"Yes, I do wish it."
Colson yielded, and began Orosmane's tirade—
"Vertueuse Zaire, avant que l'hyménée...."
and declaimed it from the first line to the last, with suchfidelity of imitation that one might have thought Lafond himself were declaiming.
Lafond listened to the end with the deepest attention, nodding his head up and down and expressing his approbation by frequent and obvious signs.
Then, when Colson had finished, he said, "Well! why ever don't you act like that, my dear fellow? The public would not hiss you if you did!"
In the interval between the first and second acts ofPierre de Portugal, Lucien Arnault was in the wings; during the second act, Pierre de Portugal, disguised as a soldier of his army, insinuates himself unrecognised into the house of Inès de Castro, who takes him for a common soldier.
Lucien saw Lafond advance in a costume resplendent with gold and jewels.
He ran up to him. "Ah! my dear Lafond," he said, "your costume is all wrong!"
"Have you anything to say against my costume?"
"Rather, I should just think so."
"But it is blatantly new."
"That is precisely what I take exception to: you have put on the garb of a prince, not that of a common soldier."
"Lucien," replied Lafond, "listen to this: I would rather arouse envy than pity." Then, turning haughtily on his heels, no doubt in order to show the back of his costume to Lucien, since he had shown him the front, he said, "They can ring: Pierre de Portugal is ready."
When, five years later, I readChristinebefore the Théâtre-Français, whether or not Lafond was a member of the committee, or whether he did not care to trouble himself to listen to the work of a beginner, I had the misfortune to read it in his absence. Although, as we shall see in its proper place, the play was rejected, the reading excited some interest, and it was thought that a drama might be made out of it sooner or later.
One day I saw the door of my humble office open and M. Lafond was announced. I raised my head, greatly surprised,unable to imagine why I should be favoured by a visit from the viceroy of the tragic stage: it was indeed he! I offered him a chair; but he refused it with a nod of the head, and stopping close to the door, with his right foot forward and his left hand resting on his hips, he said, "Monsieur Dumas, do you happen to have, by any chance, in your play, a well-set-up gallant who would say to that queer queen Christine, 'Madame, your majesty has no right to kill that poor devil of a Monaldeschi, for this, that, or any other reason'?"
"No, monsieur, no! I have no such gallant in my play."
"You are quite sure you haven't?"
"Yes."
"In that case I have nothing to say to you.... Good-day, M. Dumas." And, turning on his heel, he went out as he had entered. He had come to ask me for the part of this well-set-up gallant, as he called it. Unfortunately, as I had been compelled to acknowledge, I had no such part in my play.
In the heyday of his popularity M. Lafond never spoke of Talma, or of M. Talma: he said,the other person.
The Comte de Lauraguais, who had been Sophie Arnould's lover, and who, like the Marquis de Zimènes, was one of the most constant visitors to the actors' green-room, said one day to M. Lafond, "M. Lafond, I think you are too oftenthe oneand not often enoughthe other?"
Mademoiselle Duchesnois was quite different from Lafond: she was really kind-hearted, and her great successes never made her vain. She was born in 1777, one year before Mademoiselle Mars, at Saint-Saulve, near Valenciennes, and she changed her name, after her début inPhèdre, in 1802, from Joséphine Ruffin to Duchesnois. We have said that she was Mile. Georges' rival in everything: her rival on the stage, her rival in love. Harel was the handsome Paris who was the object of this rivalry. Harel, who was in turn manager of the theatre de l'Odéon and of the théâtre de la Porte-Saint-Martin, will play a great part in these Memoirs—the part that a clever man, be it known, has the right to play everywhere.
Mademoiselle Duchesnois had had to struggle all her lifeagainst her plain looks: she was like one of those china lions one sees on balustrades; she had a particularly big nose which she blew stentoriously, as befitted its size. Lassagne did not dare to go into the orchestra on days when she acted; he was afraid of being blown away. On the other hand, she had a marvellous figure, and her body could have rivalled that of the Venus de Milo. She doted on the part of Alzire, which allowed her and Lafond to appear almost naked. She possessed a certain simplicity of mind which her detractors called stupidity. One day—in 1824—people were busy talking about the inundation of St. Petersburg, and of the various more or less picturesque accidents that had occurred through this inundation.
I was in the wings, behind Talma and Mademoiselle Duchesnois, to whom an actress, who had just arrived from the first, or rather from the second, capital of the Russian Empire, was relating how one of her friends, overtaken by the flood, had only had time to climb up on a crane.
"What! on a crane?" said Mademoiselle Duchesnois, in great astonishment. "Is it possible, Talma?"
"Oh! my dear," replied the actor questioned so oddly, "no one ought to know better than yourself that it is done every day."
But, in spite of her ugliness, in spite of her simplicity, in spite of her hiccough, in spite of her nose-blowing, Mademoiselle Duchesnois possessed the most profoundly tender inflections in her voice, and could express such pathetic sorrow, that most of those who saw her inMarie Stuartprefer her to-day to Mademoiselle Rachel. Especially did her qualities shine when she played with Talma. Talma was too great an artiste, too superb an actor to fear being outbidden. Talma gave her excellent advice, which her fine artistic nature utilised, if not with remarkable intelligence, at least with easy assimilation.
The poor creature retired from the stage in 1830, after having struggled as long as she could against the pitiless indifference of the public, and the cruel hints from other actors which generally embitter the later years of dramatic artistes.She reappeared once again before her death in 1835, inAthalieat the Opera, I believe.
It was very sad to see her: it inevitably brought to mind the line fromPierre de Portugal—
"Inès, vivante ou non, tu seras couronnée!"
Alas! poor Duchesnois was crowned when she was more than half dead. She had a son, a good honest lad. After the Revolution of July, Bixio and I got him a sub-lieutenancy; but he was killed, I believe, in Algeria.
The tragedy ofPierre de Portugalwas a success; it was even a great success; but it only ran fifteen or eighteen nights, and did not bring in any money.
Lassagne was right.
General Riégo—His attempted insurrection—His escape and flight—He is betrayed by the brothers Lara—His trial—His execution
General Riégo—His attempted insurrection—His escape and flight—He is betrayed by the brothers Lara—His trial—His execution
We have mentioned that theÉcole des Vieillardsought to have come afterPierre de Portugal, but between the comedy and tragedy two terrible dramas took place in Madrid and Paris. In Madrid they made a martyr; in Paris they executed a criminal. The martyr's name was Riégo: the guilty criminal's Castaing.
