The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X Part 15

Sire, would it not be worthy of the reign, the breast, the conscience of Charles X., to draw this cla.s.s of artists from the cruel position in which they are left by that excommunication that weighs upon them without distinction? Whether they conduct themselves well or ill, the Church repels them; this reprobation holds them perforce in the sphere of evil and disorder, since they have no interest in rising above it.

Honor them, and they will honor themselves. It is time to undertake the reform of what I call a pernicious prejudice. The clergy itself is not far from agreeing on these ideas."

In his relations with authors, artists, directors of theatres, the Viscount was courtesy itself. We read in one of his reports (June 17, 1825):--

"Rossini is the first composer of Europe; I have succeeded in attracting him to the service of France; he had before been tempted in vain. Jealous of his success, people have cried out that he was an idler, that he would do nothing. I secured him by the methods and in the interest of the King; I can do with him as I will, as with all the artists, though they are most difficult people. They must be taken through the heart. Rossini has just composed a really ravis.h.i.+ng piece; and, touched by the manner in which he is treated, he wishes to present it to the King in token of his grat.i.tude, and wishes to receive nothing. He is right, but the King cannot accept gratis so fine a present; I propose that the King grant him the cross of the Legion of Honor and announce it himself to him to-morrow--which would be an act full of grace. All favors must come always from the King."

Great tenacity was needed in the government of Charles X. to get the Chefs-d'Oeuvre of Rossini represented at the Opera. A little school of petty and backward ideas rushed, under pretext of patriotism, but really from jealousy, systematically to drive from the stage everything not French. For this coterie Rossini and Meyerbeer were suspects, intruders, who must be repulsed at any cost. The government had the good sense to take no account of this ridiculous opposition, which refused to recognize that art should be cosmopolitan. Before seeing his name on the bills of our first lyric stage, Rossini required no less than nine years of patience. All Europe applauded him, but at Paris he had to face the fire of pamphleteers rendered furious by his fame. The government finally forced the Opera to mount Le Siege de Corinthe. Its success was so striking that the evening of the first representation (October 9, 1826), the public made almost a riot for half an hour, because Rossini, called loudly by an enthusiastic crowd, refused to appear upon the stage.

The maestro gave at the Opera Moise, March 26, 1826; Le Comte Ory, August 20, 1828; Guillaume Tell, August 20, 1829. (At this time the first representations of the most important works took place in midsummer.) The evening of the first night of Guillaume Tell, the orchestra went, after the opera, to give a serenade under the windows of the composer, who occupied the house on the Boulevard Montmartre, through which the Pa.s.sage Jouffroy has since been cut. The 10th of February, 1868, on the occasion of the hundredth representation of the same work, there was a repet.i.tion of the serenade of 1829. The master then lived in the Rue Chaussee d'Antin, No. 2. Under his windows the orchestra and chorus of the opera commenced the concert about half an hour after midnight, by the light of torches, and Faure sang the solos.

The government which secured the representation of Guillaume Tell was not afraid of the words "independence" and "liberty." A year and a half before, the 20th of February, 1828, there had been given at the Opera the chef-d'oeuvre of Auber, La Muette de Portici, and the d.u.c.h.ess of Berry, a Neapolitan princess, had applauded the Naples Revolution put into music.

The government of Charles X. protected Meyerbeer as well as Rossini.

Robert le Diable was only played under the reign of Louis Philippe, but the work had already been received under the Restoration.

During the reign of Charles X. the fine royal theatres reached the height of their splendor: the Francais and the Odeon were installed in their present quarters; the Opera in the hall of the Rue La Peletier, excellent as to acoustics and proportions; the Italiens in the Salle Favart (where they remained from 1825 to 1838); the Opera Comique in the Salle Feydeau, until the month of April, 1829, when it inaugurated the Salle Ventadour. Talma, Mademoiselle d.u.c.h.esnoir, Mademoiselle Mars, triumphed at the Francais; Mademoiselle Georges, at the Odeon; Nourrit, Leva.s.seur, Madame Damoreau, Taglioni, at the Opera; Sontag, Pasta, Malibran, and Rubini at the Italiens.

