

The writer goes on to show that the coffee-houses were haunted by cliques of critics, literary and artistic, and his description sometimes reminds one of b.u.t.ton's, in the days of Addison and Steele. "Those," he says, "who have just entered the lists of literature stand in dread of this awful tribunal, where a dozen of grim-looking judges, whilst they sip and sip, deal out reputation by wholesale. Woe to the young poet, to the new actor or actress! They are often sentenced here without trial.

Catcalls, destined to grate their affrighted ears, are here manufactured over a dish of coffee."

The writer then proceeds to lament the absence of sociability at the coffee-house, and the gloomy countenances of its frequenters, as contrasted with the convivial faces of those "brave ancestors" of his generation who used to pa.s.s their leisure, not at coffee-houses, but at taverns. One cause of the difference he finds in the change of beverage.

"Our forefathers," he explains, "drank that mirth-inspiring liquor with which Burgundy and Champaign supplied them. This gave life to their meetings. Ours are more sober, no doubt, but is this sobriety the companion of health? By no means. For generous wine we have subst.i.tuted a black beverage, bad in itself, but worse by the manner in which it is made in all the coffee-houses of this fas.h.i.+onable metropolis. The good Parisians, however, are very careless in the matter; they drink off whatever is put before them, and swallow this baneful wash, which in its turn is driven down by more deadly poisons, mistakenly called cordials."

Since the above was written, coffee, far from dying out, has become more and more popular, and musical cafes, theatrical cafes, and literary cafes have been everywhere established in Paris. There are financial cafes, too, chiefly, of course, in the region of the Bourse; and among the cafes by which the Bourse is partly surrounded used to be one which owed its notoriety to the fact that Fieschi's mistress--in the character of "dame du comptoir"--was exhibited there to the public.

Two days after the execution of the would-be regicide and actual maker of the famous infernal machine, a crowd of people might have been seen struggling towards the doors of a cafe on the Place de la Bourse, which was already as full as it could hold. "Those," says an eye-witness, "who performed the feat of gaining admission, saw, gravely seated at a counter, adorned with costly draperies, an ordinary-looking woman, blind of one eye, and possessing in fact no external merit but that of youth: It was Nina Sa.s.save. There she was, her forehead radiant, her lip quivering with delight, her whole expression that of unmingled pride and pleasure at the eager homage thus offered to her celebrity.

A circ.u.mstance eminently characteristic of the epoch! Here had a creature, only known to the world as a base and treacherous informer, as the mistress of an a.s.sa.s.sin, been caught up for a show by a shrewd speculator. And what is more remarkably characteristic still, the public took it all as a perfect matter of course, and amply justified the speculator in his calculations."

On the same side as the Cafe Turc, but further on towards the Rue du Temple, stood the tennis ground of the Count d'Artois (afterwards Charles X.), built by the architect Belanger, one of the most intimate and faithful friends of the famous Sophie Arnould.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A PARISIAN CAFe.]

On the site of the Count d'Artois' tennis ground was erected, at the beginning of the Second Empire, a theatre, called in the first instance Folies-Meyer, but which, after various changes of t.i.tle, became at last the Theatre Dejazet, under the direction of the celebrated actress of that name, already seventy years of age, or nearly so, but still lively and graceful. For this theatre in 1860 Victorien Sardou wrote his first successful piece, "M. Garat," in which Dejazet herself played the princ.i.p.al part, supported by Dupuis, who was afterwards to become famous in opera-bouffe as the a.s.sociate of Mademoiselle Schneider.

The line of boulevards here presents an enormous gap, in the centre of which, between two fountains, stands a monument to the glory of the Republic. The rest of the open s.p.a.ce serves twice a week as a flower market, the largest in Paris. At the beginning of the century La Place du Chateau d'Eau, as the open s.p.a.ce in question is called, did not exist. The fountain which gave its name to the Place was constructed under the First Napoleon in the year 1811, but this fountain was replaced in 1869 by a finer one inaugurated by Napoleon III. The later fountain was itself, however, to disappear, soon afterwards to be replaced by the aforesaid monument to the Republic. Behind one of the large depots on the north side of the Place du Chateau d'Eau, looking out upon the Rue de Malte, was constructed in 1866 the Circus of the Prince Imperial, afterwards called the Theatre of the Chateau d'Eau, where at one time dramas, at another operas, have been given, never with success. Ill-luck seems to hang over the establishment, which, with its 2,400 seats, must be reckoned among the largest theatres in Paris.