Riégo was born, in 1783, in the Asturias, so he would be about forty: he was of a noble but poor family and, since the invasion of 1808, he had enlisted as a volunteer. He became an officer in the same regiment in which he had enlisted; he was taken prisoner and led away to France. Sent back to Spain, when peace was declared, he attained the rank of lieutenant-colonel in the same regiment, and, leading this regiment into insurrection, seduced by him, it proclaimed the constitution of 1812 at las Cabesas-de-San-Juan. It will be seen later that it was desired that his head should be exposed, in order that his mute lips and the eyes closed by death might bear witness to the fact that royalty can be cruel for more than a day's span, and common people ungrateful. On 27 September he was arrested at Cadiz. Let us say a few words concerning his arrest and death,—the latter especially, for, alas I it belongs almost to French history. After his last defeat, General Riégo wandered in the mountains with a score of his comrades, all of whom belonged, like himself, to the Liberal party. Fifteen of these fugitives were officers. They were all exhausted by fatigue and hunger, and did not know either where to look for shelter or from whom to beg food, when theycaught sight of two men. They made straight for them. These two men were the hermit of the district of Pédrogil and a native of Valez named Lopez Lara. The general took them aside.
"My friends," he said to them, "you have a chance to win a fortune for yourselves and your families."
"What must we do to gain it?" the two men asked.
"Conduct me safe and sound to Carolina, to Carboneras and to Novas de Tolosa."
"And there...?"
"There I shall find friends who will take me on to Estremadura, where I have business to transact."
Whether the journey appeared to them too long, or whether they fancied they had to deal with outlaws, the hermit and his companion declined. So Riégo arrested them, put them on a couple of mules, and told them that, whether willingly or under compulsion, they would have to act as guides to his band. The party waited until nightfall and then set forth.
During the march in the darkness, Riégo talked with his comrades concerning various events that had recently occurred, from which the hermit and Lopez Lara soon guessed that they were in the company of the notorious Riégo. From that moment Lopez Lara's whole thoughts were filled with the idea of handing Riégo over to the Royalist authorities. When daytime came, they had to stop. They were near the farm of Baquevisones: Riégo announced that he meant to ask for shelter there, so he ordered Lara to knock at the door. Lara obeyed. By chance, his own brother Matéo opened it. Lara perceived that chance had brought him the assistance he needed. Riégo, realising that too large an escort might betray him, would only allow three of his comrades to go in with him. One of these companions was an Englishman, even more daring than Riégo. He at once locked the door of the farm behind him and put the key in his pocket. When they had given the horses fodder, they rested in the stable, each with his naked sword by his side. Three slept, while the fourth mounted guard. When Riégo awaked, he discovered that hishorse was unshod. He ordered Lopez Lara to shoe the horse immediately.
"All right," replied he; "but I must take him to Arguillos to get him shod."
"No," returned Riégo; "you shall stay here and Matéo shall have him shod. But the farrier shall come here; the horse shall not go to him."
Lopez appeared to conform with indifference to this order; but, as he transmitted it to his brother, he managed to say—
"The man who owns the horse is General Riégo."
"So ho!" said Matéo; "arrange for him to be at breakfast by the time I return; do not leave the place where they are or let them out of your sight."
Matéo returned, and made a sign to his brother that the commission was executed. Then to Riégo he said—
"Señor, as the farrier will be here in five minutes, you had better breakfast, if you wish to proceed on your journey directly your horse is shod."
Riégo went to breakfast without making any objection. But not so the Englishman.
The Englishman searched the high road with his field-glasses from a window as far as he could see. Suddenly a score of armed men came into sight, headed by analcade(magistrate).
"General," he exclaimed, "we have been betrayed! There are soldiers coming."
"To arms!" cried Riégo, rising. He had time to utter this cry, but not to accomplish its fulfilment. Lopez and Matéo seized their guns and covered the outlaws with them.
"The first man who moves is dead!" cried Lopez.
"All right," said Riégo, "I surrender; but warn the soldiers who are coming not to harm us, since we are your prisoners."
The soldiers entered, led by the alcade.
"Shake hands, brother, and do us no harm," said Riégo to the alcade.
After some objection, the alcade greeted Riégo. But, in spite of this, he told him he must bind his hands. Whereupon, Riégo took out of his pocket all the money hehad with him and distributed it among the soldiers, asking them to treat him mercifully. The alcade, however, forbade the soldiers to accept anything. A quarter of an hour later, the civil commandant arrived from Arguillos with a guard, and they took the prisoners to Andujar.
When the captives entered that town, the people wanted to tear them limb from limb. Riégo was accompanied by a French officer. When he arrived in front of the same balcony from which, a year ago, he had harangued the people, he pointed to the crowd which surrounded him howling and shaking their fists and knives at him, and in a tone of profound sadness he said to the officer, "These people whom you see so relentless towards me, these people who if I had not been under the protection of your escort would have butchered me long since, these people carried me here in triumph only last year; the town was illuminated the whole night through, and the very same individuals whom I recognise surrounding me here, who then deafened me with cries of 'Vive Riégo!' now shout 'Death to Riégo!'"
He was taken to the seminary of nobles; his trial lasted over a month. A decree dated 1 October, the very day on which he was freed from prison and reached the port of Sainte-Marie, degraded the general of all his honours; consequently, he was tried by a civil court. The King of Spain gained a twofold advantage by depriving the general of a military court martial.
First he knew that the civil court would condemn Riégo to death. Second, if the sentence were pronounced by a civil court, the death would be ignominious. Vengeance is such a sweet mouthful that it must not be permitted to lose any of its flavour.
On 4 November they led Riégo from the seminary of nobles to the prison of la Tour. The court had not obtained all it demanded. The attorney-general requisitioned that Riégo should be condemned to the gallows; that his estate should be confiscated and given to the Commune; that his head should be exposed at las Cabesas de San-Juan; that his body should be quartered and one quarter sent to Seville, another to the isle of Leon, the third to Malaga and thefourth exposed in Madrid, in the usual places for such exhibitions,—"these towns being," the attorney-general added, "the principal places where the traitor Riégo scattered the sparks of revolt."
The alcades decided that the mode of death should be by hanging and that the goods should be confiscated; but they refused the request concerning the four quarters.
Once, towards the end of the fifteenth century, the inhabitants of Imola, a small town in the Romagna, found, on waking up, the four quarters of a man hanging each by a hook at the four corners of the square. They recognised the man cut into four quarters for a Florentine, and wrote to the worshipful Republic to advise them of the unforeseen accident that had overtaken one of its citizens. The Republic learnt of this by means of Machiavelli, its ambassador to the Legations. Machiavelli's only reply was as follows: "Noble lords, I have but one thing to say to you apropos of the corpse of Ramiro d'Orco, which was found cut up into four quarters in the square of Imola, and it is this: the illustrious Cæsar Borgia is the prince who best knows how to deal with men according to their deserts."
It riled the King of Spain not to be able to deal with Riégo as Borgia had dealt with Ramiro d'Orco; but he had to content himself with the prisoner being borne to the gibbet on hurdles and with the confiscation of his property. Even that would be quite a pretty spectacle.
On 5 November at noon Riégo's sentence was read to him: he listened to it very calmly. This calmness disturbed the judges for it would set a bad example if Riégo died bravely. They took him to the chapel, and under pretence that fasting induced penitence sooner than anything else, they gave him nothing to eat from that time. Two monks accompanied him to his cell and never left him. At the prison door, in the street, he could see a table with a crucifix thereon, and passers-by placed their alms on the table. These alms were destined to pay the expenses of his mass and funeral.
