It was perfectly idiotie! so, on my persuasion, and in spite of Michelot's objections, who privately hoped those lines wouldproduce their effect, the erasure was decided on and pitilessly adhered to.
I have said that it was very different with Joanny: he was an old soldier, the soul of honour and openness, who came to the fourth rehearsal without his manuscript, for he already knew his part thoroughly; so if one had to find any fault with him at all, it was that he becameblasé, by the thirty to forty general rehearsals, before the first public performance of the piece.
This first representation was an important affair for our party. I had won the Valmy of the literary revolution; Hugo must win the Jemmapes in order that the new school might be well on the way to victory. So, when the time comes to speak of the first reproduction ofHernani, we will give it the full attention it deserves. But for the moment we must be slaves to chronology and pass from Victor Hugo to de Vigny, fromHernanitoOthello.
Alfred de Vigny—The man and his works—Harel, the manager at the Odéon—Downfall of Soulié'sChristine—Parenthesis about Lassailly—Letter of Harel, with preface by myself and postscript by Soulié—I read myChristineat the Odéon—Harel asks me to put it into prose—First representation of theMore de Venise—The actors and the papers
Alfred de Vigny—The man and his works—Harel, the manager at the Odéon—Downfall of Soulié'sChristine—Parenthesis about Lassailly—Letter of Harel, with preface by myself and postscript by Soulié—I read myChristineat the Odéon—Harel asks me to put it into prose—First representation of theMore de Venise—The actors and the papers
Whilst the Théâtre-Français was waiting for the famous 1st of October, on which Hugo had engaged to provide the unnamed drama at which he was working, in place ofMarion Delorme, they decided to rehearse Shakespeare'sOthello, translated by Alfred de Vigny, which, in common withHenri III.andMarion Delorme, had been received with enthusiastic acclamation at its reading before the committee.
Alfred de Vigny completed the poetic trinity of the period, although his work was of a lower order: people talked of Hugo and Lamartine, or Lamartine and Hugo, and spoke of Alfred de Vigny as of the next rank. Alfred de Vigny possessed very little imagination, but he had a fine and correct style; he was known by his romanceCinq-Mars, which would only have met with a medium success had it appeared nowadays, but, coming as it did at a time of dearth in literature, it had a great run.
When Hugo readMarion Delormede Vigny had whispered to his friends—this sort of thing is always said to one's friends—that Didier and Saverny, the two principal characters in the drama, were an imitation of Cinq-Mars and de Thou. But I am convinced that, when Hugo wrote his play, he never even thought of de Vigny's romance.
Besides the novelCinq-Mars, de Vigny had composedseveral dainty little poems in the then current manner: Byron had set the fashion for this kind of poem. Among these five or six charming little poems wereEloaandDolorida.Finally, he had just published an extremely touching elegy on two unhappy young people who had committed suicide at Montmorency, under cover of the noise of the music of a ball.
De Vigny was a very singular man; he was polite and affable and gentle in all his dealings, but he affected the most utter unworldliness—an affectation, moreover, that accorded perfectly with his charming face, its delicate and refined features, encased in long fair curly hair, making him look like a brother of the cherubim. De Vigny never descended to earthly things if he could avoid it; if perchance he folded his wings and rested on the peak of a mountain, it was a concession which he made to humanity, because, after all, it was useful to him when he held his brief intercourse with us. Hugo and I used to marvel greatly at his utter unconsciousness of the material needs of our nature, which many of us, Hugo and I among the number, satisfied not only without any feeling of shame but with a certain sensual enjoyment. None of us had ever surprised de Vigny at table. Dorval, who for seven years of her life had passed several hours a day with him, declared to us with an astonishment almost amounting to terror, that she had never even seen him eat a radish! Now even Proserpine, a goddess, was not so abstemious as that; carried off by Pluto to the lower regions, she had, from the first, in spite of the preoccupation of mind to which her unappetising sojourn had naturally disposed her, managed to eat seven pomegranate seeds! Nevertheless, these characteristics did not prevent de Vigny from being an agreeable companion, a gentleman to his finger-tips, always ready to do you a kindness and totally incapable of doing you a bad turn. Nobody exactly knew de Vigny's age; but, judging approximately, as it was known that de Vigny had served in the guards on the return of Louis XVIII., and supposing he was eighteen at the time he entered the service, say in 1815, he must have been thirty-two in 1829.
It will be observed that all these great revolutionaries were very young and that the revolutionary poets were very much like the three generals of the Revolution of whom I have, I believe, spoken, who commanded the army of Sambre-et-Meuse, and whose combined ages reckoned seventy years: Hoche, Marceau and my father.
