[1]Do not let it be forgotten that these lines were written under Louis-Philippe, at the time when the Bonapartes were exiled.
[1]Do not let it be forgotten that these lines were written under Louis-Philippe, at the time when the Bonapartes were exiled.
News of France—First performance ofLe Fils de l'Émigré—WhatLe Constitutionnelthought of it—Effect produced by that play on the Parisian population in general and on M. Véron in particular—Death of Walter Scott—Périnet Leclerc—Sic vos non vobis
News of France—First performance ofLe Fils de l'Émigré—WhatLe Constitutionnelthought of it—Effect produced by that play on the Parisian population in general and on M. Véron in particular—Death of Walter Scott—Périnet Leclerc—Sic vos non vobis
As I have said, I stayed three days at Arenenberg.[1]I had found French newspapers there, which I had missed since my departure from Aix, and I posted myself up in the news of France. M. Jay had replaced M. de Montesquieu at the Academy. Faithful to its traditions, the Academy, having a choice between M. Jay, a mediocre political writer, and M. Thiers, an eminent historian, had chosen M. Jay. The Institute had done pretty much the same thing: M. Lethière, that dear good friend of my father, author ofBrutus condamnant ses fils,having died, MM. Paul Delaroche, Schnetz and Blondel were put on the lists to succeed him. You would have betted, would you not, dear readers, on Schnetz or on Delaroche? Well, you would have lost: MM. Schnetz and Delaroche each had three votes, and M. Blondel had eighteen.
Mademoiselle Falcon had come out in the rôle of Alice inRobert le Diable.A pupil of Nourrit, she had had a splendid success. Poor Cornélie! her success was to be as short as it had been great: two years after her début an accident took away her voice!
Then, political lawsuits had followed, one after another: the Seine Court of Assizes had delivered two deathsentences, one against a man named Cuny, and the other against one called Lepage. These two sentences had moved the Parisian public profoundly: since the death of Louis XVIII., it had become unaccustomed to capital punishments for political offences. Next had come the less serious sentence against the Saint-Simonians; then, the affair of the man with the red flag. I have tried to paint the effect the appearance of this man produced at the funeral of General Lamarque. He was condemned toa month's imprisonment! Solicitor-General Delapalme, who had nearly given up the prosecution, to the great surprise of everybody, only extricated himself by arguing that the accused man was out of his mind. The Republicans interpreted the thing differently, the man with the red flag was looked upon by them as an agent to provoke an insurrection: hence the indulgence of the public government. The last news that I read was less interesting to others, but brought a feeling of remorse to my mind: the performance ofLe Fils de l'Émigréwas announced to come on next at the Porte-Saint-Martin. I did not fail, therefore, to ask at each inn where I stopped, "Have you a French paper?" On arriving at Koenigsfelden, the place where the Emperor Albert was assassinated by Jean de Souabe, his nephew, I renewed the question. "Yes, monsieur," mine host replied; "I haveLe Constitutionnel."
Le Constitutionnel,it will be recollected, was my old enemy. It had declared war upon me overHenri III.and I had replied to its cannonading byAntony;it was I who had invented the famous announcement of the discontinuing of subscriptions; so I could not have received news of my natural son through a more evil-inclined channel; but, as I had left it in the hands of Anicet without acknowledging it in any way, and it was a conditionsine qua non,that I should not be named, I thought the news would be indirect.
I openedLe Constitutionnel,then, with quite a steadyhand. Great was my surprise to read at the head of the article—
"THÉÂTRE DE LA PORTE-SAINT-MARTINLe Fils de l'ÉmigréDrama byMM. ANICET BOURGEOISandALEXANDRE DUMAS..."
I realised at once that, from the moment my name appeared, the play had been a failure. I was not mistaken. If, however, you wish to see howLe Constitutionneldeals with the performance, read the following lines, which will give an idea of the urbanity with which the cricitism was inserted in MM. Jay and Étienne's journal. It is true, the article was not signed. Moreover, as I register my successes with a naïveté which, at times, is looked upon as conceit, I am not sorry to register an out-and-out failure. I have had two such in my life:Le Fils de l'Émigréat the Porte-Saint-Martin andLe Laird de Dumbickyat the Odéon; but, as I was present at the latter, I will myself undertake to give an account of it when the suitable moment comes. I shall be more polite to myself than is the anonymous critic in theConstitutionnel; but I shall not take further trouble about it; my readers may rest perfectly easy on that point.