The Viscount de la Rochefoucauld wished in every way to raise the moral level of the theatre. He forbade subscribers, even the most influential, the entree behind the scenes of the Opera, because these persons had not always preserved there the desirable decorum. Thence arose rancor and spite, against which he had to contend during his entire administration. He wrote to the King, July 29, 1828:--

"A cabal is formed to deprive me of the direction of the theatres; and by whom and for what? It is a struggle, Sire, between good and evil. It is sought to maintain, at any cost, the abuses I have dared to reform.

They throw a thousand unjust obstacles in my way. Gamblers are mixed up in it too; they wish to join this ign.o.ble industry and the theatres. It is a monstrous infamy. The opera must be reached at all hazards, the coulisses must be entered; these are the abuses that must be revived.

How can it be done? By removing the theatres from troublesome authority ... Sire, Your Majesty shall decide, and must defend me with a firm will in the interest, I venture to declare, of order; you must defend yourself also in the interest of morals and of art, and of a great influence of which it is sought to deprive you."

M. de La Rochefoucauld had the last word, and remained at the head of the direction of the Fine Arts until the close of the Restoration. To the credit of his administration there must still be added the creation of the school of religious music, directed by Choron, and the foundation of the concerts of the conservatory with Habeneck, and a little against the wishes of Cherubini. The chefs-d'oeuvre of German music were brought out as well as those of Italian music. The Viscount performed his task con amore, as they say on the other side of the Alps. He wrote to Charles X. January 12, 1830:--

"How many reflections must have come to the King on regarding the picture of the Coronation! I divined the thought that he did not complete, and my eyes filled with tears. Oh, how much I feel and imagine all the ennui given to the King by these barren and unfortunate politics! I detest them more even than the King detests them.

Ungrateful offspring of the times, they fly away, rarely leaving even a memory. How much I prefer the arts!"

This was also the feeling of the d.u.c.h.ess of Berry, who, during all the Restoration, fled from surly politics to live in the region, radiant and sacred, of art and charity. The taste of this Italian lady for painting and music was a veritable pa.s.sion. She was forever to be found in the museums, the expositions, the theatres. She caught the melodies by heart and was always interested in new works. An expert, a dilletante, was no better judge of pictures and operas; the great artists who shone in the reign of Charles X. received from the amiable Princess the most precious encouragements. Nor did she forget to encourage the efforts of beginners. "Who, then," she said, "would buy the works of these poor young people, if I did not?"

XXVI

THE THEATRE OF MADAME

One of the most agreeable theatres of Paris, the Gymnase, owed its prosperity, not to say its existence, to the high protection of Madame the d.u.c.h.ess of Berry. Our old men recall its vogue, at the time when they used to applaud Ferville, Gontier, Numa, Leontine Fay, Jenny Verspre, and when they used to gaze at the greatest ladies of the court, the most fas.h.i.+onable beauties; and they remember that on its facade, from the month of September, 1824, to the Revolution of 1830, there was this inscription in letters of gold: "Theatre de Madame."

Placed under the patronage of the Princess, this fortunate theatre was a meeting-place of the most elegant society of Paris. It had the same audiences as the Opera and the Italiens, and they enjoyed themselves as much in the entr'actes as during the acts. The spectacle was in the hall as well as on the stage.

The origin of the Gymnase goes back to 1820. According to the privilege accorded to the new stage under the Decazes ministry, it was to be only a gymnase composed of the young pupils of the Conservatoire, and other dramatic and lyric schools, and was authorized only to present fragments from the various repertories. But from the beginning it transgressed the limits set for it. Not content with simple pupils, it engaged actors already well known. In place of borrowing debris of the repertories of other theatres, it created one of its own. At first the authorities shut their eyes. But when M. de Corbiere became Minister of the Interior, he tried to enforce the regulations and to compel the new theatre to confine itself to the limits of its privilege. The Gymnase asked for time, was very meek, prayed, supplicated. It would have succ.u.mbed, however, but for the intervention of the d.u.c.h.ess of Berry.