On the 7th, at nine in the morning, the prison was besiegedby over thirty thousand curious spectators; a much greater number than that lined the whole of the route, and formed a double line from the prison square to the square where the execution was to take place.
Riégo had asked that only Spanish troops should be present during his last moments. This favour was granted him, because France did not wish to dip one corner of its white flag in the blood of the unlucky Riégo.
At half-past twelve, after fifty hours of fasting, the general was led forth to the prison door. He was pale and weak. They had stripped him of his uniform and they had clothed him in a dressing-gown with a girdle fastened round his waist; his hands and feet were likewise bound. He was laid on a hurdle, with a pillow under his head. Monks walked on both sides of this hurdle to administer spiritual consolation to him. An ass drew the hurdle, led by the executioner. The victim was preceded and followed by a corps of cavalry.
It was difficult to get a good sight of the general, so great was the curiosity of the crowd: his head fell forward on his breast, and he had only sufficient strength to raise it two or three times to reply to the exhortations of the priests.
The cortège took nearly an hour to get from the prison to the place of execution. When the foot of the gallows was reached, the general was raised from the hurdle, covered with dust, and placed on the first step of the scaffold. There he made his last confession. Then they dragged him up the ladder; for, his feet being bound, he could not mount it himself. All the while a priest kept beseeching God to forgive him his sins, as he forgave those who had trespassed against him. When they had hauled him a certain height, those who raised the condemned man stopped. The act of faith was begun and, at the last word, the general was hurled from the top of the ladder. At the very instant that the priest pronounced the wordJésus-Christ, which was the signal, the executioner leapt on the shoulders of the martyr, while two men hung from his legs, completing the hideous group. Twice the shout of "Vive le roi!" went up, first from the rows of spectators near by; thesecond time from a few individuals alone. Then a man leapt from out the crowd, stepped towards the scaffold, and struck Riégo's body a blow with his stick. That night they carried the corpse into the nearest church, and it was interred in the Campo-Santo by the Brothers of Charity.
Nothing is known of Riégo's last moments, as no one was allowed to come near him; the monks, his bitterest enemies, being desirous of throwing all possible odium on his dying moments.
"The last of the Gracchi," according to Mirabeau, "in the act of death, threw dust steeped in his own blood into the air. Thence was born Marius."
Riégo left a song; from that song was born a revolution, and from that revolution the Republic.
The inn of theTête-Noire—Auguste Ballet—Castaing—His trial—His attitude towards the audience and his words to the jury—His execution
The inn of theTête-Noire—Auguste Ballet—Castaing—His trial—His attitude towards the audience and his words to the jury—His execution
The second drama which happened in Paris, and which was to have its denouement on the place de Grève, on the same day that theÉcole des Vieillardswas played, was the poisoning of Auguste Ballet.
We have spoken of the death of poor little Fleuriet, who was as pretty, fresh and flower-like as her name, and who was carried off in twenty-four hours without any apparent reason for her death. May I be forgiven the accusation implied in this statement, for it may be a calumny; but when the facts cited below are considered, the cause of her death may be guessed.
On 29 May, two young people arrived in what at that period was called "une petite voiture," and drew up at theTête-Noireinn, at Saint-Cloud. They had set off without leaving word where they were going. Towards nine o'clock in the evening they were installed in a double-bedded chamber. One of the couple paid a deposit of five francs. The two friends walked about together the whole of the next day, Friday, the 30th; they only appeared at the hotel at dinner-time, and went out again immediately after their repast for another walk. It was nine o'clock at night before they returned for the second time. When going upstairs, one of them asked for a half-bottle of mulled wine, adding that it need not be sugared, as they had brought sugar with them. The wine was taken up a few minutes after nine, sugared with the sugar that they had brought, and made tasty with lemons bought in Saint-Cloud. Thesame young man who made the five francs deposit for the room, who ordered the dinner, and forbade the sugar to be brought upstairs, mixed the sugar and lemon juice in the bowl of warmed wine.
One of the two seemed to be a doctor; for, having heard that one of the servants of the house was ill, he went upstairs to see him, before tasting the prepared wine, and felt his pulse. However, he did not prescribe anything for him, and returned to his friend's room after an absence of a quarter of an hour. The said friend had found the wine very nasty, and had only drunk about a tablespoonful of it. He had stopped short because of the bitter flavour of the beverage. In the midst of all this, the chambermaid entered. "I must have put too much lemon in this wine," said the young man, holding the bowl towards her: "it is so bitter I cannot drink it." The servant tasted it; but she spat it out as soon as she had had a mouthful of it, exclaiming, "Oh yes!... rather, you have made it bitter!" Upon which she left the room. The two friends went to bed.
Throughout the night the young man who had tasted the wine was seized with violent spasms of nervous shivering, which did not give him a moment's rest; he complained to his companion several times that he could not keep himself still. Towards two o'clock, he had fits of colic and, at daybreak, about half-past three in the morning, he said he did not think he would be able to get up, that his feet were on fire and that he could not possibly put on his boots. The other young man said he would take a turn in the park, and recommended his friend to try and sleep in the meantime. But, instead of going for a walk in the park, the young man whose visit to the sick servant led people to suppose him a doctor, took a carriage, returned to Paris, bought twelve grains of acetate of morphine from M. Robin, rue de la Feuillade, and one drachm from M. Chevalier, another chemist, obtaining them readily in the capacity of a medical man. He returned to the inn of theTête-Noireat eight o'clock, after four hours' absence, and asked for some cold milk for his friend. The sick man felt no better; hedrank the cup of milk prepared by the young doctor, and almost immediately he was taken with fits of vomiting which rapidly succeeded each other. Soon he was seized by colic. Strange to say, in spite of the attack becoming worse, the doctor again left the patient alone, without leaving any instructions and without appearing to be uneasy at a condition of things which was arousing the anxiety of strangers. While he was absent, the hostess of the hotel and the chambermaid went up to the sick man and did what they could for him. He was in great agony. The young doctor returned in about half an hour's time. He found the patient in an alarming condition; he was asking for a doctor, insisting that one should be fetched from Saint-Cloud, and he opposed his friend's suggestion that one should be fetched from Paris. He felt so ill, he said, that he could not wait.
So they ran for the nearest available; but nevertheless it was not until eleven o'clock in the morning that the doctor whom they went to seek arrived. His name was M. Pigache.
The sick man was a little easier by that time. M. Pigache asked to see the evacuations, but he was told that they had been thrown away. He ordered emollients, but the emollients were not applied. He came back an hour later and prescribed a soothing draught. The young doctor administered it himself to the invalid; but the effect it produced was prompt and terrible: five minutes after, the patient was seized by frightful convulsions. In the midst of these convulsions he lost consciousness, and from that moment never regained it.