So I summoned to my aid all the philosophy I possessed, and I read—
"THÉÂTRE DE LA PORTE-SAINT-MARTINLe Fils de l'ÉmigréDrama byMM. ANICET BOURGEOISandALEXANDRE DUMAS"
"Le Comte Édouard de Bray, a French émigré, takes refuge in Switzerland; there he has taken service in the Austrian Army, which attempts to invade France from that quarter. The count has chosen his allies badly: beaten with them (since our brave armies do beat their enemies utterly), he takes to his legs and shelters in an armourer'sshop at Brientz. The armourer, Grégoire Humbert, a man of honour and of humanity, takes in the fugitive, whom he desires to save from the pursuit of the Republicans. Humbert is the more zealous and devoted because he knew Comte Édouard: the comte is several months at Brientz, and even leaves Grégoire Humbert under the table after an orgy, Humbert's virtue and sobriety having gone somewhat astray on that day. The worthy armourer has not forgotten this memorable escapade of drunkenness; so he helps Comte Édouard to escape out of the window, whilst the French soldiers' rifles are beating at his door."Comte Édouard de Bray thus saved, you would imagine that he would feel the very liveliest gratitude for the brave man who saved him from being shot or hung. Oh! nothing of the kind! Our real, our great drama, it is said, is not so juvenile as to accustom us to such natural and middle-class sentiments; it must, of course, have something quite different—something detestable, ignoble and ridiculous forsooth!"This is what the Comte de Bray does in conformity with the triple requirements of great drama. Scarcely out of danger, he writes to Grégoire Humbert: 'You think yourself a happy father and husband; you are deceived, Humbert. During the night of the orgy I spent with you, your wife was waiting for you in her bed: I slipped into your place; the son she is to present you with is not yours.'"If you ask for an explanation of the Comte de Bray's infamy, you will learn that he has sworn implacable hatred to the people, and that he begins to put it into operation upon his benefactor. It is out of such subjects as these that writers have the presumption to make plays nowadays, and drama which is to move and interest people!"The comte's letter throws Humbert into despair; he takes a dagger and wants to kill his wife.... At this moment, the back of the stage reveals the scene of an accouchement, which follows upon the dagger scene; 'I have the honour of announcing to you the birth of the émigré's son.' The priest blesses the newly born infant; mother and child are doing well. This spectacle disarms Humbert, who sheathes his dagger; but hemust kill some one, so, instead of Madame Humbert and her dubious offspring, he means to kill Édouard. Unfortunately, he is too late, Édouard is far away. The armourer does not give up his revenge on that account; he will beget a second son by his wife, a son who shall be his to kill the father of the first son, with the responsibility of whom he is obliged to saddle himself, 'Is pater est quem nuptiæ demonstrant.'Humbert, certainly, understood revenge as well as anybody possibly could; to beget a child by Madame Humbert solely to avenge himself is the supremest kind of cleverness. These lovely things I have just laid before you form what is nowadays called aprologue; it was formerly simply called the first act."Twenty years pass over. Humbert died ruined, pursuing Édouard, whom he has never been able to meet with; for twenty years he had been unlucky in his search! Otherwise, his project of vengeance had succeeded to perfection: the second son was born, grew up and, in place of the dead Humbert, Pietro, his faithful servant, teaches the son to handle a sword, in readiness for the moment when Comte Édouard shall be encountered, and when he shall kill him. There is a family of armourers for you, and they could give points on matters of revenge to the ancient Greek families, whose fury our tragic authors have put before us for some time past. Humbert and his faithful Pietro had not found Édouard. I, who had nothing to do with him, found him in Paris, where he was exercising the noble profession of spy: as a count and secret agent of the Superior Police. The drama preserves and maintains to us something of interest and elevation. Besides his pleasures as a spy, Édouard continues to cultivate his hatred against the people: he has seduced a young girl, with whom he has been living for two years;item,he has carried away a young man called Georges Burns from his artisan work and made him his secretary; his object is to corrupt Georges, as he has corrupted Thérèse, out of hatred to the people. We could not have believed in such madness, if we had not seen and heard it. But we are not at the end, there is yet another story."This Georges Burns is none other than the son of Édouard and of Madame Humbert. Georges changedhis name after his putative father had died bankrupt. Georges is proud and does not wish to resume the name of his supposed father until after he has paid all his debts. Édouard, who does not know the clue to this enigma, looks upon the youth as merely Georges Burns. From this juncture, we enter upon an incredible chaos of ignominy and absurdities; we are at first tempted to laugh at the crude combination of style, incoherence of scenes and pell-mell of persons and to take it for a parody. I frankly thought it was meant as a parody."These two clever people, I said, want to make fun of the monstrosities which degrade our theatres, and to avenge good feeling and taste and language by a good satire.... As caricature and satire exaggerate the absurdities or the vices of those at whom they want to strike, our satirists have piled up in their parody crudity upon crudity, mountain upon mountain, crime upon crime, filth upon filth, to bring the more shame upon our licentious dramatists. But I have been assured thatLe Fils de l'Émigréwas written seriously as a great drama."Then, no longer being able to laugh, I have no resource left but ennui and disgust—an ennui and disgust with which I do not desire to oppress my readers by dragging them step by step through that den of slavery, murder and prostitution: I might just as well invite them! to spend a day at Poissy, at the Madelonnettes, at la Conciergerie, the place de Grève or the private cabinet of M. Vidocq, with the executioner's minions; for there is nothing else in this ignoble play. Comte Édouard de Bray, whom you know to be a spy, blunders unpardonably and breaks burglariously into houses."Thérèse, the young girl he has carried off, becomes a prostitute very quickly and goes from man to man with wonderful facility. Georges Burns, or, rather, Georges Humbert, steals from his mother 30,000 francs meant for the payment of her husband's debts, and assassinates Thérèse, whom he had lived with after Comte Édouard had done with her."To crown these lovely performances, you have a condemnation to the galleys and a sentence of death. Édouard is sent to the galleys for forgery; Burns to the scaffold for murder. In the prison, between the brandingand the guillotine, father and son recognise one another, and Georges learns the secret of his birth. You would think the authors would stop short there, and have some pity on us. Poor folk! who think that people will respect you more than the general opinion, and everything which has hitherto been respected in good and healthy literature! No, you have not had enough of this hideous spectacle: you must see the galley-slave bound to his chains, the condemned with his hands tied behind his back and head shaved, marching to ... Here the public rose in a body and would not see or hear any more; they turned sick with disgust; the women rose or turned their eyes away to hide the sight of the head about to be cut off; they hooted, they shouted down these shameful doings, and justice was done. Criticism of such plays as these is impossible; one leaves them as quickly as one can, as one kicks aside a repulsive object. What have we come to, when a talented man puts his name to this drama as to a sign-post? It is true that the author has, this time, found his punishment in the very offence itself; his talent seems to be completely dead."