In Paris, however, as in London, theatres have often the reputation of being unlucky when, to succeed, all they require is a good piece with good actors to play in it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLACE DE LA RePUBLIQUE.]

The Boulevard du Temple had at one time its famous restaurants, like other boulevards in the present day. Here stood the celebrated Cadran Bleu and the equally celebrated Banquet d'Anacreon. The last of the great restaurants on this boulevard was the one kept by Bonvalet, who, during the siege of Paris, was generous enough to supply additional provisions to unfortunate actors and actresses who found themselves reduced to the limited rations distributed by the Munic.i.p.al Council.

The Rue de Bondi, running out of the Boulevard Saint-Martin, brings us once more to a group of theatres. The Folies Dramatiques stands at number forty. This theatre was started in 1830 by M. Alaux, previously manager of the Dramatic Parna.s.sus on the Boulevard du Temple. It was opened on January 22nd, 1831, under the direction of M. Leopold, who produced at this house a long series of successful pieces. Among these may be mentioned "Robert Macaire" with Frederic Lemaitre in the leading part. When, amidst demolitions and reconstructions, the original Folies Dramatiques came down, the company was transferred to the new building which now stands in the Rue de Bondi. Here were brought out Herve's "OEil Creve" and "Pet.i.t Faust," Lecoq's "Fille de Madame Angot,"

Planquette's "Cloches de Corneville," and other works which were soon to become known all over Europe. Vaudevilles are now played at this theatre alternately with operettas. The house contains 1,600 seats.

The Ambigu-Comique, built on a sort of promontory which dominates the Boulevard Saint-Martin and the Rue de Bondi, was opened in 1829, in place of the original Ambigu, burnt to the ground two years previously.

The new house, which contains 1,600 seats, was inaugurated in presence of the d.u.c.h.ess of Berri, widow of the unhappy n.o.bleman who a few years before was stabbed by Louvois on the steps of the Opera House. In 1837 this theatre was entirely rebuilt under the direction of M. Rochart.

Untrue, like so many theatres, to its original name, the Ambigu-Comique was to become a.s.sociated with nothing in the way of ambiguity, nothing in the way of comedy, but with melodramas, often of a most blood-curdling kind. Here, it is true, was produced the "Auberge des Adrets," which, in the hands of Frederic Lemaitre, was to be transformed from a serious drama into a wild piece of buffoonery; so that the author of the work, too nervous to attend the performance himself, was almost driven mad when his trusted servant returned home and reported to him the bursts of laughter with which the work had been received. At the Ambigu were brought out some of the best pieces of Alexandre Dumas the elder, Frederic Soulie, Adolphe Dennery, and Paul Feval.

Immediately adjacent to the Ambigu stand the Porte Saint-Martin and Renaissance Theatres, covering the triangle formed by the Boulevard Saint-Martin, the Rue de Bondi, and the Place de la Porte Saint-Martin.

The Porte Saint-Martin Theatre has a long and interesting history, dating from June 8, 1781, when it was opened as an Opera House after the destruction by fire of the one in the Rue Saint-Honore. A performance was going on at the time, and the singers had to fly in their operatic dresses from the stage to the street. In the midst of the general consternation, the musical director, Rey by name, whose "Coronis" was the opera of the night, startled those around him, already sufficiently terrified, by exclaiming, "Save my child! Oh, Heaven, save my child!" As Rey was not known in the character of a family man, his friends thought he had gone mad. But it was the creature of his brain that was troubling him; and after heroic struggles, the score of "Coronis" was rescued from the flames. The fascinating Madeleine Guiniard had on this occasion a narrow escape of her life. She was in her dressing-room, and had just divested herself of her costume when inquiries were made for her, and it was found that, like Brunhilda in the legend, she was enveloped on all sides by flames. A Siegfried, however, was found in the person of a stage carpenter, who, making his way through the ring of fire, reached the unhappy valkyrie, wrapped her up in a blanket, and brought her out in safety, though he himself, in his second pa.s.sage through the flames, was somewhat scorched.