Towards eleven o'clock at night, the young doctor, weeping bitterly, informed a servant that his friend could not survive the night. The servant ran for M. Pigache, who decided, in spite of the short time he had attended him, to pay the dying man one more visit. He found the unhappy youth lying on his back, his neck rigidly strained, his head uncovered, hardly able to breathe; he could neither hear nor feel; his pulse was slow, his skin burning; his limbs were stiff and rigid, his mouth clenched; his whole body was running with a cold sweat and marked with bluish spots. M. Pigache decidedhe must at once bleed the patient freely, and he bled him twice—with leeches and with the lancet. It made the sick man a little easier. M. Pigache pointed this out to his young confrère, saying that the condition of the dying man was desperate and that, as the good effect produced by the two bleedings was so noticeable, he did not hesitate to propose a third. But this the young doctor opposed, saying that the responsibility was too great, and that, if the third bleeding ended badly, the whole of the responsibility for the ending would rest on M. Pigache. Upon this, the latter peremptorily demanded that a doctor should be sent for from Paris.
This course would have been quite easy, for, during that very day, as the result of a letter despatched by the young doctor couched in the following terms, "M. Ballet being ill at Saint-Cloud, Jean must come to him at once, in the gig, with the grey horse; neither he nor mother Buvet must speak a word of this to a single soul; if anybody makes inquiry, they must say he is going into the country by order of M. Ballet," Jean, who was a negro servant, arrived with the grey horse and the gig. In spite of this facility of communication, the young doctor made out that it was too late to send for a doctor from Paris. They waited, therefore, until three o'clock, and at three o'clock Jean started off with two letters from M. Pigache to two of his medical friends.
M. Pigache left the house, and as the young doctor accompanied him, he said, "Monsieur, I think no time should be lost in sending for the priest of Saint-Cloud; your friend is a Catholic and I think so badly of his condition that you ought to have the last sacraments administered to him without delay."
The young man recognised the urgency of the advice, and, going himself to the house of the curé, he brought him back with the sacristan.
The priest found the dying man in the same unconscious condition. "What is the matter with your unfortunate friend, monsieur?" asked the priest.
"Brain fever," replied the young man.
Then, as the curé was preparing to administer extremeunction, the young doctor knelt down, and remained in that position, with clasped hands, praying to God with such fervour that the sacristan could not refrain from remarking when they had both left, "What a very pious young man that was!" The young doctor went out after the priest, and remained away for nearly two hours.
Towards three o'clock, one of the two doctors that had been sent for arrived from Paris. It was Doctor Pelletan junior. M. Pigache, informed of his arrival, came and joined his confrère at the bedside of the sick man. But, after a rapid examination, both concluded that the patient was beyond human aid.
Nevertheless, they tried various remedies, but without success. All this time the young doctor appeared to be overcome with the most poignant grief—a grief that expressed itself in tears and sobs. These demonstrations of despair impressed M. Pigache all the more because, in course of conversation, the young doctor had said to him, "I am all the more unhappy as I am my unfortunate friend's legatee."
Thereupon M. Pelletan, addressing the weeping young man, said to him, "Have you reflected, monsieur, on the peril of your position?"
"What do you mean, monsieur?"
"Well, listen! You come, with your friend, for a couple of days to Saint-Cloud; you are a doctor; you are, anyway, his legatee...."
"Yes, monsieur, I am his residuary legatee."
"Very well: the man who has bequeathed you his entire fortune is dying; the symptoms of his illness are extremely peculiar and, if he dies, as is probable, you will find yourself in a very awkward position...."
"What!" exclaimed the young man. "You think I shall be suspected?"
"I think that, at any rate," replied M. Pelletan, "all imaginable precautions will be taken to ascertain the cause of death. As far as M. Pigache and myself are concerned, we have decided that there ought to be a post-mortem examination."
"Oh! monsieur," cried the young man, "you could not do me a greater service; insist upon it, demand a post-mortem examination, and you will play the part of a father to me if you do."
"Very well, monsieur," replied Doctor Pelletan, seeing him so much excited; "do not be troubled. Not only shall the matter be carried through, but it shall be carried through as delicately as possible, and we will pay our utmost attention to it."
Between noon and one o'clock—that is to say, within thirty or forty minutes of this conversation—the dying man expired.
The reader will already have recognised the two principal actors in this drama by the designation of the place where it happened, and by the details of the victim's agony.
The dead man was Claude-Auguste Ballet, lawyer, aged twenty-five, son of a rich Paris solicitor. His friend was Edme-Samuel Castaing, who in a few days' time would be twenty-seven, doctor of medicine, born at Alençon, living in Paris, No. 31 rue d'Enfer. His father, an honourable and universally respected man, was Inspector-General of Forests, and Chevalier of theLégion d'honneur.
One hour after the death of Auguste Ballet, M. Martignon, his brother-in-law, warned by a letter from Castaing that Auguste Ballet could not live through the day, hurried to Saint-Cloud, where he found the sick man already dead.
While they were proceeding to search every object in the inn that might possibly throw some light on the cause of death, Castaing, still at large, absented himself for nearly two hours. No one knew what he did in his second absence. He pretended he wanted fresh air, and stated that he was going for a walk in the bois de Boulogne.
M. Pelletan returned at ten o'clock next morning to make the post-mortem examination.
He had left Castaing in full possession of his liberty, but when he returned he found him under the surveillance of two policemen. Castaing appeared very uneasy at the results towhich a post-mortem examination might lead; but he seemed to feel sure that if the body did not present any trace of poison, he would be set at liberty immediately.
The examination took place and an extremely circumstantial official report was drawn up; but nowhere, either in tongue, or in stomach or in intestines, could they detect the presence of any poisonous substance. As a matter of fact, acetate of morphine, like brucine and strychnine, leaves no more trace than is left by congestion of the brain or a bad seizure of apoplexy. It was because of this, a fact which Castaing knew well, that when the priest had asked him from what his friend was suffering, he had replied, "He has brain fever."
When the post-mortem was finished, without having revealed any material proof against the suspected person, M. Pelletan asked theprocureur du roiif he had any objection to Castaing being informed of the result.
"No," repliedthe procureur du roi; "simply communicate the result to him in general terms, without making him think it is going to be either in his favour or to his detriment."
M. Pelletan found Castaing waiting for him upon the staircase.
"Well," he asked the doctor eagerly, "have you concluded and come to release me?"
"I am unaware," replied M. Pelletan, "whether they mean to release you or to detain you; but the truth is we can find no trace of violent death in the body of Auguste Ballet."
In spite of the temporary absence of material proof, Castaing was kept a prisoner. The preliminary investigation began: it lasted from the month of June to the end of September.
On 10 November, Castaing appeared at the prisoner's bar. The affair had created a great sensation even before it was made public; and the Assize Court presented the appearance usual when an important case is on—that is to say, so many lovely women and fashionably dressed men put in an appearance that one might have thought it the first night of a new play which had been announced with great pomp. The accused was brought in. An indefinable movementof interest agitated the spectators: they bent forward and oscillated with curiosity, looking like a field of corn tossed about by the wind. He was a handsome young man, well set up, with a pleasant face, although there was something rather odd in his expression as he looked at you. Without being elegantly attired, he was dressed with care.