"Le Comte Édouard de Bray, a French émigré, takes refuge in Switzerland; there he has taken service in the Austrian Army, which attempts to invade France from that quarter. The count has chosen his allies badly: beaten with them (since our brave armies do beat their enemies utterly), he takes to his legs and shelters in an armourer'sshop at Brientz. The armourer, Grégoire Humbert, a man of honour and of humanity, takes in the fugitive, whom he desires to save from the pursuit of the Republicans. Humbert is the more zealous and devoted because he knew Comte Édouard: the comte is several months at Brientz, and even leaves Grégoire Humbert under the table after an orgy, Humbert's virtue and sobriety having gone somewhat astray on that day. The worthy armourer has not forgotten this memorable escapade of drunkenness; so he helps Comte Édouard to escape out of the window, whilst the French soldiers' rifles are beating at his door.
"Comte Édouard de Bray thus saved, you would imagine that he would feel the very liveliest gratitude for the brave man who saved him from being shot or hung. Oh! nothing of the kind! Our real, our great drama, it is said, is not so juvenile as to accustom us to such natural and middle-class sentiments; it must, of course, have something quite different—something detestable, ignoble and ridiculous forsooth!
"This is what the Comte de Bray does in conformity with the triple requirements of great drama. Scarcely out of danger, he writes to Grégoire Humbert: 'You think yourself a happy father and husband; you are deceived, Humbert. During the night of the orgy I spent with you, your wife was waiting for you in her bed: I slipped into your place; the son she is to present you with is not yours.'
"If you ask for an explanation of the Comte de Bray's infamy, you will learn that he has sworn implacable hatred to the people, and that he begins to put it into operation upon his benefactor. It is out of such subjects as these that writers have the presumption to make plays nowadays, and drama which is to move and interest people!
"The comte's letter throws Humbert into despair; he takes a dagger and wants to kill his wife.... At this moment, the back of the stage reveals the scene of an accouchement, which follows upon the dagger scene; 'I have the honour of announcing to you the birth of the émigré's son.' The priest blesses the newly born infant; mother and child are doing well. This spectacle disarms Humbert, who sheathes his dagger; but hemust kill some one, so, instead of Madame Humbert and her dubious offspring, he means to kill Édouard. Unfortunately, he is too late, Édouard is far away. The armourer does not give up his revenge on that account; he will beget a second son by his wife, a son who shall be his to kill the father of the first son, with the responsibility of whom he is obliged to saddle himself, 'Is pater est quem nuptiæ demonstrant.'Humbert, certainly, understood revenge as well as anybody possibly could; to beget a child by Madame Humbert solely to avenge himself is the supremest kind of cleverness. These lovely things I have just laid before you form what is nowadays called aprologue; it was formerly simply called the first act.
"Twenty years pass over. Humbert died ruined, pursuing Édouard, whom he has never been able to meet with; for twenty years he had been unlucky in his search! Otherwise, his project of vengeance had succeeded to perfection: the second son was born, grew up and, in place of the dead Humbert, Pietro, his faithful servant, teaches the son to handle a sword, in readiness for the moment when Comte Édouard shall be encountered, and when he shall kill him. There is a family of armourers for you, and they could give points on matters of revenge to the ancient Greek families, whose fury our tragic authors have put before us for some time past. Humbert and his faithful Pietro had not found Édouard. I, who had nothing to do with him, found him in Paris, where he was exercising the noble profession of spy: as a count and secret agent of the Superior Police. The drama preserves and maintains to us something of interest and elevation. Besides his pleasures as a spy, Édouard continues to cultivate his hatred against the people: he has seduced a young girl, with whom he has been living for two years;item,he has carried away a young man called Georges Burns from his artisan work and made him his secretary; his object is to corrupt Georges, as he has corrupted Thérèse, out of hatred to the people. We could not have believed in such madness, if we had not seen and heard it. But we are not at the end, there is yet another story.
"This Georges Burns is none other than the son of Édouard and of Madame Humbert. Georges changedhis name after his putative father had died bankrupt. Georges is proud and does not wish to resume the name of his supposed father until after he has paid all his debts. Édouard, who does not know the clue to this enigma, looks upon the youth as merely Georges Burns. From this juncture, we enter upon an incredible chaos of ignominy and absurdities; we are at first tempted to laugh at the crude combination of style, incoherence of scenes and pell-mell of persons and to take it for a parody. I frankly thought it was meant as a parody.
"These two clever people, I said, want to make fun of the monstrosities which degrade our theatres, and to avenge good feeling and taste and language by a good satire.... As caricature and satire exaggerate the absurdities or the vices of those at whom they want to strike, our satirists have piled up in their parody crudity upon crudity, mountain upon mountain, crime upon crime, filth upon filth, to bring the more shame upon our licentious dramatists. But I have been assured thatLe Fils de l'Émigréwas written seriously as a great drama.
"Then, no longer being able to laugh, I have no resource left but ennui and disgust—an ennui and disgust with which I do not desire to oppress my readers by dragging them step by step through that den of slavery, murder and prostitution: I might just as well invite them! to spend a day at Poissy, at the Madelonnettes, at la Conciergerie, the place de Grève or the private cabinet of M. Vidocq, with the executioner's minions; for there is nothing else in this ignoble play. Comte Édouard de Bray, whom you know to be a spy, blunders unpardonably and breaks burglariously into houses.
"Thérèse, the young girl he has carried off, becomes a prostitute very quickly and goes from man to man with wonderful facility. Georges Burns, or, rather, Georges Humbert, steals from his mother 30,000 francs meant for the payment of her husband's debts, and assassinates Thérèse, whom he had lived with after Comte Édouard had done with her.