The coming representation ofOthellomade a great stir. We all knew de Vigny's translation, and although we should have preferred to have been supported by national troops and a French general, rather than by this poetical condottiere, we realised that we must accept all the arms we could against our enemies, especially when such arms came from the arsenal of the great master of us all—Shakespeare. Mademoiselle Mars and Joanny were allotted the principal parts. They were powerful auxiliaries, but they were not precisely the kind we wanted. Mademoiselle Mars and Joanny looked a little awkward in the habiliments which (dramatically speaking) were not suitable to their figures. Mademoiselle Mars was a charming woman of the Empire period, refined, light, delicate, graceful, satirical, possessing none of the gentle, innocent melancholy of the Moor's mistress; and Joanny, with hisretroussénoseà laOdry and his gestures with no grandeur or majesty in them, did not recall the gloomy and terrible lover of Desdemona. The part of Iago that Ducis had replaced by that of Pezarre, as one replaces a flesh-and-bone leg by a wooden one, fell to the lot of Perrier, and was to make its appearance in full daylight for the first time.
So the representation was looked forward to with much impatience; but, whilst awaiting this solemn occasion, which, as we have mentioned, was to take place at the Théâtre-Français, another production was being prepared at the Odéon which was of special importance to me, namely, theChristine à Fontainebleauby Frédéric Soulié. M. Brault'sChristinedied a few days after its birth, as I have said in due course, and had disappeared without leaving any trace!
The Odéon had been recently reorganised on new lines. Harel, whom we have seen attempting to seizeMarionDelormeat Hugo's house by surprise, formerly secretary to Cambacérès, formerly sous-préfet of the department of l'Aisne, formerly préfet of the Landes, a political refugee in 1815, editor of theNain Jaunein Belgium, in short, one of the most versatile men who ever lived, had just been appointed director of the Odéon, I believe in place of Éric Bernard. He had opened the theatre with Lucien Arnault'sÉtats de Blois, which did not meet with a great success, in spite of the sumptuous manner in which the piece had been mounted; and, being a good journalist and clever at handling the triple element which comprises the feuilleton, the short paragraph and the puff, Harel knew how to set the drums sounding in favour of my friend Frédéric Soulié'sChristine à Fontainebleau.
I had not seen Frédéric since the night upon which we had parted with feelings of coldness towards one another and had each—decided to go on with our ownChristines.Henri III.and its success and all the renown it had brought with it had passed without my hearing mention of Soulié's name. HisChristinewas finished and that was the last I heard of him. He had sent me two seats in the gallery for hisJulietteand I had sent him two balcony tickets for myHenri III., and that was the extent of our exchange of politeness. I expected seats to be sent me forChristine, but, to my great astonishment, I did not receive them. Later, I found out that this was due to Harel, who feared I should do the play an ill turn, and so opposed tickets being sent me.
As I had no seat for the first production I made no effort to procure one for myself; and I went to bed quite satisfied that I should hear first thing next morning whether the play had been received with applause or hissed at. As a matter of fact, one of my good friends, a lad who had done nothing then beyond showing promise of talent but who has since made his mark, Achille Comte, came to my room at seven next morning. PoorChristinehad fallen quite flat. Soulié, apparently, had conceived the notion of introducing an Italian bandit in the forest of Fontainebleau, and this had producedthe most grotesque effect imaginable. The day before, I should have thought that this news would have delighted me after Soulié's treatment of me; but, on the contrary, it made me feel wretchedly miserable. The innocent and primitive friendships of our youth are the only real friendships.
The reading ofMarionhad not only impressed me deeply, but it had done me immense service: it had opened out to me hitherto undreamed-of poetic suggestions; it had revealed to me possibilities in the way of treating poetry of which I had never thought; finally, it had given me my first idea forAntony.The day after the reading ofMarion DelormeI set to work with unusual courage. Before the music of the lines I had listened to the previous night had ceased ringing in my ears, I had started, inspired by the harmony of their dying strains; and the newChristineopened its eyes to the strains of the distant and melodious echo which still lived in my spirit, although the sound itself had ceased.
I must be allowed a brief digression on the subject ofChristine: I give it as a study in manners and customs and I hope it will not be mistaken for boasting.
There was in those days, outside the literary world, a big fellow who was half an idiot, with a long crooked nose and legs like Seringuinos in thePilules du Diable.He was, I believe, the son of an Orléans apothecary and he played the young Don Juan to chambermaids and daughters of the porter, whom he transformed into baronesses and duchesses in his elegies and sonnets; he wrote a novel which was published but, I am certain, was never read. This novel was entitled theRoueries de Trialph.His name was Lassailly.