Alas! the preliminary investigation had revealed terrible facts. Auguste Ballet's death had caused judicial attention to be bestowed upon this unlucky family, and it was discovered that, since Castaing had known the family, the father, the mother, the uncle had all disappeared, struck down mortally within five months of each other, leaving the two brothers Hippolyte and Auguste a very considerable fortune; and, finally, Hippolyte died in his turn in Castaing's arms, without either his brother Auguste or his sister Madame Martignon being able to get to him. All these deaths had successively concentrated pretty nearly the whole of the family fortune on the head of Auguste Ballet.
On 1 December 1822, Auguste Ballet, aged twenty-four, in health of mind and body at the time, made a will, constituting Castaing, without any motive, his residuary legatee, with no reservations beyond a few small bequests to two friends and three servants. Auguste Ballet died in his turn on 1 June, seven months after his brother. Now this is what the proceedings had elicited concerning the two points which in similar cases are specially investigated by those in charge of the case—namely, Castaing's intellectual and his physical life. With regard to his intellectual life, Castaing was a hard worker, urged on by ambition, burning with the desire to become rich; his mother revealed horrible things concerning him, if a letter that was seized at her house was to be believed; his father reproached him with his licentious life and the sorrow with which he overwhelmed both his parents. In the midst of all this, he worked on perseveringly: he passed his examinations; he became a doctor.
Anatomy, botany and chemistry were the subjects to which he devoted most time. Especially chemistry. His note-bookswere produced, full of observations, extracts, erasures. They attested the determination shown in his researches and the profound study he had made of poisons, of their various kinds, of their effects, of the palpable traces some leave on different bodily organs, whilst some, quite as deadly and more insidious, kill without leaving any vestiges perceptible to the eyes of the most learned and experienced anatomist.
These poisons are all vegetable poisons: brucine, derived from false angostura; strychnine from Saint-Ignatius nut; morphine from pure opium, which is extracted from the Indian poppy. Now, it was a strange and terrible coincidence that on 18 September 1822, seventeen days before the death of Hippolyte Ballet, Castaing bought ten grains of acetate of morphine. Twelve days later, Hippolyte, suffering from a serious pulmonary disease, but not yet in danger, was seized with a deadly attack and died, as we have said, far from his sister and his brother, after five days' illness! He died in Castaing's arms.
Then Castaing's fortunes changed: he who had been very hard up heretofore lent his mother thirty thousand francs and invested under assumed names or in bearer stock the sum of seventy thousand francs. The matter was further complicated by matters arising out of the will of Hippolyte Ballet, questions which will never be properly cleared up, even in the law courts, and which seemed to imply that Auguste Ballet became Castaing's accomplice. Hence Auguste's weakness for Castaing; hence that will in his favour; hence the intimacy between these two men, who never separated from one another; all these things were explained, from the moment when, instead of the ordinary bond of pure and simple friendship, the link between them was supposed to be the indestructible chain of mutual complicity.
For—and this is the time to return to his outward life, that we have put to one side in order to speak of the intellectual life—Castaing was not wealthy: he lived on a moderate income allowed him by his mother; his own efforts barely produced him five or six hundred francs per annum; he had amistress, also very poor, a widow with three children; he had two other children by her, so the young doctor had to keep a family of six persons whilst as yet he had no practice. It seems that he adored his family, especially his children. Letters were found showing warm fatherly affection in a heart that was consumed, even more on behalf of others than on his own account, with that thirst of ambition and that craving for riches which brought him to the scaffold.
We have seen that Castaing's finances suddenly became easier, that he lent his mother thirty thousand francs and that he invested seventy thousand francs in assumed names or in bearer bonds.
Then, next, we saw that on 29 May he arrived at Saint-Cloud with Auguste Ballet, and that, on 1 June, Auguste Ballet died, leaving him residuary legatee. Castaing was in Paris on the evening he was absent under pretence of taking a walk: he bought twelve grains from one chemist and one drachm from a second, of acetate of morphine, or, in other words, of that vegetable poison which leaves no traces and of which he had already bought ten grains, seventeen days before the death of Hippolyte Ballet.
The above is a résumé of the accumulated evidence brought against Castaing, who had to face the jury under the weight of fifteen charges relative to the poisoning of Hippolyte Ballet, of thirty-four connected with the business of the will and of seventy-six relative to the poisoning of Auguste Ballet. People will remember the different phases gone through during that long and terrible trial; the steady denials of the prisoner, and his bearing on receipt of the sentence condemning him to death; a sentence decided by the turn of only one vote—that is to say, by seven against five.
The criminal stood, with bared head, and listened with frigid resignation to the sentence, his hands clasped together, silent, his eyes and hands raised to Heaven.
"Have you anything to say why sentence should not be carried out?" asked the judge.
Castaing sadly shook his head, the head so soon to feel the chilly grip of death.
"No, monsieur," he said in a deep but gentle voice,—"no, I have nothing to say against the carrying out of the sentence decreed against me. I shall know how to die, although it is a great misfortune to die, hurried to the grave by such a dire fate as has overtaken me. I am accused of having basely murdered my two friends, and I am innocent.... Oh! indeed, I repeat it, I am innocent! But there is a Providence: that which is immortal in me will go forth to find you, Auguste, Hippolyte. Oh yes, my friends" (and here the condemned man stretched out both his arms to heaven most impressively),—"oh yes, my friends, yes, I shall meet you again, and to me it will be a happy fate to rejoin you. After the accusation brought against me, nothing human can affect me. Now I look no longer for human pity, I look only for Heaven's mercy; I shall mount the scaffold courageously, cheered by the thought of seeing you again! Oh! my friends, this thought will rejoice my soul even when I feel.... Alas!" continued the accused, passing his hand across his neck, "alas! it is easier to understand what I feel than to express what I dare not utter...." Then, in a lower tone, "You have decided on my death, messieurs; behold, I am ready to die." Then, turning to his counsel, Maître Roussel, he said, "Look, look, Roussel, turn round, come here and look at me.... You believed in my innocence, and you defended me believing in that innocence; well, it is even so, I am innocent; take my farewell greetings to my father, my brothers, my mother, my daughter!" Then, without any pause, he went on, addressing the amazed spectators: "And you, young people, you who have been present at my trial; you, my contemporaries, will be present also at my execution; you will see me there animated with the same courage as now, and if the shedding of my blood be deemed necessary to society, well, I shall not regret that it has to flow!"
Why have I related the details of this terrible trial in such fulness? Is it in order to awake gloomy memories of the past in the hearts of the members of those two unhappyfamilies who may still be alive? No! It was because, by reason of the reports connecting poor Fleuriet with Castaing, I was present at the final tragedy; I begged a day's holiday from M. Oudard in order to see the end; I was present among the number of those young people whom the condemned man, in a moment of exaltation, of delirium, perhaps, invited to his execution; and when I saw that man so exuberantly young, so full of life, so eager after knowledge, condemned to death, bidding farewell to his father, his mother, his brothers, his children, society, creation, light, in those poignant tones and miserable accents, I said to myself in inexpressible anguish of heart, "O my God! my God! suppose this man should be another Lesurques, another Labarre, another Calas!... O my God! my God! suppose this man be not guilty!"