"To crown these lovely performances, you have a condemnation to the galleys and a sentence of death. Édouard is sent to the galleys for forgery; Burns to the scaffold for murder. In the prison, between the brandingand the guillotine, father and son recognise one another, and Georges learns the secret of his birth. You would think the authors would stop short there, and have some pity on us. Poor folk! who think that people will respect you more than the general opinion, and everything which has hitherto been respected in good and healthy literature! No, you have not had enough of this hideous spectacle: you must see the galley-slave bound to his chains, the condemned with his hands tied behind his back and head shaved, marching to ... Here the public rose in a body and would not see or hear any more; they turned sick with disgust; the women rose or turned their eyes away to hide the sight of the head about to be cut off; they hooted, they shouted down these shameful doings, and justice was done. Criticism of such plays as these is impossible; one leaves them as quickly as one can, as one kicks aside a repulsive object. What have we come to, when a talented man puts his name to this drama as to a sign-post? It is true that the author has, this time, found his punishment in the very offence itself; his talent seems to be completely dead."
So I was assassinated byLe Constitutionnel,exactly on the same spot where the Emperor Albert had been assassinated by his nephew. Unfortunately, I doubt whether that assassination was as valuable to the future as the fine scene one can read in the fifth act of Schiller'sWilhelm Tell,which takes place between the murderer of Gessler and the assassin of the emperor.
I returned to Paris towards the beginning of October. All the newspapers had copied the example ofLe Constitutionnel; they had gone for me tooth and nail, the kill was complete; they did not leave a shred of flesh on my bones. I met Véron, who delivered me a lecture on my immorality which I shall never forget. He had asked me for something forLa Revue de Paris,of which he was editor; but, afterLe Fils de l'Émigré,he had no room for my name among the company of decent people. I also came across several theatrical managers who had become short-sighted during my absence and did not recogniseme. I have had these falls two or three times during my life—not reckoning others still awaiting me—I have always risen above them, thank God! and I hope that, if it happens again, God will extend the same grace to me. My private motto is"J'ayme qui m'ayme,"and I could perfectly well add,"Je ne hais pas qui me hait";but our family motto is "Deus dédit,Deus dabit"("God has given, God will give").
So I gave up the theatre for a time. Besides, I had begun my book onGaule et France,and I wanted to finish it. The execution of this book was a singular thing. I sought learning myself in order to teach others; but I had a great advantage: in going thus by chance through history, it happened to me as it happens to a man who does not know his way and gets lost in a forest; he is lost, it is true, but discovers things unknown, abysses where no man has descended, heights none have scaled.
Gaule et Franceis a historical book full of mistakes; but it ends by the strangest prophecy which has ever been printed sixteen years beforehand. We will see what it was in due time and place.
Towards the end of September, we heard in France of the death of Walter Scott. That death made a certain impression on me; not that I had the honour of knowing the author ofIvanhoeand ofWaverley,but the reading of Walter Scott, it will be recollected, had a great influence on my early literary life. Beginning by preferring Pigault-Lebrun to Walter Scott, and Voltaire to Shakespeare, a twofold heresy from which my well-loved Lassagne had redeemed me—Lassagne who, since I talked of him to you, has gone where half my friends have gone,—having, I say, preferred Pigault-Lebrun to Walter Scott, I had come to saner views, and, not only had I read all the Scottish author's romances, but I had tried to make two plays out of his works: the first, we know, with Frédéric Soulié; the second by myself. Neither was played, and neither was suited to the stage.
Walter Scott's qualities are not at all dramatic; admirable as a painter of manners, costumes and characters, Walter Scott is completely incapable of painting the passions. With manners and characters one can concoct comedies, but there must be passion to make dramas. Scott's only impassioned romance isKenilworth Castle; so it is the sole one which provided a really successful drama, and yet three-quarters of the success was due to thedénoûment,which was put on the stage, and which brutally flung in the eyes of the public the terrible spectacle of Amy Robsart's fall over the precipice. But my work on Scott had not been useless, although it had remained fruitless; one only understands the structure of a man by dissecting dead bodies; so one only understands the genius of an author by analysing it. The analysis of Walter Scott had made me understand the novel from another point of view than that of our country. A similar fidelity to manners, costumes and characters, with more lively dialogue and more natural passions, seemed to me to be what we needed. Such was my conviction, but I was far enough yet from suspecting that I should attempt to do for France what Scott had done for Scotland. I had only then published my historic scenes,Le Chevalier de Bois-Bourdon, Isabel le BavièreandPérinet Leclerc,and, as we shall see, the thing had succeeded badly enough, or was but a very poor success. One has such luck at times.
I published myScènes historiquesinLa Revue des Deux Mondes; so no one read them. In my absence, Anicet Bourgeois and Lockroy conceived the notion of putting these scenes together and composing a drama under the title ofPérinet Leclerc.It was, indeed, an honour which they paid to these scraps of history, unostentatiously scattered through a review. The play was a great success. Although I had done at least as much of it as ofLe Fils de l'Émigré,they were most careful not to utter my name.Le Constitutionnel,which had tornfrom my face, in the first work, the veil of incognito, obliterated it this time with all its strength, and praised the drama highly. Listen: M. Lesur, in hisAnnuairehad said, apropos ofLe Fils de l'Émigré—
"This play recalls the drunken slave which the Lacedémonians used to point out to their children to disgust them with drunkenness, and it ought to lead the public, if such a thing be possible, to purer and more reasonable ideals in dramatic literature. The object of the authors was to compare the corruption of the nobility with the virtue of the people, and, starting with this view, which is of no value nowadays, there is no vice, immorality or infamy that they have not accumulated in the person of their émigré le Marquis de Bray and of his worthy son;it is a mass of turpitudes, a sequence of scenes as false as they are ignoble, which it would disgust us to enumerate.The public permitted M. Dumas'sLa Tour de Nesle,but, this time, it has not been so complaisant: it hooted, hooted outrageouslya monstrous production which made all parts of the theatre, pit, boxes and galleries, turn sick with disgust and avert their eyes with horror.It is to be hoped that this severe and deserved lesson will impel the author ofHenri III.,ofChristineand ofAntonyandRichard Darlington,not to prostitute his talent again by putting his hand to such works."
