The poet's malediction pursued the guilty man. Thanks to the enormous sum he had received, which he has always denied, saying he betrayed his benefactress to obey a patriotic feeling which urged him to rid his country from civil war; thanks, we say, to this enormous sum, hefound a wife ... a woman who consented to couple herself to such a man! But this was not all; he must also find a mayoralty. Deutz put up successively for the twelve mayoralties of Paris; now, as he had not been resident for the six months which the law exacted, they were closed to him, and glad to have an excuse for forbidding him to put his foot on their threshold. Then he went outside its borders and presented himself to M. de Frémicourt, mayor of la Villette. By what subterfuge did he discover that magistrate's religion? By what forgery did Deutz fabricate a certificate of residence for over six months in the house of M. Pierre Delacour, No. 41 rue de Flandre? What portion of his shameful gold did he have to part with to get that certificate? We do not know. We only know he was married at la Villette by M. de Frémicourt. Now, see what happened. Two years later, M. de Frémicourt and M. Gisquet both put up as deputies for the arrondissement of Saint-Denis. M. Gisquet, the Government candidate, begged M. de Frémicourt to leave the Saint-Denis arrondissement to him, where he was sure of election, and to become the candidate for Cambrai, where M. de Frémicourt's election would be as certain as his would be at Saint-Denis. M. de Frémicourt gave way to the entreaties of the préfet de police and put up for Cambrai in opposition to M. Taillandier. He was about to overcome his opponent when M. Taillandier learnt that he was the M. de Frémicourt who had married Deutz. M. Taillandier left instantly for la Villette, brought away the civil act announcing the fact of the marriage of Deutz, presented himself before M. Pierre Delacour, obtained from him and from the tenants of house No. 41, in the rue de Flandre, a certificate stating that Deutz had never lived in that house, and, fortified by the act and the certificate, he overthrew his opponent, who, although he had been ignorant of the fraud, was hooted out upon the single accusation, "M. de Frémicourt is the mayor who marriedDeutz!" There was, we see, still some generous feelings left in France. Now what became of Deutz? Did he die in poverty, as some say? Did he go to the United States, as say others? We do not know what to say. All the biographers leave Deutz alone after his crime, as if such a Judas must be left to God to be dealt with! God preserve all honest men from coming in contact with him, if he be living! and if he be dead, from passing over his grave!
Le Roi s'amuse—Criticism and censorship
Whilst M. Thiers's police were arresting Madame la duchesse de Berry at Nantes, the censorship was stopping the drama ofLe Roi s'amuseat Paris. The performance had taken place on 22 November. I cannot give an account of it, for I was not present; a slight coolness had crept into my relations with Hugo; friends in common had nearly set us at variance. The day after the performance the play was cruelly forbidden, and the author had to appeal from that decision before the Tribunal de Commerce. Under any other circumstances, the Opposition newspapers would have sided with Victor Hugo; they would have cried out against this oppression and tyranny. But not here! the hatred they bore towards the romantic school was so great, that they vied with one another, not so much to put the Government in the right, as to who should put the author most in the wrong.
Listen to what criticism said of the work of one of the most eminent poets who had ever lived. We will follow it in its own words and treat it fairly. We do not know who wrote the article we have in our hands: it is unsigned; only, it is a specimen of what was done then, has been done since and will probably always be perpetrated incriticism. A shameful specimen! But let us judge for ourselves.
"THÉÂTRE-FRANÇAISLe Roi s'amuse.'A poetical drama in five acts byM. VICTOR HUGO."Criticism attempted afterHernaniand specially afterMarion Delorme,to make M. Victor Hugo listen to two pieces ofwholesome truthpolitely expressed, as is due to a man of great and genuine talent; the first is that theefforts of M. Victor Hugo revealed absolute impotenceand sterility of conception;the second, that M. Victor Hugo adopted a pernicious system which, instead of conducing to originality, drove him to thetrivialandabsurd...."
"THÉÂTRE-FRANÇAIS
Le Roi s'amuse.'
A poetical drama in five acts byM. VICTOR HUGO.
"Criticism attempted afterHernaniand specially afterMarion Delorme,to make M. Victor Hugo listen to two pieces ofwholesome truthpolitely expressed, as is due to a man of great and genuine talent; the first is that theefforts of M. Victor Hugo revealed absolute impotenceand sterility of conception;the second, that M. Victor Hugo adopted a pernicious system which, instead of conducing to originality, drove him to thetrivialandabsurd...."
Certainly it is impossible to be more polite. The natural consequence of this advice ought to have been to make Hugo return to his odes and romances. Luckily, M. Hugo believed himself to be as strong as those who told him thesewholesome truths,and he has continued in spite of criticism. To this disastrous pig-headedness of the poet we oweLucrèce Borgia, Marie Tudor, Ruy Blas, AngeloandLes Burgraves.