And, then and there, before the tribunal which had just condemned a man to death, I vowed that, no matter to what position I might attain, I would never look upon it as justifiable to punish a sentient, suffering human being like myself by the deprivation of life.
No, I was not present at the execution; for, I must admit, I could not possibly have borne such a spectacle; and now twenty-eight years have flown by between Castaing's execution and Lafourcade's, and they have been full of such cases, in spite of the penalty of death, which is meant to be a deterrent and does not deter! Alas! how many wretched criminals have passed along the route that led from the Conciergerie to the place de Grève, and now leads from la Roquette to the barrière de Saint-Jacques, during those twenty-eight years!
On 6 December, at half-past seven in the morning, Castaing was led from Bicêtre to la Conciergerie. A moment later, the gaoler entered his cell and told him of the rejection of his petition. Behind the gaoler came the abbé Montes.
Castaing then turned his attention to his prayers, praying long and earnestly. He did not utter a single word during the whole of the time he spent in the vestibule of the Conciergerie, while they were preparing him for his execution.
When he looked round at the vast crowd that awaited hisappearance as he mounted into the cart, his cheeks grew suddenly purple, and then gradually subsided to a deathly paleness. He only lifted his head at the foot of the scaffold; it had remained sunk on his breast during the journey; then, glancing at the crowd again as he had done on coming out of the Conciergerie, he knelt at the foot of the ladder and, after he had kissed the crucifix and embraced the worthy ecclesiastic who offered it him, he climbed the scaffold, held up by the executioner's two assistants. He raised his eyes twice quite noticeably to Heaven while they pinioned him on the fatal block; then, at fifteen minutes past two, as the quarter chimed, his head fell.
Castaing had experienced the sensation of death that he had not dared more clearly to define to the audience when he drew his hand across his neck—Castaing had passed before his Creator—if guilty, to receive forgiveness, if innocent, to denounce the real criminal.
He had asked to see his father, to receive his benedictionin extremis; the favour was refused him. He next asked for this benediction to be sent him in writing. It was sent to him thus, but was first passed through vinegar before being handed to him. They feared the paternal benediction might hide some poison by the aid of which Castaing might find means to cheat the scaffold of its due.
All was ended by half-past two, and those who wished to have comedy after tragedy still had time to go from the place de Grève to take their stand in the queue outside the Théâtre-Français. On that day, 6 December 1823, theÉcole des Vieillardswas played.
Casimir Delavigne—An appreciation of the man and of the poet—The origin of the hatred of the old school of literature for the new—Some reflections uponMarino Falieroand theEnfants d'Édouard—Why Casimir Delavigne was more a comedy writer than a tragic poet—Where he found the ideas for his chief plays
Casimir Delavigne—An appreciation of the man and of the poet—The origin of the hatred of the old school of literature for the new—Some reflections uponMarino Falieroand theEnfants d'Édouard—Why Casimir Delavigne was more a comedy writer than a tragic poet—Where he found the ideas for his chief plays
The first representation of theÉcole des Vieillardsplayed by Talma and Mademoiselle Mars was a great occasion. It was the first time indeed that these two great actors had appeared together in the same play.
Casimir Delavigne had laid down his own conditions. Expelled from the Théâtre-Français under pretext thathis work was badly put together, he had profited by the proscription. HisMesséniennes,hisVêpres siciliennes, hisComédiensand theParia,and perhaps even more than all these, the need felt by the Opposition party for a Liberal poet to set against Lamartine and Hugo, the Royalist poets of the period, had made the author of theÉcole des Vieillardsso popular that, with this popularity, all difficulties were cleared away, perhaps even too smoothly; for, like Richelieu in his litter, Casimir Delavigne returned to the Théâtre-Français not through the door, but by means of a gap.
I knew Casimir Delavigne very well as a man, I studied him very much as a poet: I never could get up much admiration for Casimir Delavigne as a poet, but I have always had the greatest respect for him as a man. As an individual, in addition to his uncontested and incontestable literary probity, Casimir Delavigne was a man of pleasant, polite, even affable demeanour. The first sight of him gave one the disagreeableimpression that his head was much too big for his small body; but his fine forehead, his intelligent eyes, his good-natured mouth, very soon made one forget this first impression. Although a man of great talent, he was of the number of those who display it only when pen in hand. His conversation, pleasant and affectionate, was colourless and insipid; as he lacked dignity of expression and strength of intonation, so he lacked strength and dignity of actual words. He attracted no notice at a salon: people needed to have Casimir Delavigne pointed out before they paid any attention to him. There are men who bear the stamp of their kingly dignity about with them: wherever these people go they instantly command attention; at the end of an hour's intercourse they reign. Casimir Delavigne was not one of them: he would have declined the power of commanding attention, had it been offered him; had sovereignty been thrust upon him, he would have abdicated. All burdens, even the weight of a crown, were embarrassing in his eyes. He had received an excellent education: he knew everything that could be taught when he left college; but since he left college he had learnt very little by himself, had thought but little, had reflected but little.
One of the chief features of Casimir Delavigne's character—and, in our opinion, one of his most unlucky attributes—was his submission to other people's ideas, a submission that could only arise from want of confidence in his own ideas. Oddly enough, he had created among his friends and in his family a kind of censorship, a sort of committee of repression, commissioned to watch over his imagination and to prevent it from wandering; this was all the more futile since Casimir Delavigne's imagination, enclosed in decidedly narrow limits, needed stimulating much more than restraining. The result was that this Areopagitica, inferior as it was in feeling and, above all, in style to Casimir Delavigne himself, played sad havoc with what little picturesqueness of style and imagination in plot he possessed. This depreciatory cenacle often reminded him that Icarus fell because he flew too near the sun; andI am sure he did not even dream of replying, that if the sun melted Icarus's wings, it must have been because Icarus had false wings fastened on with wax, and that the eagle, which disappears in the flood of fiery rays sent forth by the god of day, never falls back on the earth as the victim of a similar accident.
The result of this abdication of his own will was that just when Casimir Delavigne's talent was at its best and his reputation was at its height, he dared not do anything by himself, or on his own initiative. The ideas that arose in his brain were submitted to this committee before they were worked into proper shape; the plot decided upon, he would again put himself in the hands of this commission, which commented upon it, discussed it, corrected it and returned it to the poet signedexamined and found correct.Then, when the plot became a play and was read before (of course) the same assembly, one would take a pencil, another a pair of scissors, a third a compass, a fourth a rule, and set to work to cut all vitality out of the play; to such purpose that, during the sitting, the comedy, drama or tragedy was lopped, trimmed and cut about not according to the notions of the author but as MM. So and So, So and So, So and So thought fit, all conscientious gentlemen after their own fashion, all talented men in their own line, wise professors, worthy savants, able philologists, but indifferent poets who, instead of elevating their friend's efforts by a powerful breath of inspiration, only thought instead of keeping him down on the ground for fear he should soar above them to realms where their short-sighted glance could not follow him.