"This play recalls the drunken slave which the Lacedémonians used to point out to their children to disgust them with drunkenness, and it ought to lead the public, if such a thing be possible, to purer and more reasonable ideals in dramatic literature. The object of the authors was to compare the corruption of the nobility with the virtue of the people, and, starting with this view, which is of no value nowadays, there is no vice, immorality or infamy that they have not accumulated in the person of their émigré le Marquis de Bray and of his worthy son;it is a mass of turpitudes, a sequence of scenes as false as they are ignoble, which it would disgust us to enumerate.The public permitted M. Dumas'sLa Tour de Nesle,but, this time, it has not been so complaisant: it hooted, hooted outrageouslya monstrous production which made all parts of the theatre, pit, boxes and galleries, turn sick with disgust and avert their eyes with horror.It is to be hoped that this severe and deserved lesson will impel the author ofHenri III.,ofChristineand ofAntonyandRichard Darlington,not to prostitute his talent again by putting his hand to such works."
The article, it will be seen, does not mince words (and between ourselves, be it said, dear reader, without reaching Anicet's ears, it seemed to be an execrable thing!) But, take careful notice that it is to me M. Lesur addresses himself, I, who had not been named and whose name was not on the bills; he had taken good care to expose me after a failure, but took equal care to conceal me when it was a question of success.
Here is the proof:—
"THÉÂTRE DE LA PORTE-SAINT-MARTIN(3 Sep. 1832)"First performance ofPérinet Leclerc,a prose drama in five acts byMM. ANICET BOURGEOISandLOCKROY."Fine scenes, noise, stir and magnificent decorationsand, above all, a situation of the supremest interest in the fifth act, have made this drama a complete success.It bears witness to literary and historic studies very rare in modern dramatists, and has in general the great advantage over most of the plays of this theatre, particularlyLE FILS DE L' ÉMIGRÉ,of not revolting the spectator constantly by a jumble of crimes and pictures of debauchery each more horrible than the last."
"THÉÂTRE DE LA PORTE-SAINT-MARTIN(3 Sep. 1832)
"First performance ofPérinet Leclerc,a prose drama in five acts byMM. ANICET BOURGEOISandLOCKROY.
"Fine scenes, noise, stir and magnificent decorationsand, above all, a situation of the supremest interest in the fifth act, have made this drama a complete success.It bears witness to literary and historic studies very rare in modern dramatists, and has in general the great advantage over most of the plays of this theatre, particularlyLE FILS DE L' ÉMIGRÉ,of not revolting the spectator constantly by a jumble of crimes and pictures of debauchery each more horrible than the last."
Caught, Monsieur Dumas! But there is something stronger still. Some time after I collected myScènes historiquesinto two volumes a paper noticed it, and accused me of having literally copied the principal scenes of my fictitious historical book from the fine drama by MM. Anicet Bourgeois and Lockroy!
Ah! my dear good fellow, are you simply ignorant or do you write in bad faith? You would rather not reply? Then let us ask M. Lireux.
[1]See Appendix.
[1]See Appendix.
La Duchesse de Berry returns to Nantes disguised as a peasant woman—The basket of apples—The house Duguigny—Madame in her hiding-place—Simon Deutz—His antecedents—His mission—He enters into treaty with MM. Thiers and Montalivet—He starts for la Vendée
La Duchesse de Berry returns to Nantes disguised as a peasant woman—The basket of apples—The house Duguigny—Madame in her hiding-place—Simon Deutz—His antecedents—His mission—He enters into treaty with MM. Thiers and Montalivet—He starts for la Vendée
Meantime, they learnt in Paris of the arrest of the Duchesse de Berry, at Nantes. It would have needed less news than this to divert the public indignation raised against me on account of the unluckyFils de l'Émigré.We left Madame la duchesse de Berry with M. Berryer in a poor Vendéen cottage, where she lived under the name of M. Charles; we saw her giving way to the entreaties of the famous barrister, and promising to quit France; she was to rejoin M. Berryer at noon the same day at a given spot, to return with him to Nantes, to cross through France by coach—thanks to the passport he brought for her—and to return to Italy by the Mont Cenis route. M. Berryer had waited for an hour at the arranged meeting-place, when he received a dispatch from Madame, who told him that too many interests were bound up with hers for her to abandon them. She therefore remained in la Vendée; only, the taking up of arms, fixed for 24 May, was deferred till the 3rd or 4th of June. We shall not be suspected of any intention of giving the history of the Civil War of 1832. The object of these Memoirs is not to relate official matters, but details which certain advantages of position or of friendship have put us in the way of knowing.
Now, who captured the Duchesse de Berry? GeneralDermoncourt, my old friend. Who was his secretary? The very same Rusconi who has been my secretary for twenty-one years, and who received from the hands of M. de Ménars the famous historical hat that was momentarily deflected from its habitual use by Madame la duchesse de Berry.