There are certain people who acquire the odd privilege of introducing the grotesque into the most mournful and heartrending of scenes, and Lassailly was one of the most highly favoured of these purveyors of the ridiculous. Once, I had gone to bed and was writing the first scene between Paula and Monaldeschi and had got to these lines—
"Oh! garde-moi! je serai ta servante!Tout ce qu'une amour pure ou délirante inventeDe bonheurs, oui, pour toi, je les inventerai!Quand tu me maudiras, moi, je te bénirai—J'aurai des mots d'amour qui guériront ton âme;Garde-moi! Je consens qu'une autre soit ta femme;Je promets de l'aimer, d'obéir à sa loi;Mais, par le Dieu vivant, garde-moi! garde-moi!..."
Suddenly I heard the door of my sitting room open and a howling being of some sort or other approached my bedroom; next I saw my bedroom door open and Lassailly entered, flinging himself on the carpet and tearing his hair. The apparition was so unexpected, so strange and even so terrifying that I stretched out my hand for the double-barrelled pistols I kept in a recess at the head of my bed. When I saw that it was Lassailly, I pushed the pistols back and awaited an explanation of this exhibition of buffoonery. The explanation was sad enough: the poor devil's father had thrown himself into the river and Lassailly had just learned both that his father had been drowned and that his body, after having been taken out of the water, was exposed at the Orléans Morgue, whence it could not be taken away without the payment of a certain sum of money. Lassailly had not a halfpenny towards this sum and he had come to ask it of me. At the sight of the son weeping for his father, who had met with his death in this deplorable manner, I could only visualize one mental picture: I was not so much impressed by the son's grief, which, however extravagant in expression, to the point of grotesqueness, was still, perhaps, sincere at bottom; but by the thought of the real, unforeseen and irreparable misery of the poor wretch that had been drawn from the waters of the Loire, pale and streaming, and sad, with eyes dimmed by death, and face smeared with river weeds, now laid on the damp stones of the Morgue. I did not attempt to console Lassailly: one does not offer comfort unless people ask for it. Rachel weeping for her children in Ramah, and filling the air with her lamentations, would not be comforted, because they were not.
"My friend," I said, "let us get to the most pressing part of the business. You want to go to Orléans, do you not? Tobury your father? You say it will cost you a hundred francs; I think it will cost you more than that, and I would like to offer you as much as you will need; but I can only offer you as much as I possess.... Open that chiffonier drawer, which contains a hundred and thirty-five francs, take a hundred and thirty and leave me five...."
Lassailly tried to throw himself into my arms, made an attempt to embrace me and called me his saviour; but I gently pushed him away, pointed with my hand to the drawer and repeated—
"There, there ... take it; ... take a hundred and thirty francs, and leave me five."
He took the sum and left, and when he had gone I resumed and finished my scene between Paula and Monaldeschi. A fortnight later, the first, and to be accurate also the last, number of a little paper was brought to me. A critic announced in a prefatory article that it meant to tell the truth for the first time about the various high-flown false reputations that sprang up in a night. The article went on to say that it meant at last to put men and things in the places God had intended them to occupy.
I This series of the avengers of justice, these literary executions, began with Alexandre Dumas. The article was signed "Lassailly," and had brought him in a hundred francs! The man who brought me the paper was acquainted with what I had done for Lassailly a fortnight before.
"Well," he asked, "what do you say to that?"
"Poor boy!" I replied; "he has perhaps had to bury his mother!"
And I stuffed the journal into the chiffonier drawer from whence he had taken the hundred and thirty francs which he never paid back. Lassailly has since died, and the paper was never resuscitated.
Let us now return to the twoChristines.Directly, as I have said, I learnt the failure of Soulié's, I finished mine within a month almost, and it then had the form it now bears. I went, that same day, to find the manager of the Théâtre-Français,whose name I have forgotten. He was a kind of mulatto, with big eyes and yellow skin, and, with the letter of the committee in my hand, M. Brault'sChristinehaving been played, I asked that mine should be put in rehearsal. There was, indeed, to be a committee the next day; and the manager replied that he would lay the matter before them. The committee decided that as it was a matter of common knowledge that I had altered my work, I ought to submit to a second reading. But as this second reading was, in reality, a third reading, I declined the proposal outright. And with this struggle with the Comédie-Française began a lasting series of friendly dealings between us. In the middle of the conflict I received a letter from Harel couched in the following terms:—
"MY DEAR DUMAS,—What do you think of this idea of Mademoiselle Georges? To play yourChristineimmediately, on the same stage and with the same actors as those who played Soulié'sChristine? The conditions to be settled by yourself. You need not trouble your head with the idea that you will strangle a friend's work, because it yesterday died a natural death.—Yours ever,HAREL"
"MY DEAR DUMAS,—What do you think of this idea of Mademoiselle Georges? To play yourChristineimmediately, on the same stage and with the same actors as those who played Soulié'sChristine? The conditions to be settled by yourself. You need not trouble your head with the idea that you will strangle a friend's work, because it yesterday died a natural death.—Yours ever,HAREL"
I called my servant, and on the epistle which I have above transcribed I wrote the words—
"MY DEAR FRÉDÉRIC,—Read this letter. What a rascal your friend Harel is!—Yours,ALEX. DUMAS"
"MY DEAR FRÉDÉRIC,—Read this letter. What a rascal your friend Harel is!—Yours,ALEX. DUMAS"
My servant took the letter to the sawmill at la Gare and, an hour later, he brought me back this answer at the bottom of the same letter. Frédéric had written—
"MY DEAR DUMAS,—Harel is not my friend, he is a manager. Harel is not a rascal, only a speculator. I would not do what he is doing, but I would advise him to accept. Gather up the fragments of myChristine—and I warn you there are plenty of them—throw them into the basket of the first rag-and-bone man that passes your way and get your own piece played.—Yours ever,F. SOULIÉ"
"MY DEAR DUMAS,—Harel is not my friend, he is a manager. Harel is not a rascal, only a speculator. I would not do what he is doing, but I would advise him to accept. Gather up the fragments of myChristine—and I warn you there are plenty of them—throw them into the basket of the first rag-and-bone man that passes your way and get your own piece played.—Yours ever,F. SOULIÉ"
It will be admitted that Harel's letter was a very curious document, with its preface and its postscript. With this authorisation, I did not see any difficulty in the way of accepting Harel's offers. My sole stipulation was that, whether my play were received or not at the reading of the committee, it should be proceeded with within six weeks of the date of the agreement.