This habit of Casimir Delavigne, of submitting his will to that of others, gave him, without his being aware of it himself, a false modesty, an assumed humility, that embarrassed his enemies and disarmed those who were jealous of him. How indeed could anyone begrudge a man his success who seemed to be asking everybody's leave to succeed and who appeared surprised when he did succeed; or be envious of a poor poet who, if they would but believe it, had only succeeded throughthe addition to his feeble intelligence of abilities superior to his own; or be vexed with such a quaking victor, who implored people, in the moment of his triumph, not to desert him, as beseechingly as a vanquished man might pray them to remain true to him under defeat? And people were faithful to Casimir Delavigne even to the verge of fanaticism: they extended hands of flattering devotion in homage to his renown, the diverging rays of which, like the flame of the Holy Spirit, became divided into as many tongues of fire as the Casimirian cult could muster apostles.
We have mentioned the drawbacks, now let us point out the advantages, of his popularity. His plays were praised abroad before they were finished, spoken highly of before they were received, in the three classes of society to which Casimir Delavigne belonged by birth, and I will even go so far as to say above all by his talent. Thus his clientèle comprised: through Fortune Delavigne, who was an advocate, all the law students in Paris; through Gustave de Wailly, professor, all the students of the Latin quarter; through Jules de Wailly, chief clerk in the Home Office, all the Government officials.
This sort of family clientèle was extremely useful for the purpose of doing battle with theatrical managers and publishers.
It knew Casimir and did not allow him to undertake any business arrangements: he was so modest that he would have unconditionally given his plays to the comedians, his manuscripts to the publishers without any agreements. Casimir was aware of his failing in this direction: he referred publishers and managers to his brother Germain, his brother Germain referred them to his brother Fortune, and his brother Fortune managed the affair on a business footing.
And I would point out that all this was done simply, guilelessly, in kindly fashion, out of the admiration and devotion everybody felt towards Casimir; without intrigue, for this assistance never prejudiced anyone who rendered it; and I might even say without there being any coterie; for, in my opinion, where there is conviction coteries do not exist.
Now, every friend of Casimir Delavigne was absolutely and perfectly convinced that Casimir Delavigne was the first lyric poet of his time, the first dramatic poet of his century. People who never came in touch with him, and those who were stopped by the vigilant cordon which surrounded him, acted for and praised him, might well believe that these opinions emanated from himself, as from the centre to the circumference; but if they did get to close quarters with him, they were soon persuaded of the simplicity, the sincerity and the kindliness of that talented man.
I believe Casimir Delavigne never hated but one of his confrères. But him he hated well. That man was Victor Hugo. When the author ofOdes et Ballades, ofMarion Delormeand ofNôtre-Dame de Pariswas taken with the strange fancy of becoming the colleague of M. Droz, of M. Briffaut and of M. Viennet, I took upon myself to go personally on his account to ask for Casimir Delavigne's vote. I thought that such an intelligent person as the author of theMessénienneswould regard it as the duty of one in his position to help as much as was in his power in providing a seat for his illustrious rival, a candidate who had done the Academy the honour of applying for a seat therein.
I was quite wrong: Casimir Delavigne obstinately declined to give his vote to Victor Hugo, and that with such vehemence and tenacity as I should have dreamt him incapable of feeling, especially towards me, of whom he was extremely fond. Neither entreaty nor supplication nor argument could, I will not say convince, but even persuade him to agree. And yet Casimir Delavigne knew well enough that he was rejecting one of the eminent men of his time. I never found out the reason for this antipathy. It was certainly not on account of their different schools: I was most decidedly not of the school of Casimir Delavigne, and he offered me the vote he withheld from Victor Hugo.
The poor Academicians were in a sorry fix in my case; for, if I had put myself up, I believe they would have elected me! They nominated Dupaty.
Hugo comforted himself by one of the wittiest sayings he evermade. "I believed," he said, "that one could enter the Academypar le pont des Arts; I was mistaken, for it appears it is by the Pont Neuf that entrance is effected."
And now that I have criticised the man, perhaps it may be thought that it will be a much more difficult matter still for me his confrère, his rival, at times his antagonist, to criticise his poetry. No! my readers are labouring under a misapprehension: nothing is difficult to whoso speaks the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Moreover, I have never written anything about a man that I was not ready to tell him to his face.
In order to judge Casimir Delavigne fairly, we must glance over the period at which he was born and in which he lived. We must speak of the imperial era. What occasioned the burst of hatred that made itself felt after the appearance ofHenri III., ofMarion Delormeand of theMaréchale d'Ancre, between the new and the old school of poetry and their representatives?
People have stated the fact without inquiring into its causes: I can tell you them.
Because, during all the years that Napoleon was levying his toll of 300,000 conscripts, he did not perceive that the poets he looked for, and looked for so vainly, had been compelled to change their calling, and that they were in camp, sword, musket or sabre in hand, instead of pen in hand in their studies. And this state of things lasted from 1796 to 1815—a period of nineteen years.
For nineteen years the enemy's cannon swept down the generation of men from fifteen to thirty-six years of age. So it came about that when the poets of the end of the eighteenth century and those of the beginning of the nineteenth confronted one another, they found themselves hemmed in on each side by an immense ravine which had been hollowed out by the grapeshot of five coalitions: at the bottom of this ravine a million of men were stretched, and among this million of men, snatched away before they had added to the population, were those twelve poets that Napoleon had so insistently demanded of M. de Fontanes, without being able to obtain them from him.
Those who escaped were consumptive poets, considered toofeeble to undertake soldiers' duties, who died young, like Casimir Delavigne and Soumet. These were bridges thrown across the ravine of which we have just spoken, but quite unequal to the task allotted them.
Napoleon, with his eighteen years of warfare and his ten years' reign, the re-constructor of religion, the re-builder of society, he who established legislation on a firm basis, was foiled in the matter of poetry. Had it not been for the two men whom we have named—Soumet and Casimir Delavigne—the thread of continuity would have been broken.
So it came about that Casimir Delavigne, the connecting link between the old and the new schools, showed always in his poetry a little of that anæmic quality which was evident in his person; in any work by Casimir (which never exceeded the limits of one, three or five acts ordained by the old theatrical régime) there was always something sickly and airless; his plays lacked breath, as did the man; his work was as consumptive as the poet.
No one ever made three acts out of his one; no one ever made five acts out of his three; no one ever made ten acts out of his five. But it was a simple task to reduce five of his acts to three; three of his acts to one.
When imagination failed him, and he appealed to Byron or Shakespeare, he could never attain their sublime heights; he was obliged to stop short a third of the way up, midway at the very utmost, like a child who climbs a tree to gather apples and finds he cannot reach the ripest, which always grow on the highest branches, and are the most beautiful because they are nearest the sun, save at the risk of breaking his neck—a risk he is wise enough not to venture to take.