"M. Hugo has taken no notice of these truths: he has persisted in writing dramas, and, far from modifying his system, he has exceeded it in a monstrous fashion. In his first dramas, he still preserved some principle of truth and of beauty, some feeling of morality and decency, even amidst his eccentricities. InLe Roi s'amuse,he rids himself of everything and tramples history, right, morality, the dignity of art, delicacy, under his feet. There is progress ..."
"M. Hugo has taken no notice of these truths: he has persisted in writing dramas, and, far from modifying his system, he has exceeded it in a monstrous fashion. In his first dramas, he still preserved some principle of truth and of beauty, some feeling of morality and decency, even amidst his eccentricities. InLe Roi s'amuse,he rids himself of everything and tramples history, right, morality, the dignity of art, delicacy, under his feet. There is progress ..."
Still under cover of the same virtue of politeness, let us follow the critic—
"In the first place, the subject of the drama is not historic, although historical characters figure in it. We will pass that over, for, as time flies, it is a peccadillo.But at least a conscientious author in assigning a rôle to his historical personages in afictitious caseor ratheractionshould so apply it as not to calumniate them; the realistic school is bolder and has few scruples. You shall see how M. Hugo treats King François I., the court of that prince, and the poet Clément Marot on the stage of the Comédie-Française...."
"In the first place, the subject of the drama is not historic, although historical characters figure in it. We will pass that over, for, as time flies, it is a peccadillo.But at least a conscientious author in assigning a rôle to his historical personages in afictitious caseor ratheractionshould so apply it as not to calumniate them; the realistic school is bolder and has few scruples. You shall see how M. Hugo treats King François I., the court of that prince, and the poet Clément Marot on the stage of the Comédie-Française...."
Ah! monsieur critic, it well becomes you to defend ill-treated poets! You who have treated M. Hugo so finely! It is true that, in your eyes, M. Hugo is not a poet of the same calibre as Clément Marot. Turn your glasses back, monsieur critic, and take the measure of the author of theOdes et Ballades Orientales, Feuilles d'automne, Notre-Dame de Paris, HernaniandMarion Delorme,even if you have to stand on tip-toe or, if necessary, climb on a chair to do so.
"In the first act, we are at the court of François i.: sounds of distant music are heard; there is a ball. A ball was a novelty some years ago! There is one in every play ..."
"In the first act, we are at the court of François i.: sounds of distant music are heard; there is a ball. A ball was a novelty some years ago! There is one in every play ..."
Where on earth do you find one inHenri III.,monsieur critic? Or inChristineorRichard Darlingtonor inLa Tour de Nesle?... Where can you discover a ball inHernanior inMarion Delorme?There is, it is true, a kind of musical entertainment inHernani,a sort of ball inAntony,but you see it has not been overdone.
"Soon they will be indispensable," continued the critic. "So François I. is in search of amusement and seeks everything he can to be entertained. The courtiers talk, laugh and seek to amuse him. There are a great number of them: M. de Cossé, M. de Simiane, M. de Montmorency, Clément Marot and a host of high-born people, and, in their centre, the king and Triboulet, the king's jester, in cloth of gold, a fool's bauble in his hand. Madame de Cossé lets her glove fall; the king picks it up. The gentlemen laugh and gossip about thewife of Cossé.The king is in love with her; Triboulet advises him to get rid of the husband: that is, to have him hung; the king isamused and so are the courtiers. After this, there is no more about thewife of Cossé,and we do not see her again. This is indeed a pity, for she is pretty.
"Soon they will be indispensable," continued the critic. "So François I. is in search of amusement and seeks everything he can to be entertained. The courtiers talk, laugh and seek to amuse him. There are a great number of them: M. de Cossé, M. de Simiane, M. de Montmorency, Clément Marot and a host of high-born people, and, in their centre, the king and Triboulet, the king's jester, in cloth of gold, a fool's bauble in his hand. Madame de Cossé lets her glove fall; the king picks it up. The gentlemen laugh and gossip about thewife of Cossé.The king is in love with her; Triboulet advises him to get rid of the husband: that is, to have him hung; the king isamused and so are the courtiers. After this, there is no more about thewife of Cossé,and we do not see her again. This is indeed a pity, for she is pretty.
"The action does not begin yet, but the conversations continue. Triboulet tells the king much evil about savants and poets, and we hear François I. say later thatit is not weather fit to turn even a poet out of doors.The courtiers, for their part, discuss the mistress of Triboulet. One of them replies—
'Ma foi de gentilhomme,Je m'en soucie autant qu'un poisson d'une pomme!'"