The reading before the committee was fixed for the following Saturday and the reading before the actors for Sunday night. I had my reasons for being suspicious of the committee: it had received me under reservation of correction and, as the committee of the Théâtre-Français had given me Samson as reviser, the committee of the Odéon appointed MM. Tissot and Sainte-Beuve as their advisers. As Cavé rose to leave, he declared that the play contained some fine passages, but that it was not suitable for acting. And he was the only friend I had on the committee!
Harel was completely staggered; for, although he was an able man, he could not distinguish good poetry from bad, and did not know what was great or beautiful.
I wish it to be thoroughly understood that I do not mean these remarks to apply to his doubts aboutChristine, but only to his judgment generally. He worshipped Voltaire, and, before he died, he had the happiness to be decorated for his eulogium on the author ofZaïre.While I strongly admired Voltaire as a philosopher and narrator, on the other hand I thought but little of him as a poet, and specially as a dramatic poet; as a dramatist, his methods are ordinary, worn-out and melodramatic; as a writer, his lines are poor, sententious and badly rhymed. It is unfortunate for the philosopher of Ferney, but it must be, confessed that it is only in his infamous poem thePucellethat he is well-nigh unapproachable; and even those who are revolted by the impiety, historical calumny and patriotic ingratitude of it are compelled to admire the work, for it is a masterpiece.
In spite of Cavé's opinion and Harel's perturbation, thereading before the actors was still allowed to take place on the following day: it had been agreed upon. I sayit had been agreed upon, because, if it bad not been, the reading would certainly never have taken place. And Harel asked permission for Jules Janin to be present at the reading. Janin had then made over all his rights to Harel, and although I did not place absolute reliance in the fanciful and capricious taste of the future prince of critics, I made no opposition to his presence. I possessed, at that time, the horrifying amount of assurance that always accompanies inexperience and supreme self-satisfaction. It has taken a great deal of success to cure me of my conceit!
I read to the actors—that class of people which, taking all things into consideration, is the quickest at judging beforehand of the effect of a piece, although every actor, in general, listens to the work that is being read to him from his own particular point of view, thinks mainly of the effect of his own part and does not worry himself over those of his neighbours. The reading was a great success, but Harel was none the less troubled by an idea that he did not reveal until next day. He came to me at break of day to propose to me, in all simplicity, to putChristineinto prose. And this was how Harel exhibited himself to me in all his glory at the very outset. Of course I laughed in his face and, after laughing at him, I showed him the door.
The following day, the first rehearsal took place, as though no such suggestion had ever been made. The piece was capitally mounted: Georges played Christine; Ligier, Sentinelli; Lockroy, Monaldeschi; and Mademoiselle Noblet, whose début it almost was, played Paula. It had been decreed on high that the person for whom the latter rôle had been made was not to play it! "Man proposes, God disposes." Even the two slight parts of the assassins of Monaldeschi were played by two actors of the very highest merit, Stockleit and Duparay.
Just as my rehearsals began, Alfred de Vigny's ended. Our relative partisans were exasperated with us, and with somereason. They demanded loudly that we should not be played, whilst we demanded with even louder outcries that we should be played.