The new house established in the Porte Saint-Martin was opened 109 days after the destruction of the Opera House in the Rue Saint-Honore. Here were brought out the "OEdipus Coloneus" of Sacchini, the "Daniades"

and other works of Salieri, the "Demophon" of Cherubini, the "Re Teodoro" of Paisiello, and a French version of Mozart's "Marriage of Figaro." Many of the operas of Sacchini, Salieri, and Cherubini were composed specially for the French theatre. Paisiello's and Mozart's works were, of course, produced in translations. Mozart's "Marriage of Figaro" was brought out in the middle of the Reign of Terror, March 20, 1793.

Meanwhile, doubts had always been entertained as to the solidity of the theatre, which had been run up in from fifteen to sixteen weeks; and on April 14, 1794, the Committee of Public Safety ordered the transfer of the opera from the Porte Saint-Martin to the Salle Montansier, in the Rue Richelieu. M. Castil Blaze, excellent writer, but by no means free from prejudices, insists, in his "History of the Royal Academy of Music," that in the removal of the Opera to the Rue Richelieu there was a determination on the part of the Committee of Public Safety to burn down the National Library, opposite which the Opera was now installed.

"How was it," he asks, "that the Opera was moved to a building exactly opposite the National Library--so precious and so combustible a repository of human knowledge? The two establishments were only separated by a street very much too narrow; if the theatre caught fire, was it not sure to burn the Library? That is what a great many persons still ask; this question has been reproduced a hundred times in our journals. Go back to the time when the house was built by Mademoiselle Montansier; read the _Moniteur Universel_, and you will see that it was precisely in order to expose this same Library to the happy chances of a fire that the great lyrical entertainment was transferred to its neighbourhood. The Opera hung over it, and threatened it constantly. At this time enlightenment abounded to such a point that the judicious Henriot, convinced in his innermost conscience that all reading was henceforth useless, had made a motion to burn the Library. To s.h.i.+ft the Opera to the Rue Richelieu--that Opera which twice in eighteen years had been a prey to the flames--to place it exactly opposite our literary treasures was to multiply to infinity the chances of their being burnt."

Mercier, in reference to the literary views of the Committee of Public Safety, writes in the _Nouveau Paris_ thus:--"The language of Omar about the Koran was not more terrible than that by the members of the Committee of Public Safety, when they carried this resolution:--'Yes, we will burn all the libraries, for nothing will be needed but the history of the Revolution and its laws.'" If the motion of Henriot had been put into effect, David, the great Conventional painter, was ready to propose that the same service should be rendered to the masterpieces in the Louvre as to the literary wealth of the National Library. Republican subjects, according to David, were alone worthy of representation.

The Opera in the Rue Richelieu was, however, to be destroyed, as will afterwards be seen, not by fire, but in deliberate process of dilapidation.

Meanwhile, Louis XVI. and his family had fled from Paris on the 28th of June, 1791. The next day, and before the king was brought back to the Tuileries, the t.i.tle of the chief lyric theatre was changed from Academie Royale to simply the Opera. At the same time, the custom was introduced of announcing the performers' names, which was evidently an advantage to the public, and which was also not without its benefit for the inferior singers and dancers, who, when they unexpectedly appeared in order to replace their betters, used often to get hissed to a handsomer degree than they ever could in their usual parts.

By an order of the Committee of Public Safety, dated the 16th of the following September, the t.i.tle of the Opera was again changed to Academie Royale de Musique. This was intended as a compliment to the king, who had signed the Const.i.tution on the 14th, and who was to go to the Opera six days afterwards. On the 20th the royal visit took place. "'Castor and Pollux' was played," says M. Castil Blaze, "and not 'Iphigenie en Aulide,' as is a.s.serted by some ill-informed historians, who even go so far as to pretend that the chorus '_Chantons, celebrons notre reine_' was hailed with transports of enthusiasm, and that the public called for it a second time." The house was well filled, but not crammed, as we see by the receipts, which amounted to 6,636 livres 15 sous. The same opera of Rameau's, vamped by Candeille, had produced 6,857 livres on the 14th of the preceding June. On the night previous to the royal representation a gratuitous performance of "Castor and Pollux" had been given to the public in honour of the Const.i.tution. The royalists were present in great numbers on the night of state, and some lines which could be applied to the queen were loudly applauded. Marie Antoinette was delighted, and said to the ladies who accompanied her, "You see that the people are really good, and wish only to love us."