Here the critic is mistaken and I wonder at it, his error benefits him nothing. It is not a nobleman who says the lines quoted by the critic, neither are they addressed to Cossé or about his wife. The man who utters them is the king, and the people, for whom he cares so little, are the savants.
"TRIBOULET.Les femmes, sire, ah! Dieu!... c'est le ciel, c'est la terre,C'est tout! mais vous avez les femmes, vous avezLes femmes! Laissez-moi tranquille, vous rêvezDe vouloir des savants.LE ROI.Ma foi de gentilhomme,Je m'en soucie autant qu'un poisson d'une pomme!"
"At this juncture, the Comte de Saint-Vallier appears on the scenes; he comes on to utter deadly reproaches against the king, who has granted him his life,for having conspired(it should bebecause he hasand notfor having,but critics do not look so closely into things as that) to seduce his daughter Diane de Poitiers. It is noticeable that M. Victor Hugo is singularly fond of old men and puts them in all his dramas. But the language he puts into the mouth of Saint-Vallier is noble and fine. So the lines were applauded unanimously but the tirade is lengthy...."
This was the opportunity, monsieur critic, since you have quoted the lines you thought ridiculous, to havequoted some at least that you thought beautiful. True, such quotation would have destroyed the harmony of the sarcastic tone of your criticism. But we will quote them instead of you. Listen attentively to the language of the man who writes these lines, he who is in all good faith advised not to write for the theatre any more because he is impotent, sterile, trivial and absurd.
"SAINT-VALLIER**Une insulte de plus!—Vous, sire, écoutez-moiComme vous le devez, puisque vous êtes roi!Vous m'avez fait, un jour, mener pieds nus en Grève;Là, vous m'avez fait grâce ainsi que dans un rêve,Et je vous ai béni, ne sachant, en effet,Ce qu'un roi cache au fond d'une grâce qu'il fait.Or, vous aviez caché ma honte dans la mienne.Oui, sire, sans respect pour une race ancienne,Pour le sang des Poitiers, noble depuis mille ans!Tandis que, revenant de la Grève à pas lents,Je priais dans mon cœur le Dieu de la victoireQu'il vous donnât mes jours de vie en jours de gloire,Vous, François de Valois, le soir du même jour,Sans crainte, sans pitié, sans pudeur, sans amour,Dans votre lit, tombeau de la vertu des femmes,Vous avez froidement, sous vos baisers infâmes,Terni, flétri, souillé, déshonoré, briséDiane de Poitiers, comtesse de Brézé!...Quoi! lorsque j'attendais l'arrêt qui me condamne,Tu courais donc au Louvre, ô ma chaste Diane!Et lui, ce roi sacré chevalier par Bayard,Jeune homme auquel il faut des plaisirs de vieillard,Pour quelques jours de plus, dont Dieu seul sait le compte,Ton père sous ses pieds, te marchandait ta honte;Et cet affreux tréteau, chose horrible à penser!Qu'un matin le bourreau vint en Grève dresser,Avant la fin du jour, devait être, ô misère!Ou le lit de la fille, ou l'échafaud du père!O Dieu qui nous jugez, qu'avez-vous dit là-haut,Quand vos regards ont vu, sur ce même échafaud,Se vautrer, triste et louche, et sanglante et souillée,La luxure royale en clémence habillée?...Sire! en faisant cela, vous avez mal agi.Que du sang d'un vieillard le pavé fût rougi,C'était bien: ce vieillard, peut-être respectable,Le méritait, étant de ceux du connétable;Mais que pour le vieillard vous ayez pris l'enfant;Que vous ayez broyé sous un pied triomphantLa pauvre femme en pleurs, à s'effrayer trop prompte,C'est une chose impie et dont vous rendrez compte!Vous avez dépassé votre droit d'un grand pas:Le père était à vous, mais la fille, non pas.Ah! vous m'avez fait grâce! ah! vous nommez la choseUne grâce! et je suis un ingrat, je suppose!Sire, au lieu d'abuser ma fille, bien plutôtQue n'êtes-vous venu vous-même en mon cachot?Je vous aurais crié: 'Faites-moi mourir ... Grâce!Oh! grâce pour ma fille, et grâce pour ma race!Oh! faites-moi mourir! la tombe et non l'affront!Pas de tête plutôt qu'une souillure au front!Oh! monseigneur le roi, puisque ainsi l'on vous nomme,Croyez-vous qu'un chrétien, un comte, un gentilhommeSoit moins décapité, répondez, monseigneur,Quand, au lieu de la tête, il lui manque l'honneur?'J'aurais dit cela, sire, et, le soir, dans l'église,Dans mon cercueil sanglant, baisant ma barbe grise,Ma Diane au cœur pur, ma fille au front sacré,Honorée, eût prié pour son père honoré!...Sire, je ne viens point redemander ma fille:Quand on n'a plus d'honneur, on n'a plus de famille.Qu'elle vous aime ou non d'un amour insensé,Je n'ai rien à reprendre où la honte a passé.Gardez-la!—Seulement, je me suis mis en têteDe venir vous troubler ainsi dans chaque fête;Et jusqu'à ce qu'un père, un frère ou quelque époux—La chose arrivera—nous ait vengé de vous.Pâle, à tous vos banquets je reviendrai vous dire:'Vous avez mal agi, vous avez mal fait, sire!'Et vous m'écouterez, et votre front terniNe se relèvera que quand j'aurai fini.Vous voudrez, pour forcer ma vengeance à se taire,Me rendre au bourreau; non! vous ne l'oserez faire.De peur que ce ne soit mon spectre qui, demain,(Montrant sa tête.)Ne vienne vous parler, cette tête à la main!"