The first representation of theMore de Venisewas introduced with every appearance of a battle. Mademoiselle Mars had gone over bag and baggage from the old style of comedy to the new modern school of drama; we had won over Joanny, Perrier and Firmin, and in short there was not an actor down to the excellent David, who had accepted the small part of Cassio, who would not be acting in the Shakespearian exhibition that was preparing. The rage of the men who for thirty years had monopolised the Théâtre-Français had to be seen, before an idea could be conceived of the howls and curses that were flung at us. These gentlemen only seemed acquainted with Shakespeare through what Voltaire had said about him, and Schiller by means of M. Petitot. When M. Lebrun and M. Ancelot had borrowed theirMaria StuartandFiesquefrom the German Shakespeare, they decided that MM. Ancelot and Lebrun had done Schiller great honour thereby, and a host of articles had demonstrated that very indifferent works—works only fit for the stage of a fair—were real classical masterpieces! This time, the public was not going to see Shakespeare corrected, castrated and docked, but—save for the loss he must necessarily sustain from translation—the giant himself, who had kept the crowning place in England during the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. If these sacrilegious exhibitions continued, what could Zaïre say confronted with Desdemona, Ninus with Hamlet or theDeux GendreswithKing Lear?Such pale and sickly counterfeits of nature and truth must fail and come to nothing or suffer by comparison!
I opened a paper by chance and in it I read:—
"The representation of theMore de Veniseis being prepared for as though there were going to be a battle to decide some great literary question. It is to settle whether Shakespeare, Schiller and Goethe are to drive Corneille, Racine and Voltaire from the French stage."
"The representation of theMore de Veniseis being prepared for as though there were going to be a battle to decide some great literary question. It is to settle whether Shakespeare, Schiller and Goethe are to drive Corneille, Racine and Voltaire from the French stage."
This was a delicious lapse from truth and exquisitely spiteful; for, thanks to the notion of the expulsion of the masters, it excited the bourgeois classes, and the question, which was entirely beside the mark, by the very form it took, gave justification to those who put it.
No! indeed no! These masters of art were no more driven from their time-honoured Parnassus than thebourgeoisiedrove out the aristocracy from the positions they had occupied since the beginning of the monarchy. No, we did not say to these great masters, "Retire and give up your places to us!" but, "Allow us to aspire to the same rights with you, if we deserve to do so. The heathen Olympus was large enough to contain six thousand gods, make then a little space, ye gods of old France, for the Scandinavian and Teutonic gods. The religion of Molière, of Corneille and of Racine was ever that of the State; but let liberty for all religions be proclaimed!"
But they were too narrow and exclusive, and, instead of welcoming these new gods, instead of hailing all that was lofty in them and only criticising what was unworthy in them, the political exiles of yesterday wanted to-day to enforce a literary proscription. It seems incredibly strange and mysterious, but nevertheless so it was!
In spite of violent opposition,Othellosucceeded. The groans of the jealous African were heard for the first time, and people were moved and shivered and trembled under the sobs of that terrible wrath. Joanny, carried away by his part, was often remarkable in his acting, and once or twice he was sublime. I never saw anything more picturesque than that great African figure as it strode the stage in the darkness of night, draped like a spectre in its large whiteburnous, whispering in a gloomy voice, with arms extended towards Desdemona's dwelling—
"... Get you to bed on the instant; I will be returned forthwith ..."
Mademoiselle Mars, who was of a much wider discernment in her art than Joanny, was uniformly excellent;once she was sublime, namely, where, springing up on her bed, she exclaims, giving the lie in advance to Iago's accusation—
"He will not say so."
I am writing all this from memory, as will be readily guessed, so I quote only the parts that stand out most clearly in my mind, after an interval of twenty-two years. I may therefore be pardoned for not quoting more than these two instances.
Well, the strange part of the situation was that the Liberal papers, those which cried up movement and progress in politics, were the reactionaries in literature; while the Royalist papers, those which took the side of stagnation and conservatism in politics, were the revolutionaries in literature. It was still more difficult to comprehend if one did not know that theConstitutionnel, theCourrier françaisand thePandorewere edited by MM. Jay, Jouy, Arnault, Étienne, Viennet, etc., whilst theQuotidienne, theDrapeau blancand theFoudrewere under the management of Merle, Théaulon, Brisset, Martainville, Lassagne, Nodier and Mély-Jeannin. The one set worked for the Théâtre-Français and, having usurped the position, meant to keep it; the others, in general, had only worked for the boulevard theatres, and these were eager to have a breach made in the classical ramparts to give access to themselves. Merle was, besides, the husband of Madame Dorval, whose talent was just beginning to make a sensation and who had created with incontestable success the rôles of Amélie inTrente Ans ou la Vie d'un Joueurand of Charlotte Corday inSept Heures, also of Louise inl'Incendiaire.We need not mention the part of Héléna inMarino Faliero, for the part was poor and Madame Dorval was not able to transform a bad part into a good one.