Encouraged by so flattering a reception, she determined to go the next night to the Opera Comique, but the king refused to accompany her. The piece performed was "Les evenements imprevus." In the duet of the second act, before singing the words "_Ah! comme j'aime ma maitresse_," Mdme.

Dugazon looked towards the queen, when a number of voices cried out from the pit, "_Plus de Maitresse!_" "_Plus de Maitre!_" "_Vive la Liberte!_"

This cry was answered from the boxes with "Vive la reine! Vive le roi!" Sabres and swordsticks were drawn, and a battle began. The queen escaped from the theatre in the midst of the tumult. Cries of "_A bas la reine!_" followed her to her carriage, which went off at a gallop, with mud and stones thrown after it. Marie Antoinette returned to the Tuileries in despair. On the 1st of October, fourteen days afterwards, the t.i.tle of Opera National was subst.i.tuted for that of Academie Royale de Musique. The Const.i.tution being signed, there was no longer any reason for being civil to Louis XVI. This was the third change of t.i.tle in less than four months.

To conclude the list of musical performances which have derived a gloomy celebrity from their connection with the last days of Louis XVI., we may reproduce the programme issued by the directors of the Opera National on the first anniversary of his execution, 1724. It ran thus:--"On behalf of and for the people gratis. In joyful commemoration of the death of the tyrant, the National Opera will give to-day, 6 Pluviose, year 2 of the Republic, 'Miltiades at Marathon,' 'The Siege of Thionville,' 'The Offering to Liberty.'"

The Opera under the Republic was directed until 1792 by four distinguished _sans-culottes_--Henriot, Chaumette, Le Roux, and Hebert, the last named of whom had once been check-taker of the Academie. The others knew nothing whatever of operatic affairs. The management at the theatre was afterwards transferred to Francoeur, one of the former directors a.s.sociated with Cellerier, an architect; but the dethroned _impresarios_, accompanied by Danton and other Republican amateurs, constantly made their appearance behind the scenes, and very frequently did the chief members of the company the honour of supping with them. In these cases the invitations, as under the ancient _regime_, proceeded, not from the artists, but from the artists' patrons; with this difference, however, that under the Republic the latter never paid the bill.

"The chiefs of the Republic," says M. Castil Blaze, "were very fond of moistening their throats. Henriot, Danton, Hebert, Le Roux, Chaumette, had hardly taken a turn in the _coulisses_ or in the _foyer_ before they said to such an actor or actress, 'We are going to your room. See that we are properly received.' A superb collation was brought in. When the repast was finished and the bottles were empty, the National Convention, the Commune of Paris, beat a retreat without troubling itself about the expense. You think, perhaps, that the dancer or the singer paid for the representatives of the people? Not at all; honest Maugin, who kept the refreshment room of the theatre, knew perfectly well that the actors of the Opera were not paid, that they had no sort of money, not even a rag of an a.s.signat; he made a sacrifice: from delicacy he did not ask from the artists what he would not have dared to claim from the _sans-culottes_, for fear of the guillotine."

Sometimes the executioner, who, as a public official, was ent.i.tled to certain _entrees_, made his appearance behind the scenes, and it is said that, in a facetious mood, he would sometimes express his opinion about the "execution" of the music.

Operatic kings and queens were suppressed by the Republic. Not only were they forbidden to appear on the stage, but even their names were not to be p.r.o.nounced behind the scenes, and the expressions _cote du roi_, _cote de la reine_, were changed into _cote jardin_, _cote cour_, which, at the Theatre of the Tuileries, indicated respectively the left and right of the stage, from the stage point of view. But although, at first, all pieces in which kings and queens figured were prohibited, the dramas of _sans-culotte_ origin were so stupid and disgusting that the Republic was absolutely obliged to return to the old monarchical _repertory_. The kings, however, were turned into chiefs; princes and dukes became representatives of the people; seigneurs subsided into mayors; and subst.i.tutes more or less synonymous were found for such offensive words as crown, throne, sceptre, etc.