We will take up our narrative again at the moment when Madame, driven on all sides by events at Maisdon, at la Caraterie, Chêne, la Pénissière and at Riaillé, resolved to return to Nantes. This plan, which at first seemed foolhardy, was, however, the one which offered most security. When at Nantes, the Duchesse de Berry would find safe shelter; she therefore only had to find a means of getting there without discovery. She cut the knot herself by announcing that she would return to Nantes on foot clad as a peasant and followed only by Mademoiselle Eulalie de Kersabiec. They had scarcely three leagues to walk. M. de Ménars and M. de Bourmont left after them, and entered Nantes undisguised although they were very well known; they crossed the Loire in a boat opposite the meadow des Mauves.[1]At the end of a quarter of an hour's walk, the huge shoes and cotton stockings to which the duchess was unused hurt her feet. She tried, however, to walk on: but, deeming that if she kept to her footwear, she could not continue her journey, she sat down on the bank of a ditch, took off her shoes and stockings, stuffed them into her great pockets and began to walk barefoot. Soon, however, noticing from the peasant women who passed by that the fineness of her skin and the aristocratic whiteness of her legs might betray her, she went to one of the low hills by the roadside and, with some of the dark-coloured earth, she made her legs brown with it and pursued her journey. There were still two good leagues to go. It must, indeed, have been a wonderful subject for philosophic thought forthose who accompanied her, this spectacle of the woman who, two years before, had her position as queen mother at the Tuileries and possessed Chambord and Bagatelle, drove out in her carriages with six horses, escorted by bodyguards brilliant in gold and silver; who went to spectacles she had commanded, preceded by runners shaking torches; who filled the hall with her presence alone, and, when she returned to the château and regained her splendid chambers, walked over doubly thick Persian and Turkey carpets for fear the parquetted floor should hurt her childish feet;—to-day, this same woman, still smirched with the powder of battlefields, surrounded by dangers, outlawed, having no escort or courtiers beside one young girl, went to seek a shelter which might, perhaps, close its doors to her, clothed in the dress of a peasant woman, walking barefooted on the sharp sand and angular pebbles of the road. It was a singular thing that, at this date, nearly every country had its kings running barefoot along its highways!
However, the journey was made, and as they came nearer to Nantes all fears disappeared. The duchess was clothed in her costume and the farmers she had passed had not noticed that the little peasant woman running slowly past them was anything but what her clothes indicated: it was much, indeed, to have deceived the inquisitive instincts of country people, who have no rivals, possibly no equals, in this respect, unless it be soldiers.
At last they arrived in sight of Nantes: and Madame put on her shoes and stockings again before entering the town. When crossing the bridge of Pyrmile, she fell into the midst of a detachment of soldiers which was coming off duty under the command of an officer whom she recognised perfectly well, having seen him in former days doing duty at the Château. She reminded MM. de Ménars and Bourmont of this coincidence when they arrived some hours after her.
"I think the officer in command of that detachment on the bridge has recognised me: he looked hard at me," she said; "if it be so, and happy days come to me, his lot will be fortunate, he will be rewarded!"
Opposite the Bouffai, the duchess felt her shoulder touched. She trembled and turned round. The person who had just taken that liberty was a worthy old woman, who, having put her basket of apples on the ground, could not replace it on her head by herself.
"My children," she said to the duchess and Mile, de Kersabiec, "help me to lift up my basket and I will give you each an apple."
Madame soon took hold of one handle and signed to her companion to take hold of the other, the basket was balanced on the good woman's head, and she went away without giving the promised reward; but the duchess stopped her by the arm—
"Well, mother, where is my apple?" she asked. The apple-seller gave her one, and Madame was eating it with an appetite sharpened by a three leagues' walk, when, lifting her head, her eyes fell on a placard bearing these three words in big letters:—
"ÉTAT DE SIÈGE"
It was the Government notice which put four of the départements of la Vendée outside the pale of common law. The duchess went up to the bill and calmly read it right through, in spite of the entreaties of Mlle. de Kersabiec, who pressed her to gain the house at which she was to be received; but Madame observed that it was too interesting a matter for her not to acquaint herself with it. At last she resumed her journey, and, a few minutes later, she reached the house where she was expected, and where she took off her muddy garments, which were preserved as a memento of the event. Soon, she left this first refuge to go to the ladies Duguigny, at No. 3 rue Haute-du-Château.
The position of the Duguigny's house was pleasant, it looked out over the château gardens and beyond to the Loire and the meadows which bordered it. They had prepared her a room with a secret hiding in it. The room was no more than a third storey attic, the secret place was a nook by the fireplace in a corner: it was reached by the back of the chimney and opened with a spring. It had been used since the first Vendéen Wars to save priests and other outlaws. M. de Ménars lived in this house with the duchess. One would have thought that, after many journeys and fatigues, on finding a quiet, safe retreat she could have taken some rest and returned to her favourite occupation of tapestry and flowerpainting, talents in which she excelled; but, after the plans she had meditated carrying out, which had, in some measure, given her more masculine tastes, those futile pursuits were no longer to her liking, and did not suffice for that active spirit.
She resumed a correspondence, which she had dropped for some time, with the Legitimists of France and abroad, the principal object of which correspondence was positively to inform them that in case of an invasive war against France, which then seemed threatening, her son should never put himself in the train of foreigners, and to ask them, if need arose, to unite their efforts to those of all other Frenchmen to repulse them. The papers found in the secret room testified to the aim and to the magnitude of the work she had set herself to do. Her letters amounted to over nine hundred in number; they were nearly all in her own handwriting, with the exception of a few by M. de Ménars. She had twenty-four different ciphers in which to correspond with the various parties in France; she wrote in cipher with remarkable ease.