I have mentioned that the rehearsals ofChristinehad begun. Let us leave them to pursue their course and take a peep into the world of city-life, which we have deserted for a very long time for the world of the stage. Whilst changing scenes, we will nevertheless conduct our reader to the house of a comedianwho was worth quite as much attention as the actors we are leaving. Furthermore, he was not among those who for fifty years had been playing the less conspicuous parts in the great drama which had attracted all attention and occupied all minds, during the conclusion of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century. Let us reveal the fact that we are about to speak of Paul-François-Jean-Nicodème, Comte de Barras.
Citizen-general Barras—Doctor Cabarrus introduces me to him—Barras's only two regrets—His dinners—The Princess de Chimay's footman—Fauche-Borel—The Duc de Bordeaux makes a mess—History lesson given to an ambassador—Walter Scott and Barras—The last happiness of the olddirecteur—His death
Citizen-general Barras—Doctor Cabarrus introduces me to him—Barras's only two regrets—His dinners—The Princess de Chimay's footman—Fauche-Borel—The Duc de Bordeaux makes a mess—History lesson given to an ambassador—Walter Scott and Barras—The last happiness of the olddirecteur—His death
I have related how my successful playHenri III.had launched me in the world and the curiosity there was excited over its author. Barras was among the number of those who wanted to be introduced to me. The name which I inherited from my father was of special historic significance to the Man of the Convention, the Directoire, 9 thermidor and 13 vendémiaire.
The history of Barras is known by heart. He was the son of an ancient Provençal family, and he had entered the army early; he had been sent to the isle of France and to India, where he had valiantly taken part in the defence of Pondicherry. He left the service with the rank of captain, and had come to Paris, where he had led an extremely dissipated life. Taken from this life of pleasure by his fellow-citizens of Var, who made him their député, in 1792, he had been a member of the Convention amongst the Montagnards; was charged with a mission, the following year, to suppress both the Federalist and Royalist movement which was agitating the South; had assisted at the recapture of Toulon from the English; and here had become acquainted with Major Bonaparte, thus being able to judge the advantage such a man would be to any party. On 9 thermidor, he was made commander of the armed forces of Paris: he it was who seized Robespierre and gave him up to the scaffold. Some days later, he was himselfattacked by the Sections (called by the Convention instead of my father, who could not, as we have seen, respond to the appeal because of his absence); he pushed Bonaparte forward, who was on his side on 13 vendémiaire and against him on 18 brumaire. It was said at that time (but this, I think, is one of the calumniating statements that conquerors are only too willing to make, concerning the vanquished, with respect to their victories, when not fairly won) that Barras was carrying on negotiations for the return of the Bourbons and twelve millions were promised to this new General Monk as the price of their restoration.
The events on 18 brumaire having squashed the Bourbon counter-revolution, Barras, being proscribed by his former protector, retired to Brussels and then to Rome. He only returned to France in 1816; settling down at Chaillot, where he had since dwelt, and where, thanks to an income of 200,000 livres which he had saved out of the various shipwrecks of his political career, he kept a charming and very luxurious household, waited on by a large retinue of servants. I specially refer to the number of servants, because Barras always had at his sumptuous table as many servants as guests, and several times I have dined there when there were twenty to twenty-five guests.
I was introduced to the old dictator by one of my oldest and best friends, a man whom I was always delighted to see when I was well and still more pleased to see if I were ill, namely, Doctor Cabarrus, son of the handsome Madame Tallien. Cabarrus was then, and indeed still is, a fine strongly built man, with a sympathetic face and a character to accord. Endowed with a charming nature, sound learning and untiring observation, Cabarrus had, less by his social position than by his own personal work, been thrown into the midst of all the aristocratic circles—the aristocracies of birth, talent and science. No one could tell a story better than he, or, rarer gift still, be a better listener than he: he had a fine, delicate smiling mouth, and showed a lovely set of teeth when he laughed, which lit up his face. Barras was very fond of him, whichwas not astonishing, because everybody who knew Cabarrus liked him.
So it was Cabarrus who took me, one Wednesday morning, to Barras's house. I had been warned that the old dictator was always addressed asCitizen-general; there was no compulsion in the matter, of course, but that was the title which pleased him best.
Barras received us seated in a great arm-chair, which he vacated as rarely during the last years of his life as Louis XVIII. left his. He remembered my father perfectly well and the accident that had prevented his taking command of the armed forces on 13 vendémiaire, and I recollect that several times that day he repeated over to me this sentence which I give word for word:—
"Young man, do not forget what an old Republican says to you: I have but two regrets, I ought rather to call them remorses, which will be the only ones present at my bedside when I come to die. I have the two-edged remorse of having, overthrown Robespierre by the 9 thermidor, and of having raised Bonaparte to power by the 13 vendémiaire."
It will be observed that I have not forgotten what Barras said to me, although on one of the two points (I will leave my reader to guess which) I am not entirely of his opinion.