Scribe composed for the apartments of the Tuileries a vaudeville, called La Rosiere, in which he invoked the Princess as protectress, as a beneficent fairy. She turned aside the fulminations of M. de Corbiere. The minister was obstinate; he wished the last word; but the Princess finally carried the day. The day after he had addressed to the director of the Gymnase a warning letter, he was amazed to hear the d.u.c.h.ess of Berry say: "I hope, Monsieur, that you will not torment the Gymnase any longer, for, henceforth, it will bear my name."

The minister yielded. The Gymnase was saved. It kept its company, its repertory; it gained the right to give new pieces. From the first days of September, 1824, it took the name of Madame the d.u.c.h.ess of Berry.

After the death of Louis XVIII., the 16th of that month, the d.u.c.h.ess of Angouleme having replaced her t.i.tle of Madame by that of Dauphiness, and the d.u.c.h.ess of Berry taking the former, the Gymnase was called the Theatre de Madame.

The programme of the Gymnase was constantly being renewed. Scribe, whose verve was inexhaustible, wrote for this theatre alone nearly one hundred and fifty pieces. It is true that he had collaborators,--Germain Delavigne, Dupin, Melesville, Brazier, Varner, Carmouche, Bayard, etc. It was to them that he wrote, in the dedication of the edition of his works:--

"To my collaborators: My dear friends, I have often been reproached for the number of my collaborators; for myself, who am happy to count among them only friends, I regret, on the contrary, that I have not more of them. I am often asked why I have not worked alone. To this I will reply that I have probably neither the wit nor the talent for that; but if I had had them I should still have preferred our literary fraternity and alliance. The few works I have produced alone have been to me a labor; those I have produced with you have been a pleasure."

Eugene Scribe was born December 25, 1791, at Paris, Rue Saint-Denis, near the Marche des Innocents. His father, whom he lost early, kept a silk store, at the sign of the Chat Noir, where he had made a considerable fortune. Eugene commenced his career as a dramatic writer in 1811. From that time to his death (February 20, 1861), he composed alone, or with a.s.sociates, and had represented on the various stages of Paris, more than four hundred plays. M. Vitel said, at the reception of M. Octave Feuillet, at the French Academy, March 26, 1863:--

"There was in Scribe a powerful and truly superior faculty, that a.s.sured to him and explained to me his supremacy in the theatre of his day. It was a gift of dramatic invention that perhaps no one before him has possessed; the gift of discovering at every step, almost apropos of nothing, theatrical combinations of a novel and striking effect; and of discovering them, not in the germ only, or barely sketched, but in relief, in action, and already on the stage. In the time needed by his confreres to prepare a plot, he would finish four, and he never secured this prodigious fecundity at the expense of originality. It is in no commonplace mould that his creations are cast. There is not one of his works that has not at least its grain of novelty."

On his part, M. Octave Feuillet, a master in things theatrical, said in his reception discourse:--

"One of the most difficult arts in the domain of literary invention, is that of charming the imagination without unsettling it, of touching the heart without troubling it, of amusing men without corrupting them; this was the supreme art of Scribe."

They are very pretty, very alert, very French, these plays of the Theatre de Madame. They have aged less than many pretentious works that have aimed at immortality. There is hardly one of them without its ingenious idea, something truly scenic. We often see amateurs seeking pieces to play in the salons; let them draw from this repertory; they will have but an embarra.s.sment of choice among plays always amusing and always in good form.

Scribe said, in his reception discourse at the French Academy (January 28, 1836):--

"It happens, by a curious fatality, that the stage and society are almost always in direct contradiction. Take the period of the Regency.

If comedy were the constant expression of society, the comedy of that time must have offered us strong license or joyous Saturnalia. Nothing of the sort; it is cold, correct, pretentious, but decent. In the Revolution, during its most horrible periods, when tragedy, as was said, ran the streets, what were the theatres offering you? Scenes of humanity, of beneficence, of sentimentality; in January, 1793, during the trial of Louis XVI., La Belle Fermiere, a rural and sentimental play; under the Empire, the reign of glory and conquest, the drama was neither warlike nor exultant; under the Restoration, a pacific government, the stage was invaded by lancers, warriors, and military costumes; Thalia wore epaulettes. The theatre is rarely the expression of society; it is often the opposite."