We will make our meaning clearer by a couple of instances:Marino Falieroand theEnfants d'Édouard.
In Byron'sMarino Faliero, the doge plots to revenge himself on the youthful satirist, who has insulted him by writing on his chair "Marin Falier, the husband of the fair wife; others kiss her, but he keeps her." This was a calumny: the fair Angiolina is as pure as her name implies, in spite of being buteighteen and her husband eighty. It is therefore to defend a spotless wife, and not to avenge the husband's outraged honour, that Byron's Marino Faliero conspires, and we hardly need say that the play gains in distinction by the passage across it of a sweet and lofty figure, inflamed with devotion, rather than suffused with repentance.
Now, in Casimir Delavigne's imitation, on the contrary, the wife is guilty. Héléna (for the poet, in degrading her, has not ventured to keep her heavenly name) deceives her husband, an old man! She deceives him, or rather she has deceived him, before the rising of the curtain. The first lines of the tragedy are concerned with a scarf that she is embroidering for her lover—a serious blunder in our opinion; for there could be only one means of making Héléna interesting, if she were to be made guilty, and that would be to show the struggle in her between passion and virtue, between love and duty; in short, to have done, only more successfully, what we did inAntony.
But we reiterate that it was far better to make the wife innocent, as Byron does; far better to put a faithful wife alongside the old man than an adulterous one; far better in the fifth act, where the wife seeks out her husband, to let him find devotion and not repentance when his prison doors are opened. When Christ was bowed down under His bloody agony, God chose the purest of His angels, not a fallen one, to carry Him the cup of bitterness!
We will pass over the conspiracy which takes place in Venice at midnight, in the middle of the square of Saint Mark, where fifty conspirators cry in eager emulation, "Down with the Republic!" In Venice and at midnight! in Venice, the city of the Council of Ten! in Venice, the city that never really sleeps, where at least half the populace is awake while the other half sleeps!
Casimir Delavigne did not venture to borrow anything from Shakespeare'sRichard III.but the death of the two princes: instead of that magnificent historical play by the Elizabethan poet, he substituted an insignificant little drama, replete with infantine babblings and maternal tears; of the great figure ofRichard III., of the marvellous scene between the murderer and the wife of the murdered man and of the assassination of Buckingham, of the duel with Richmond and Richard's remorse, nothing is left.
The gigantic statue, the Colossus of Rhodes, between whose legs the tallest galleys can pass, has become a bronze ornament suitable for the top of a timepiece.
Did Casimir Delavigne even take as much of the subject of thechildren of Edwardas he might have taken? Has he not turned aside from his model, Shakespeare, with regard to the dignified way in which the characters of the heir to the throne and his gentle brother the Duke of York are treated? We will adduce one example to demonstrate this.
In Casimir Delavigne, when the young Richard takes refuge in Westminster Abbey, the church possessing the right to offer sanctuary, the author of theMesséniennes, in order to compel the young prince to come out of the church, causes a letter to be written, apparently from his brother, inviting him to come back to him at the palace. The poor fugitive, although surprised at receiving it, puts reliance on this letter, and comes out of his place of safety. When he reaches the palace, Richard III. immediately arrests him.
In Shakespeare, the young prince also seeks this refuge. What does Richard III. do? He sends for the archbishop and says to him, "Has the crown prince sought refuge in your church?"
"Yes, monseigneur."
"You must give him up to me."
"Impossible, monseigneur."
"Why so?"
"Because the church is a place of sanctuary."
"For guilty men, idiot!" replies Richard, "but not for innocent ones...."
How small, to my thinking, is Mézence, that scoffer at men and at gods, by the side of Richard III., who kills his innocent enemies just as another would kill his guilty enemies. It will be understood that, since Casimir Delavigne was devoid bothof picturesqueness and dignity, he succeeded much better in comedy than in tragedy; and we think his two best productions were the two comedies,Les Comédiensand theÉcole des Vieillards.It should be clearly understood that all we have to say is said from the point of view of a rigid standard of criticism, and it does not therefore follow that Casimir Delavigne was not gifted with very genuine qualities. These good qualities were: a facile aptitude for versification which only occasionally rises to poetic expression, it is true, but which on the other hand never quite descends to flabbiness and slackness; and, indeed, from the beginning to the end of his work, from the first line to the last, whatever else his work may be, it is careful, presentable and particularly honest; and please note that we have used the word "honest" as the most suitable word we could choose; for Casimir Delavigne was never the kind of man to try and rob his public by stinting the work he had in hand in order to use similar material in his next piece. No; in the case of Casimir Delavigne,one got one's money's worth, as the saying is: he gave all he possessed, to the last farthing. The spectators at the first production of each of his new plays had everything he had at that time to give them. When midnight arrived, and, amidst the cheering of the audience, his signature was honoured—that is to say, what he had promised he had performed—he was a ruined man. But what mattered it to be reduced to beggary! He had owed a tragedy, a drama, a comedy, he had paid to the uttermost farthing; true, it might perhaps mean his being compelled to make daily economies of mind, spirit and imagination, for one year, two years, three years, before he could achieve another work; but he would achieve it, cost what it might, at the expense of sleepless nights, of his health, of his life, until the day came when he died worn out at fifty-two years of age, before he had completed his last tragedy.
Well, there was no need for the poet of theMesséniennes, the author of theÉcole des Vieillards, ofLouis XI.and ofDon Juanto commiserate himself. He who does all he can does all that can be expected of him. Nevertheless, we shallalways maintain that Casimir Delavigne would have done better still without his restraining body-guard; and we need not seek through his long-winded works for proof of what we assert; we will take, instead, one of the shorter poems, which the poet wrote under stress of sadness—a similar effort to M. Arnault's admirableFeuille—M. Arnault, who was not only far less of a poet but still less of a versifier than Casimir Delavigne.
Well, we will hunt up a little ballad which Delavigne relegated to notes, as unworthy of any other place and which we, on the contrary, consider a little masterpiece.
"La brigantineQui va tourner,Roule et s'inclinePour m'entraîner ...O Vierge Marie!Pour moi priez Dieu.Adieu, patrie!Provence, adieu!Mon pauvre pèreVerra son ventPâlir ma mèreAu bruit du vent ...O Vierge Marie!Pour moi priez Dieu.Adieu, patrie!Mon père, adieu!La vieille HélèneSe confiraDans sa neuvaine,Et dormira ...O Vierge Marie!Pour moi priez Dieu.Adieu, patrie!Hélène, adieu!Ma sœur se lève,Et dit déjà:'J'ai fait un rêve,Il reviendra!'O Vierge Marie!Pour moi priez Dieu.Adieu, patrie!Ma sœur, adieu!De mon IsaureLe mouchoir blancS'agite encoreEn m'appelant ...O Vierge Marie!Pour moi priez Dieu.Adieu, patrie!Isaure, adieu!Brise ennemie,Pourquoi souffler,Quand mon amieVeut me parler?O Vierge Marie!Pour moi priez Dieu.Adieu, patrie!Bonheur, adieu!"