Wednesday was Barras's reception day. Cabarrus had chosen it hoping that the "Citizen-general" would keep me to dinner, where I should meet with various representatives of the end of the last century and of the early days of the present one—representatives who, by the way, whatever they might be, when inside Barras's house, became subdued to the Republican spirit, and were simply citizens, whether male or female. Cabarrus was not disappointed: the old dictator invited us to stay dinner and, if we did not wish to return to Paris, offered us the use of a carriage to take us a drive in the woods until the dinner-hour came. Cabarrus had his business to attend to, and I had mine; so we accepted the invitation to dinner, but declined the carriage, and took leave of Barras.
In 1829, Barras was an extremely fine-looking old man ofseventy-four. I can see him now in his arm-chair on wheels, his head and hands seeming to be the only portions of him which were still alive, but these appeared to contain vitality enough for his whole body: he wore a cap which never left his head and which he never took off for anybody. From time to time, this moral life, if one may use such a phrase, this artificial life, replete with will-power, deserted him and then he looked like a dying person.
We returned to dinner. I have dined with Barras three times, and at each dinner I witnessed an unusually odd incident. On the first occasion—the one of which I am speaking—we were between twenty and twenty-five in number. Among the guests was Madame Tallien, who became the Princess of Chimay. She came accompanied by a footman whose marvellous plumes were the admiration of the whole company. We had been introduced into the salon, where the first comers did the honours of the house to those who arrived later. Barras never appeared except at the dinner-table. When the dinner-hour arrived, the folding doors were flung open into the dining-room and each guest found the place that had been put for him; the bedroom door was then opened and Barras was wheeled to the centre of the table; then the guests sat down and attacked the delicate repast with good appetite. Barras's own meal was very odd: a huge leg of mutton was brought to him and carved in such a fashion as to bring out all the gravy; the joint was then carried back to the kitchen, and the gravy was left in Barras's deep plate. He sopped bread in the gravy and this concoction formed his meal. I never saw him eat anything else on the three occasions I dined with him.
On this particular day, in the middle of dinner, a great noise was heard in the kitchen as though a fight were going on, and we could hear shouts mingled with bursts of laughter. Barras was accustomed to be admirably waited on and in an unusually silent manner. Not a single one of the servants who waited behind the guests ever breathed a word or rattled a plate or jingled the silver. Apart from the luxuriousness ofthe food with which the table was loaded, one could have imagined oneself in a pythagorean school. Only one man was allowed to speak when he wished and that was the valet-de-chambre, the steward, and, better still, the friend of Barras. His name was Courtand.
"Courtand!" Barras asked, frowning, "what is all that noise?"
"I do not know, citizen-general," Courtand replied, himself as greatly astonished at this infraction of the rules of the house; "I will go and see."
Courtand went out and, five seconds later, re-entered, every face turning to the door to look at him.
"Well?" asked Barras.
"Oh! it is nothing, citizen-general," Courtand replied, laughing.
"But what was it about?"
"The servants belonging to the citizens present"—and Courtand pointed towards the guests, who, it should be said, mostly belonged to Republican opinion—"are plucking feathers from citizen Tallien's footman and the poor devil shrieks because they pinch his skin a bit while they are doing it."
"And what has he done to deserve to be plucked alive by the other servants?" asked Barras.
"He called his mistressMadame la Princesse de Chimay!"
"Then he deserves his punishment: his mistress is not called the Princesse de Chimay, she is called citizen Tallien."
On another occasion—this, too, happened at table—one place remained empty. The guest who was late was the famous Royalist agent with whom you are acquainted, Fauche-Borel, who, six months later, was reduced to misery by the ingratitude of the Bourbons, and committed suicide by throwing himself from a window at Neuchâtel. He was very intimate at Barras's house and it was said that it was through his mediation that the abortive negotiations were entered into in 1792 between the Bourbons and the old dictator. Well! Fauche-Borel was late: he arrived at the roast course,with tear-stained face, holding his handkerchief in his hands.
"Ah! here you are, my dear Fauche-Borel," Barras exclaimed. "Why are you so late as this?"
"Ah! citizen-general, rather ask why I am so upset."
"Well, my dear fellow, what is the matter?"
"Oh, general, I have seen the most touching, the most moving, the most instructive spectacle ... I have just come from the Tuileries ..."
"Ah! ah!—and was it there you saw this touching, moving, instructive scene? You were very lucky, my friend, to have managed to fall on your feet! Come, tell us what you saw, so that we too may be moved and softened and edified."
"Well, citizen-general, M. le Duc de Bordeaux spilt some water on the floor of the great salon where he was playing."
"Really!"