Scribe was an exception to the rule thus laid down by him. The Theatre de Madame is an exact painting of the manners, the ideas, the language of the Parisian bourgeoisie in the reign of Charles X. Villemain was right in saying to Scribe, on receiving him at the Academy:--

"The secret of your success with the theatre lies in having happily seized the spirit of your century and in making the sort of comedies to which it is best adapted and which most resemble it."

The world that the amiable and ingenious author excels in representing, is that of finance and the middle cla.s.ses; it is the society of the Chaussee d'Antin, rather than that of the Faubourg Saint Germain. His Gymnase repertory is of the Left Centre, the juste milieu, nearer the National Guard than the royal guard. The protege of Madame the d.u.c.h.ess of Berry never flattered the ultras. There is not in his plays a single line that is a concession to their arrogance or their rancor; not a single phrase, not one word, that shows the least trace of the prejudices of the old regime; not one idea that could offend the most susceptible liberal. It is animated by the spirit of conciliation and pacification. We insist on this point because we see in it a proof that a Princess who took under her protection a kind of literature so essentially modern and bourgeois, never thought of reviving a past destroyed forever.

The 28th of June, 1828, when the struggles of the liberals and the ultras were so heated, Eugene Scribe, in connection with M. de Rougemont, wrote for the Gymnase a piece ent.i.tled Avant, Pendant, Apres, historical sketches in three parts. Avant was a critique of the view of the old regime; Pendant, a critique of those of the Revolution; Apres an appeal for harmony under the Charter and liberty. This piece seems to us very curious, as a true programme, a faithful reflection of the ideas of the haute bourgeoisie of Paris a little before 1830.

The princ.i.p.al personage is a great liberal n.o.ble, the General Count de Surgy, who has served gloriously in the armies of the Republic and of the Empire, and at the close is named as deputy to represent an intelligent and wise royalism. By the side of the General is a certain Viscount, who has lived in a savage island since the wreck of La Perouse, and who, more royalist than the King, finds himself among strangers and is utterly dumfounded on beholding the new France. Let us cite some fragments of this piece in which there is more acuteness, more observation, more truth, than in many of the studies called psychologic or historic:--

"THE GENERAL. Ah, do not confuse Liberty with the excesses committed in her name. Liberty, as we understand her, is the friend of order and duty; she protects all rights. She wishes laws, inst.i.tutions, not scaffolds.

THE MARQUIS. Alas! of what service to you are your courage and your wise opinions? You are denounced, reduced as I am, to hiding, after shedding your blood for them.

THE GENERAL. Not for them but for France. The honor of our country took refuge in the armies, and I followed it there. I have done a little good; I have hindered much evil, and if the choice were still mine, I should follow the same route.

A VOICE (in the street). A great conspiracy discovered by the Committee of Public Safety.

THE GENERAL. Still new victims.

THE MARQUIS. They who did not respect the virtues of Malesherbes, the talents of Lavoisier, the youth of Barnave, will they recoil from one crime more?

THE GENERAL. Decent people will get weary of having courage only to die. France will reawaken, stronger and more united, for misfortune draws to each other all ranks, all parties; and already you see that we, formerly so divided, are understanding each other better at last, and love each other more than ever.

THE MARQUIS (throwing himself into the General's arms). Ah, you speak truly."

This scene pa.s.ses in the midst of the Terror. The conclusion, the moral of the piece, is as follows:--

"THE GENERAL. My friends, my fellow-citizens, we who, after so many storms have finally reached port, and who, under the shelter of the throne and the laws, taste that wise and moderate liberty which has been the object of our desires for forty years; let us guard it well, it has cost us dear. Always united, let us no longer think of the evil done, let us see only the good that is, let us put away sad memories, and let us all say, in the new France, 'Union and forgiveness.'"

Among the spectators more than one could recognize himself in the personages of the piece. But the allusions were so nicely made that no one could be offended. Liberals and ultras could, on the contrary, profit by the excellent counsels given them in the little play of the Theatre de Madame.

Let us add, moreover, that Scribe never wished to be anything but a man of letters. There could be applied to him the words said by him of his confrere, friend, and nephew, Bayard:--