One of the distractions with which she provided herself, with M. Ménars' assistance, was to paste up the whole of the grey paper which to-day forms the decoration of the attic. During the duchess's stay in Nantes, choleramade some ravages and daily she saw from her windows soldiers or inhabitants being carried to the cemetery. One night she was seized with colic and vomiting, causing the greatest anxiety to those around her. She herself was alarmed.
"How are my feet and hands?" she said. "When they become cold, rub them, put burning hot bricks to them and send for a doctor and priest." They assured her she should have the services of both, but she would not have them summoned until the more alarming symptoms set in. However, the sickness stopped and the invalid grew better.
Madame took her meals down on the second floor: to her table were admitted M. de Ménars and Mademoiselle Stylite de Kersabiec—who had joined her—the two ladies Duguigny and, lastly, M. Guibourg, who, after his escape from the prison of Nantes, had also found a refuge in the same house, but only three weeks before the duchess's arrest. Very often, the meals were interrupted by false alarms caused by some detachment of troops coming in or going out of the town; then a bell, which communicated with the room from the ground floor, would give the signal for a retreat.
The duchess passed five months in this way. But the activity with which the Chouans were hunted down left them no chance of rallying together; also, the soul and head of the war was no longer with them. The 56th Regiment, which arrived about the end of June, permitted the military authorities to organise a still more energetic chase and a still stricter look-out; the cantonments were reinforced, moving columns ploughed the country in all senses of the meaning; finally, all hope for the partisans of Henri V. of rekindling a serious war soon vanished.
Meantime, the rumour had gone abroad that the duchess was hidden in Nantes; General Dermoncourt was certain of its truth and had given the higher authorities almostmaterial proofs of the presence of Madame in the town; but, as the fugitive's retreat was only known to a few persons, who were completely devoted to her, whatever credence the civil and military authorities gave to the general's warning, they had small chance of discovering her; besides, the duchess had become the object of extreme watchfulness on the part of her friends, who felt the necessity of isolating her completely in the centre of the town in order to prevent the police agents from getting at her. So she was inaccessible to every one except M. de Bourmont, who exercised his privilege with as much prudence as reserve. It was about this time that the Jew Deutz came to the town.
Hyacinthe-Simon Deutz, was born at Coblenz in January 1802. At the age of eighteen he went to M. Didot as a working printer. A short time later, his brother-in-law, M. Drack, becoming a Catholic, Deutz, being furious at the conversion, threatened him so savagely that Drack warned the police. However, two or three years later, his Judaistic fanaticism softened on this point; he himself showed a desire to embrace the Catholic religion, and, through his brother-in-law, solicited an audience with the Archbishop of Paris. That prelate, thinking his conversion would be quicker and more efficacious at Rome, advised him to go there. Deutz actually made that journey early in 1828; he was recommended in the most pressing manner by M. de Quélen to Cardinal Capellari (afterwards Gregory XIV.), then préfet to the propaganda. Pope Leo XIX. gave him into the care of Father Orioli, of the Collège des Cordeliers, for instruction in the Catholic religion. For some time, and on several occasions, Deutz seemed to have changed his resolution. He wrote in 1828, "I have experienced several days of storm; I was even on the point of returning unbaptized to Paris; it was Judaism dying in me; but, thanks to God, my eyes are entirely unsealed and, ere long, I shall have the happiness of becoming a Christian." Finally judged fit to receivebaptism, his godfather was Baron Mortier, first secretary to the Embassy, and his godmother an Italian princess. Thus, by deceiving God, he learned how to betray men. A while after, he was presented to the Pope, who received him with the greatest kindness. A pension of 25 piastres (125 francs) per month had been allowed him since his arrival in Rome from the funds of the propaganda. His brother-in-law Drack, introduced by Baron Mortier to the Duchesse de Berry, had by her been appointed librarian to the Duc de Bordeaux. It was then that the Pope got Deutz entered as a boarder at the Convent des Saints-Apôtres, and he continued publicly to affect the same devotion to religion. Nevertheless, those who lived in intimacy with him had very quickly guessed with what interested motives he had made his abjuration. Most of his early patrons, seeing they were being fooled by him, gradually deserted him; soon, the only supporter he had left was Cardinal Capellari, who, only seeing him occasionally, still kept up the same interest in him.
In 1830, Deutz, under the pretext of not wishing to live on charity, obtained from Pius VIII., then Pope, 300 piastres with which he set out to start, so he said, a bookshop in New York. After he had lived upon the money made by his books he returned to Europe and reached London in the autumn of 1831. He was recommended to the Jesuits established in England, and introduced himself to Abbé Delaporte, almoner to the Chapel of the Émigrés and French Legitimists, who put him into communication with the Marquis Eugène de Montmorency, then resident in London. Deutz got himself noticed by his extraordinary assiduity in attending the chapel services, praying fervently and frequently communicating; he thus secured the kindly notice of M. de Montmorency, a very religious man, who invited him to his table and even to some sort of intimacy.
About this time Madame de Bourmont was preparing, with her daughters, to rejoin her husband in Italy. M. deBourmont recommended Deutz to her as a wise and reliable man, who might be useful to her on her journey; he was, besides, devoted body and soul to the Legitimist cause and to religion. Deutz went the journey with Madame de Bourmont and behaved himself so well that, on her arrival, she in her turn recommended him warmly to the Duchesse de Berry. When the princess went to Rome, the Pope also spoke to her of Deutz as a man to be relied upon, capable of carrying out intelligently the most important and delicate missions. He notified that she could make use of him with entire confidence when occasion required. Such occasion was not long in offering itself. Just when the duchess was preparing to make her descent upon France, Deutz arrived at Massa and offered his services to Madame; he came from Rome and was going to Portugal to fulfil various missions which the Holy Father had entrusted to him, amongst others, that of taking, on his journey to Genoa, a dozen Jesuits to don Miguel, who had asked for them in order to found a college. Madame received him kindly and, knowing that he would cross Spain to reach Portugal, she accepted his offer with pleasure and willingness, telling him she would take advantage of his kindness and his devotion, and giving him her orders from time to time. So great was her idea of Deutz's delicate sensitiveness at the time, such interest had he roused in her, that she said one day to one of the French people round her—
"I believe poor Deutz is in want of money. I have none at the moment, and he is so sensitive I dare not give him this jewel to sell, which is, I believe, worth 6000 francs. Kindly sell it for me and give him the money without telling him what I am obliged to do to procure it."