One can conceive why the critic does not quote the lines we have just put before the reader: What wouldbecome of his prose by the side of such verse? After this splendid outburst of Saint-Vallier, the king, enraged, exclaims—
"On s'oublie à ce point d'audace et de délire!...(A. M. de Pienne.)Duc, arrêtez monsieur!
TRIBOULET.Le bonhomme est fou, sire.
SAINT-VALLIER,levant le bras.Soyez maudits tous deux!(Au roi.)Sire, ce n'est pas bien:Sur le lion mourant vous lâchez votre chien!(A Triboulet.)Qui que tu sois, valet à langue de vipère,Que fais risée ainsi de la douleur d'un père,Sois maudit!(Au roi.)J'avais droit d'être par vous traitéComme une majesté par une majesté.Vous êtes roi, moi père, et l'âge vaut le trône.Nous avons tous les deux au front une couronneOù nul ne doit lever de regards insolents,Vous de fleurs de lys d'or, et moi de cheveux blancs.Roi, quand un sacrilège ose insulter la vôtre,C'est vous qui la vengez;—c'est Dieu qui venge l'autre!"
The critic goes on—
"The Comte de Saint-Vallier finishes his harangue and goes out cursing the king and Triboulet. The king laughs, Triboulet seems thunderstruck.This riot of unedifying conversations, the hall and the character of Comte de Saint-Vallierare in no sort of way connected with the action of the play, andthe whole of the first act is taken up in informing us that Triboulet has a mistress and that the gentlemen of the court wish to take her away from him...."
Say, monsieur critic, that youpersonally see no connection between the ball and M. de Saint-Vallier and the action,but forbear from saying they have no connection in any way whatever. You are blind and deaf, monsieurcritic; but, luckily, we shall not stop our ears and put out our eyes for the sole satisfaction of being like you. Stay, you shall see why M. de Saint-Vallier is not connected with the action. The author takes the trouble to tell you himself—
"It appears that writers of criticism pretend that their morals are scandalised byLe Roi s'amuse.The play disgusted the modesty of the gendarmes; the Léotaud Brigade was there[1]and thought it obscene; officers of morality hid their faces and M. Vidocq blushed; accordingly, the word of command which the censorship gave the police was stammered out in our midst for some days in these terse words—"'THE PLAY IS IMMORAL.'"
"It appears that writers of criticism pretend that their morals are scandalised byLe Roi s'amuse.The play disgusted the modesty of the gendarmes; the Léotaud Brigade was there[1]and thought it obscene; officers of morality hid their faces and M. Vidocq blushed; accordingly, the word of command which the censorship gave the police was stammered out in our midst for some days in these terse words—
"'THE PLAY IS IMMORAL.'"
Halloa! my masters! Silence on this point. Let us explain ourselves, however; not to the police, with whom I, an honest man, decline to discuss such matters, but to the few respectable and conscientious persons who, upon hearsay, or after seeing the performance, allowed themselves to be led away into sharing that opinion, for which, perhaps, the name alone of the guilty poet should have been sufficient refutation. The drama is now printed and, if you were not at the performance, read it; if you were, still read it. Bear in mind that this representation is less a representation than a battle, a sort of battle of Montlhéry (excuse us for this rather ambitious comparison), which the Parisians and the Burgundians both claimed to havewonaccording to Mathieu. The play is immoral. Do you think so? Is it so fundamentally? The groundwork of the play is as follows:—
"Triboulet is deformed, ill, the court buffoon, a threefold wretchedness which makes him evilly disposed. He hates the king because he is king, the lords because theyare lords, and men because they have not all got humps on their backs; his only solace is unceasingly to pit the lords against the king, to break the weakest against the strongest. He depraves, corrupts and debases the king, drives him to tyranny, ignorance and vice. He sets him at loggerheads with all the noble families, unceasingly pointing out some wife to seduce, a sister to carry off, a daughter to dishonour."The king is like an omnipotent puppet in the hands of Triboulet, he cuts off lives whilst the buffoon plays his jokes: one day at a fête, just when Triboulet is urging the king to carry off M. de Cossé's wife, M. de Saint-Vallier finds his way to the king and openly upbraids him for the dishonour of Diane de Poitiers. The father whose daughter the king has taken is made game of and insulted by Triboulet. He lifts his arm and curses Triboulet.And from this the whole flay springs.The real subject of the drama isM. DE SAINT-VALLIER'S MALEDICTION."