In a new Republican version of "Le Deserteur," as represented at the Opera Comique, _le roi_, in one well-known line, was replaced by _la loi_, and the vocalist had to declaim "_La loi pa.s.sait, et le tambour battait aux champs!_" A certain voluble executant, however, is said to have preferred the following emendation: "_Le pouvoir executif pa.s.sait, et le tambour battait aux champs!_" The scenes of most of the new operas were laid in Italy, Prussia, Portugal--anywhere but in France, where it would have been indispensable from a political, and impossible from a poetical, point of view to make the lovers address one another as _citoyen_, _citoyenne_. On the 19th of June, 1793, the directors of the Opera having objected to give a gratuitous performance of the "Siege of Thionville," the Commune of Paris issued the following edict:--"Considering that for a long time past the aristocracy has taken refuge in the administration of various theatres; considering that these gentlemen corrupt the public mind by the pieces they represent; considering that they exercise a fatal influence on the revolution: it is decreed that the 'Siege of Thionville' shall be represented gratis, and solely for the amus.e.m.e.nt of the _sans-culottes_, who, to this moment, have been the true defenders of liberty and supporters of democracy." Soon afterwards it was proposed to shut up the Opera, but Hebert--the ferocious Hebert, better known as Le pere d.u.c.h.esne--undertook its defence, on the ground that it procured subsistence for a number of families, and "caused the agreeable arts to flourish."

Whatever the Opera may have been under the Reign of Terror, it was conducted infinitely better in one important respect than under the ancient _regime_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FReDeRIC LEMAiTRE.]

In the days of the old monarchy, as we learn from Bachaumont, a girl once inscribed on the books of the Opera was released from all control on the part of her parents. She might present herself for engagement of her own accord, or her name might be entered on the list by anyone who had succeeded in leading her away from her parents. In neither case had her family any further power over her. _Lettres de cachet_ were issued, commanding the person named in the order to join the Opera, and many young girls were thus victimised. It can scarcely be supposed that the privileges granted to the Opera were intended, in the first instance, to be turned to such evil account as they afterwards were.

Indeed, young men equally with young women could be seized and committed to operatic control wherever they were found. "We wish, and it pleases us," says King Louis XIV., in the letters-patent granted to the Abbe Perrin, first director of the Academie Royale de Musique (1669), "that gentlemen (_gentilshommes_) and ladies may sing in the said pieces and representations of our Royal Academy without being considered, for that reason, to derogate from their t.i.tles of n.o.bility, or from their rights and immunities." Many aristocrats of both s.e.xes profited by this permission to appear either as singers or as dancers at the Opera. Young girls, amateurs, male and female, whose voices had been remarked, could be arrested and forced to perform at the Opera; and in the case of young girls it was evidently to the interest of the Academie Royale de Musique that it should be able to profit by their talents without interference on the part of parents, who might well object to see their children condemned to such service. Besides being liberated from all parental restraint, the pupils and a.s.sociates of the Academy enjoyed the right of setting creditors at defiance. The salaries of singers, dancers, and musicians belonging to the Opera were explicitly liberated from all liability to seizure for debt. Of the freedom conferred by an engagement at the Opera, the young woman who enjoyed it would probably have been the last to complain; for, side by side with operatic conscription, a system of operatic privileges was in force. It was not the custom for young ladies in good society to visit the Opera before their marriage; but a _brevet de dame_ could be obtained, and the fortunate holder of such a doc.u.ment could without infringing any law of etiquette, attend all operatic performances. "The number of these brevets," says Bachaumont, in his _Memoires Secrets_, "increased prodigiously under Louis XVI., and very young persons have been known to obtain them.

Thus relieved from the modesty and retirement of the virginal state, they gave themselves up with impunity to all sorts of scandals. Such disorder has opened the eyes of the Government, and it is now only by the greatest favour that one of these brevets can be obtained."

It has been seen that, according to Mercier and, after him, Castil Blaze, the extreme revolutionists among the Terrorist party desired that the Opera House in the Rue Richelieu might meet with the ordinary fate of theatres, in the hope that flames or flaming embers blown from the conflagration might reach the National Library, just opposite. This does not accord with the fact that the Convention did its utmost to encourage learning, literature, and art. The free system of the University, the College or Gymnasium at from eight to ten francs a month, and the Conservatoire de Musique, with its endowments, its scholars.h.i.+ps, and its free tuition, all date from the first days of the Republic of 1789. As to the formal demolition of the Opera House, whose destiny was supposed to be fire, it happened in this way:--

On the 13th February, 1820, which was the last Sunday of the Carnival, an unusually brilliant audience had a.s.sembled at the Opera House, or Academie Royale, as it now once more was called. The Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Berri were present; and before the performance had been brought to an end, the duke, struck by an a.s.sa.s.sin, was a dead man.