"And the Duc de Damas said to him, 'Monseigneur, you have made a mess on the floor; I am much distressed about it, but you must wipe it up.' 'What! I must wipe it up!' the young prince exclaimed. 'Why are there no servants here?' 'There are, but, as the mess was made this time by your Highness, your Highness must wipe it up.... Go and fetch a mop!' said the duke to a footman; and, when the man hesitated, he added, 'Do as I command you!' The lackey arrived with a mop five minutes later, and His Highness shed many tears; but M. de Damas was firm and Monseigneur was himself obliged to mop up the mess he had made! What do you say to that, citizen-general?"
"I should say," Barras replied, in the sarcastic tones that were habitual to him, "that the tutor of the Duc de Bordeaux did quite right to teach his pupil a trade; so that when his noble parents depart he will have something in his hands to take to."
Another time—again it happened at table—a famous general, who was an eminent soldier and a man of striking abilities, then ambassador at Constantinople, related, with bitter feeling, a scene that took place during the Revolution.
By chance, Courtand, Barras's valet and steward and a free-spokenfriend, stood behind the general's chair. He touched the general on the shoulder in the very middle of his story.
"General," he said, "I must stop you—it did not happen at all as you are telling it: you are slandering the Revolution!"
The general turned indignantly to Barras to call his attention to this familiarity on the part of his lackey. But Barras broke out—
"Messieurs, Courtand is right! Tell the episode as it happened, Courtand; re-establish the facts and give a lesson in history to Monsieur the ambassador."
And Courtand related the facts as they had occurred, to the great satisfaction of Barras and the amazed astonishment of the company.
When Walter Scott came to Paris to hunt up documents connected with the reign of Napoleon, whose life he was proposing to write, Barras, who had some precious papers to show him, desired to see him and begged Cabarrus—who knew the history of the Revolution as intimately as did Courtand, but could tell it better than he (we mean no offence to the memory of Citizen-general Barras)—to invite the celebrated romance-writer to come and dine with him. Cabarrus began by having a long conversation with Walter Scott, who, knowing that he was in the society of the son of Madame Tallien, talked much of all the events in which Cabarrus's mother had played a part: finally, the messenger approached the real object of his visit and transmitted Barras's invitation to the Scottish poet. But Walter Scott shook his head.
"I cannot dine with that man," he replied. "I shall write against him, and it would be said, as we say in Scotland, 'thatI have flung his own dinner-plates at his head!'"
One afternoon, Cabarrus invited me to spend an hour with him in the afternoon, and I put in my appearance punctual to the time appointed.
"Barras will die to-day," he said to me; "would you like to see him for the last time before his death?"
"Certainly," I replied; for I was anxious to be able to say later to people, who had only known him by name, "I saw Barras on the day of his death."
"Very well, come with me: I am going literally for the purpose of saying good-bye to him."
We got into a carriage and went to Chaillot. We found Courtand looking very melancholy, and, when Cabarrus asked him how his master was, he only shook his head. He showed Cabarrus into the room of the dying man all the same, and, as I was with Cabarrus, let me go in too. We expected to find Barras sad and pale and weak and depressed, but he was merry and smiling and almost rosy-looking, though this colour was but the flush of fever. We began by apologising for my presence: I had met Cabarrus in the Champs-Élysées and, learning that he was going to inquire after Barras, I wished to accompany him. Barras made me a little friendly inclination with his head to indicate that I was welcome.
"But," Cabarrus exclaimed, "what did that pessimist of a Courtand tell me, general? He made out that you were worse; on the contrary, you look ever so much better!"
"Ah yes!" said Barras, "because you find me alone and cheerful ... that does not alter the fact that I shall be dead to-night, my dear Cabarrus! Do you hear that, Dumas? I am like Leonidas and shall sup to-night with Pluto! I shall be able to tell your father, who would be happy enough to see you, that I have seen you to-day."
"But what were you laughing at when we came in?" Cabarrus inquired, trying to turn the conversation from talk of death to matters of life.
"What made me laugh?" Barras replied. "I will tell you. Because I have just played a capital trick on our rulers.... As I have been a man of power, they have had their eyes on me; they know I am dying, and they have been watching for the moment of my death to seize hold of my papers. I have therefore, since the morning, been busy attaching my seal to these thirty or forty boxes. After my death, they will be seized; but I have given directions for counsel to becalled in and the matter will be publicly tried before a court of justice.... This may last for four or six months or a year ... after which my heirs will lose, my papers being State property. They will then solemnly open these forty boxes which you see there, before a council of ministers ... and, instead of the precious papers, which are in a place of safety, do you know what they will find?"
"No, I confess I have not the slightest idea."
"My laundress's bills for thirty-five years ... and they will take a lot of adding up, for I have sent plenty of dirty linen to the laundries since 9 thermidor...."
Barras burst into such a frank and merry peal of laughter that he fell back exhausted, and that evening he died, as he predicted, shortly before the Revolution of 1830.