"Triboulet is deformed, ill, the court buffoon, a threefold wretchedness which makes him evilly disposed. He hates the king because he is king, the lords because theyare lords, and men because they have not all got humps on their backs; his only solace is unceasingly to pit the lords against the king, to break the weakest against the strongest. He depraves, corrupts and debases the king, drives him to tyranny, ignorance and vice. He sets him at loggerheads with all the noble families, unceasingly pointing out some wife to seduce, a sister to carry off, a daughter to dishonour.
"The king is like an omnipotent puppet in the hands of Triboulet, he cuts off lives whilst the buffoon plays his jokes: one day at a fête, just when Triboulet is urging the king to carry off M. de Cossé's wife, M. de Saint-Vallier finds his way to the king and openly upbraids him for the dishonour of Diane de Poitiers. The father whose daughter the king has taken is made game of and insulted by Triboulet. He lifts his arm and curses Triboulet.And from this the whole flay springs.The real subject of the drama isM. DE SAINT-VALLIER'S MALEDICTION."
Why did you say then, monsieur critic, that "the unedifying riot of conversations, the hall and the character of Saint-VallierARE IN NO WAY CONNECTED WITH THE ACTION." You do not seem to me to understand the author. But let us see what the author says; we will see what you have said afterwards. We will promise you not to compare his prose with yours. Listen to what Victor Hugo says himself. We are at the second act—
"Upon whom does this malediction fall? Upon Triboulet, the king's fool? No, upon Triboulet as man, as a father with a heart, who has a daughter. All lies in the fact of Triboulet possessing a daughter: she is all he has in the world. He conceals her from all eyes in a deserted quarter and a lonely house. The more he circulates the contagion of vice and of debauchery through the town, the more closely he keeps his daughter walled up and isolated. He brings up his child in innocence, faith and modesty. His greatest fear is lest she come to harm; for, wicked as he is, he knows how much suffering it brings. Well, the old man's curse strikes Tribouletthrough the only thing he loves in the world—his daughter. The very king whom Triboulet urges on to abduction seduces his daughter. The fool is struck by Providence exactly in the same way as M. de Saint-Vallier, and, when his daughter is seduced and lost, he lays a snare for the king to revenge her: but it is his daughter who falls into it. Thus, Triboulet has two pupils, the king and his daughter; the king whom he instructs in vice, his daughter whom he has brought up to virtue. The one destroys the other. He intends to abduct Madame de Cossé for the king, but it is his daughter whom he carries away. He means to assassinate the king to avenge his daughter, but instead assassinates her. The chastisement does not stop half-way; the malediction of Diane's father is fulfilled upon the father of Blanche. Doubtless it is not for us to decide if the conception is dramatic or not; but it is certainly a moral one."
"Upon whom does this malediction fall? Upon Triboulet, the king's fool? No, upon Triboulet as man, as a father with a heart, who has a daughter. All lies in the fact of Triboulet possessing a daughter: she is all he has in the world. He conceals her from all eyes in a deserted quarter and a lonely house. The more he circulates the contagion of vice and of debauchery through the town, the more closely he keeps his daughter walled up and isolated. He brings up his child in innocence, faith and modesty. His greatest fear is lest she come to harm; for, wicked as he is, he knows how much suffering it brings. Well, the old man's curse strikes Tribouletthrough the only thing he loves in the world—his daughter. The very king whom Triboulet urges on to abduction seduces his daughter. The fool is struck by Providence exactly in the same way as M. de Saint-Vallier, and, when his daughter is seduced and lost, he lays a snare for the king to revenge her: but it is his daughter who falls into it. Thus, Triboulet has two pupils, the king and his daughter; the king whom he instructs in vice, his daughter whom he has brought up to virtue. The one destroys the other. He intends to abduct Madame de Cossé for the king, but it is his daughter whom he carries away. He means to assassinate the king to avenge his daughter, but instead assassinates her. The chastisement does not stop half-way; the malediction of Diane's father is fulfilled upon the father of Blanche. Doubtless it is not for us to decide if the conception is dramatic or not; but it is certainly a moral one."