So he set off on his mission, passing by way of Catalonia and Madrid. In that city, upon the letter of introduction of a minister plenipotentiary of the Italian States to whom the Pope had sent him, he obtained an introduction to one of the princes of the Royal Family of Spain, fromwhom he managed to extract money, although he was abundantly supplied with it by both the Holy Father and the Duchesse de Berry. That little act of fraud, of which he boasted when he returned to Madrid from Portugal, proves that Deutz was already treacherous, and that any means seemed good to him that satisfied his thirst after gold. As he travelled under the auspices of the Court of Rome, he mostly stayed in convents, where he was well received, and got himself noticed for his fervent zeal for the Catholic faith. Upon his arrival in Portugal, although well provided with letters from the Pope, he could not obtain an audience with don Miguel except after great difficulties and several months' stay. It was, I think, in connection with some loan don Miguel wanted to contract at the time in Paris that a banker of that capital, who knew of this project and desired to derive profit out of it for the duchess, wrote or caused to be written, in the current August, to Deutz, then in Portugal, that he would willingly undertake the loan on condition don Miguel would allow the deduction of ten per cent, in favour of the Duchesse de Berry, and, knowing him to be devoted to the cause and interests of the princess, he would let him negotiate the business, hoping he would employ every means his sagacity could think of to bring it about successfully. But it appears Deutz did not succeed in this enterprise. About the month of September 1832, he returned from Portugal to Madrid, and had several interviews with the French Legitimists, whose confidence in the scamp was countenanced by the duchess's example. He, however, committed various indiscretions of conduct in Portugal, which might have inspired them with doubts, but the certain knowledge that Madame had proved his fidelity allayed all uneasiness. Upon his departure for France, he was charged with important dispatches, the contents whereof would have seriously compromised those who had written them and those to whom they were addressed. One of the French Legitimistswho was then in Madrid having declared his intention of accompanying him as courier, Deutz told him it would not be safe for the secretary to the Embassy at Madrid to travel with a Frenchman. This circumstance at first aroused no suspicion; but a part of the letters confided to Deutz, and principally those he had been advised to leave at Bordeaux, to be addressed from there with greater safety to the duchess and other persons, never reaching their destination, it has since been imagined that he gave them up to the Paris police upon his return to France, and that the supposed secretary to the Embassy was none other than an agent who accompanied him and who, no doubt, served him as intermediary to transmit to the police the information he got from the knave.
It appears that, just about this time, they had not put much energy into the discovery of Madame's hiding-place, because they hoped the adventurous princess, seeing the uselessness of her attempts and all her resources being exhausted, would decide to leave French soil and thus rid the Government of a great difficulty; but, when they saw that she persisted in remaining in a country still in a state of fermentation, where her presence was dangerous, they set themselves seriously to find means of seizing her person at no matter what price.
The police, fertile in strategies, thought they could make use of Deutz and of the correspondence he carried to make the duchess fall into a trap and so fall into the hands of the Government agents. Consequently, they made overtures to this traitor; he had been presented at Court; he had seen renegades become illustrious; he was conscious of his strength and the means and power at his disposal; he knew that it was in the salons of ministers that perfidy and State reasons met together; he wished, then, to treat with the Government alone. He therefore obtained an audience with M. de Montalivet, and it was in the cabinet of his Excellency that they settled the price of an infamous piece of treachery.
What passed during that interview, what promises were made, what offers accepted, remains a secret between the minister and Deutz; for I presume Providence does not interfere in these affairs seeing they succeed. Still, they hesitated to make use of the instrument when they had found it, and great was the embarrassment at the château. The Duchesse de Berry, arrested, would become answerable before a Court of Assizes which might very easily condemn her to death; the king, it is true, had his right of pardon; but there are moments when that right is as difficult to exercise as is the right of death. On the other side, to leave the duchess alone was not without its inconvenience; the Chamber was stupid enough to grow tired of civil war as of anything else, and to demand a stop to it; in short, M. de Montalivet was exceedingly embarrassed by his traitor, not knowing what to do and almost in despair at having been so clever.
About this time ministerial changes took place; M. de Montalivet passed on to the civil list, and M. Thiers to the Home Office. The young minister saw in this change of place a means of getting rid of his Judas by sending him elsewhere to ask for his thirty pieces of silver; but Deutz raised difficulties; he had begun the business with the count and wished to conclude it with him; he knew M. de Montalivet, and did not know M. Thiers. Finally, after much parleying, M. de Montalivet persuaded him to accompany him in his carriage to M. Thiers. M. Thiers had too much tact and finesse not to seize upon the occasion to make his appointment less unpopular, and he was too clever not to try by a grandcoupto get himself forgiven. The capture of the Duchesse de Berry would draw the Chamber to him and the Chamber pretty well meant the nation. M. Thiers would thence become a national hero.
Deutz left for la Vendée, accompanied by Joly, the inspector of police, and arrived there under the name of Hyacinthe de Gonzaque.