Well, reader, what is your opinion?
"Why! the same as Victor Hugo. But why, then, does the critic look upon it and understand it so wrongly? Is he blind and deaf?"
Oh, dear reader, that would be too great a happiness for you and us! No, you know the proverb—"None so blind as those who wont see, or so deaf as those who do not wish to hear."
What the author says of the curse of Saint-Vallier is so true that the second act opens with these words of Triboulet—
"Ce vieillard m'a maudit!"
But, as we have said, the critic does not perceive this. He continues his analysis—
"At the second act Triboulet wanders through the night near a modest house next to the hôtel de Cossé. A man with a hideous expression comes and offers him his services. His trade is killing; his charges are not dear, and he works at home and in the town. Triboulet replies that he has no need of him at present. Saltabadil (the bandit's name) goes off and Triboulet enters the house. He then utters a long monologue expressingall the suffering his trade of king's jester causes him. Here, M. Hugo again breaks into an eloquent and brilliant tirade in beautiful lines ..."
"At the second act Triboulet wanders through the night near a modest house next to the hôtel de Cossé. A man with a hideous expression comes and offers him his services. His trade is killing; his charges are not dear, and he works at home and in the town. Triboulet replies that he has no need of him at present. Saltabadil (the bandit's name) goes off and Triboulet enters the house. He then utters a long monologue expressingall the suffering his trade of king's jester causes him. Here, M. Hugo again breaks into an eloquent and brilliant tirade in beautiful lines ..."
Why not quote them, monsieur critic? Ah! yes, but the fine verses would scorch his lips.[2]
"Triboulet enters his daughter's house and expresses all his parental affection for her," continues the critic. "Here again," he adds, "are several beautiful verses ..."
"Triboulet enters his daughter's house and expresses all his parental affection for her," continues the critic. "Here again," he adds, "are several beautiful verses ..."
And he passes them over; but are beautiful lines so common that you scorn them thus? Can you write them? or can your wife or your friends? Can M. Planche or M. Janin or M. Lireux compose in the same style as this?
"BLANCHE.... Mon bone père, au moins, parlez-moi de ma mère!TRIBOULET.Oh! ne réveille pas une pensée amère:Ne me rappelles pas qu'autrefois j'ai trouvé—Et, si tu n'étais là, je dirais: 'J'ai rêvé!'—Une femme, contraire à la plupart des femmes,Qui, dans ce monde, où rien n'appareille les âmes,Me voyant seul, infirme, et pauvre, et détesté,M'aima pour ma misère et ma difformité!Elle est morte, emportant dans la tombe avec elleL'angélique secret de son amour fidèle,De son amour passé sur moi comme un éclair;Rayon du paradis tombé dans mon enfer!Que la terre, toujours à me recevoir prête,Soit légère à ce sein où reposa ma tête!. . . . . . . . . . .BLANCHE.Mon père ...TRIBOULET,à sa fille.Est-il ailleurs un cœur qui me réponde?Oh! je t'aime pour tout ce que je hais au monde!—Assieds-toi près de moi. Viens, parlons de celaDis, aimes-tu ton père? Et puisque nous voilàEnsemble, et que ta main entre mes mains repose,Qu'est-ce donc qui nous force à parler d'autre chose?Ma fille, ô seul bonheur que le ciel m'ait permis!D'autres ont des parents, des frères, des amis,Une femme, un mari, des vassaux, un cortègeD'aïeux et d'alliés, plusieurs enfants, que sais-je?Moi, je n'ai que toi seule! Un autre est riche;—eh bien,Toi seule es mon trésor, et toi seule es mon bien!Un autre croit en Dieu; je ne crois qu'en ton âme!D'autres ont la jeunesse et l'amour d'une femme;Ils ont l'orgueil, l'éclat, la grâce et la santé;Ils sont beaux; moi, vois-tu, je n'ai que ta beauté!Chère enfant!—ma cité, mon pays, ma famille,Mon épouse, ma mère, et ma sœur, et ma fille.Mon bonheur, ma richesse, et mon culte, et ma loi,Mon univers, c'est toi, toujours toi, rien que toi!De tout autre côté, ma pauvre âme est froissée.—Oh! si je te perdais!... Non, c'est une penséeQue je ne pourrais pas supporter un moment!Souris-moi donc un peu.—Ton sourire est charmant!Oui, c'est toute ta mère!—Elle était aussi belle.Tu te passes souvent la main au front comme elle,Comme pour l'essuyer, car il faut au cœur purUn front tout innocent et des yeux tout azur.Tu rayonnes pour moi d'une angélique flamme,A travers ton beau corps, mon âme voit ton âme.Même les yeux fermés, c'est égal, je te vois.Le jour me vient de toi! Je me voudrais parfoisAveugle, et l'œil voilé d'obscurité profonde,Afin de n'avoir pas d'autre soleil au monde!"
Well! monsieur critic, shall I tell you something? If a fairy, as in the pretty children's tales you have not read, for you were never a child, came with his golden wand in his hand and said to me: "What do you wish, desire and pine for? Ask, I serve youth, fortune and ambition; at one word, you can have twenty-five years added to your life or be a millionaire or a prince!" I should say to him, "Oh good, beauteous fairy, I would like to be able to compose such lines as the above."
But now let us follow the critic through the third act. It relates how Blanche is taken to the Louvre; how theking recognises in her whom he supposes to be Triboulet's mistress the Blanche with whom he is enamoured, and how Blanche recognises in the king the Gaucher Mahiet whom she loves; how Blanche, not knowing whither to fly, and seeing an open door, flies through it and finds herself in the king's private chamber; how the king then enters behind her and shuts the door; after which the lords troop in, laughing, followed by Triboulet in despair. But let us allow the critic to speak—
"Triboulet comes on and looks at them all. The queen wants the king and they have just sent for him. 'He is not yet up.—But he was here just a moment ago.—He is out hunting.—But his huntsman are not out.'—'On vous dit, comprenez-vous ceci?Que le roi ne veut voir personne.TRIBOULET.Elle est ici!'"Triboulet wants to push his way into the king's room, but the courtiers fling him back; he implores them. They laugh at him and Triboulet pours out upon them insults and curses. 'You are no nobles,' he says to them,'Au milieu des huées,Vos mères aux laquais se sont prostituées!'"And the gentlemen put up with this!"
"Triboulet comes on and looks at them all. The queen wants the king and they have just sent for him. 'He is not yet up.—But he was here just a moment ago.—He is out hunting.—But his huntsman are not out.'
—'On vous dit, comprenez-vous ceci?Que le roi ne veut voir personne.TRIBOULET.Elle est ici!'
"Triboulet wants to push his way into the king's room, but the courtiers fling him back; he implores them. They laugh at him and Triboulet pours out upon them insults and curses. 'You are no nobles,' he says to them,
'Au milieu des huées,Vos mères aux laquais se sont prostituées!'
"And the gentlemen put up with this!"
Yes they bear it, monsieur critic, and I will tell you why. All the lords who have lent themselves to abduction, and are quite prepared to put their hands to violation, think they have carried off Triboulet's mistress and learn suddenly they have carried away his daughter. You do not say that that has escaped your memory: it is told in beautiful lines, and Ligier's voice is not one anybody can pretend not to hear.
"M. DE PIENNE,riant.Triboulet a perdu sa maîtresse!—GentilleOu laide, qu'il la cherche ailleurs.
TRIBOULET.Je veux ma fille ...
TOUS.Sa fille!
TRIBOULET,croisant les bras.C'est ma fille!—Oui, riez maintenant!Ah! pous restez muets! Vous trouvez surprenantQue ce bouffon soit père, et qu'il ait une fille?Les loups et les seigneurs n'ont-ils pas leur famille?Ne puis-je avoir aussi la mienne? Allons, assez!Que si vous plaisantiez, c'est charmant; finissez!. . . . . . . . . . .Elle est là!(Les courtisans se placent devant la porte du roi.)
MAROT.Sa folie en furie est tournée.
TRIBOULET,reculant avec désespoir.Courtisans! courtisans! démons! race damnée!C'est donc vrai qu'ils m'out pris ma fille, ces bandits!Une femme, à leurs yeux, ce n'est rien, je vous dis!Quand le roi, par bonheur, est un roi de débauches,Les femmes des seigneurs, lorsqu'ils ne sont pas gauches,Les servent fort.—L'honneur d'une vierge, pour eux,C'est un luxe inutile, un trésor onéreux.Une femme est un champ qui rapporte, une fermeDont le royal loyer se paye à chaque terme.N'est ce pas que c'est vrai, messeigneurs?—En effet,Vous lui vendriez tous, si ce n'est déjà fait.Pour un nom, pour un titre, ou toute autre chimère,(A M. de Brian.)Toi, ta femme, Brion!(A M. de Gardes.)Toi, ta sœur!(Au jeune page de Pardaillan.)Toi, ta mère?"
The critic is surprised that all the lords are silent. It does not surprise us, especially if they have children of their own.
Is not the despair of a father, at the destruction of hisdaughter, frightful and solemn and fateful enough to cause instant silence? The author of the work, a father, who wrote this magnificent line—
"Et les cœurs de lion sont les vrais cœurs de père,"
thought so. Is he wrong? So much to his credit. If you are right, the more is it to your discredit!
But if this be so, you say, he ought to have pointed us out a beauty instead of a defect. Oh! he warns you loudly enough. Listen again—
"UN PAGEse verse un verre de vin au buÿet, et se met à boireen fredonnant:Quand Bourdon vit Marsaille,Il a dit à ses gens:'Vrai-Dieu! quel capitaine ...'TRIBOULET,se retournant.Je ne sais à quoi tient, vicomte d'Aubusson,Que je te brise aux dents ton verre et ta chanson!"
You see among the whole of those courtiers, only one sneers, and he a child of fifteen, who knows nothing about paternity. Oh! you say, that is true enough; but it is too involved, we missed the point. Such things, messieurs, are not visible to the outer eye, they are felt; the heart has eyes to see them.
Then, you add, you have no children. True, eunuchs and critics usually die without posterity.
We had got to the words, monsieur critic—
"And the gentlemen put up with that,and when Triboulet bade them they went away.TRIBOULET REMAINS ALONE, and soon his daughter rushes out dishevelled, beside herself, and flies into his arms."
"And the gentlemen put up with that,and when Triboulet bade them they went away.TRIBOULET REMAINS ALONE, and soon his daughter rushes out dishevelled, beside herself, and flies into his arms."
Ah! you see more clearly than you say, monsieur critic, for here you lie! No, it does not happen like that at all.
"TRIBOULET.Ah! Dieu! vous ne savez que rire ou que vous taire!C'est donc un grand plaisir de voir un pauvre pèreSe meurtrir la poitrine, et s'arracher du frontDes cheveux que deux nuits pareilles blanchiront!
(La porte de la chambre du roi s'ouvre; Blanche en sort éperdue, égarée, en désordre; elle vient tomber dans les bras de son père avec un cri terrible.)
(La porte de la chambre du roi s'ouvre; Blanche en sort éperdue, égarée, en désordre; elle vient tomber dans les bras de son père avec un cri terrible.)
BLANCHE.Mon père, ah!...
TRIBOULET,la serrant dans ses bras.Mon enfant! ah! c'est elle! ah! ma fille!Ah! messieurs!(Suffoqué de sanglots, et riant au travers.)Voyez-vous, c'est toute ma famille,Mon ange!—Elle de moins, quel deuil dans ma maison!—Messeigneurs, n'est-ce pas que j'avais bien raison?...(A Blanche.)Mais pourquoi pleures, tu?
BLANCHE.Malheureux que nous sommes!La honte ...
TRIBOULET.Que dis-tu?
BLANCHE.Pas devant tous ces hommes!Rougir devant vous seul!
TRIBOULET,se tournant vers la porte du roi.Oh! l'infâme!—Elle aussi!
BLANCHE.Seule, seule avec vous!
TRIBOULET,aux seigneurs.Allez-vous-en d'ici!Et, si le roi François par malheur se hasardeA passer près d'ici ...(A M. de Vermandois.)Vous êtes de sa garde,Dites-lui de ne pas entrer,—que je suis là!(Les seigneurs sortent.)"
You can see well enough, monsieur critic, that Triboulet is not alone when his daughter comes and flings herselfinto his arms,and that if the lords go out,it is not because the king's fool has ordered them out, but because they know how to conduct themselves before the father of Blanche. Instead of being false, as you make out, the scene, on the contrary, is so profoundly wrought that you did not dare to follow it in its deepest wounds; this was an unknown abyss to your comprehension. Oh! monsieur critic, to ply your trade, you must be almost as great as the writer you criticise. Can a Lilliputian analyse a Gulliver?
"At this moment," the critic continues, "the Comte de Saint-Vallier, who is being led to the Bastille, recommences his imprecations against François I., and says—
'Puisque, par votre roi d'outrages abreuvé,Ma malédiction n'a pas encor trouvé,Ici-bas ni là-haut, de voix qui me réponde.Pas une foudre au ciel, pas un bras d'homme au monde,Je n'espère plus rien.—Ce roi prospérera.TRIBOULET,relevant la tête.Comte! vous vous trompez!—Quelqu'un vous vengerai!'"
You see, monsieur critic, you are wrong; M. de Saint-Vallierdoes serve an end.
"The third act is revoltingly immoral!" the critic pursues. "The same disgusting features await us in the fourth act. We see the house of the brigand Saltabadil; a sort of pothouse. The king comes there in the middle of the night; he sits down to table and calls for drink: they bring it him."
"The third act is revoltingly immoral!" the critic pursues. "The same disgusting features await us in the fourth act. We see the house of the brigand Saltabadil; a sort of pothouse. The king comes there in the middle of the night; he sits down to table and calls for drink: they bring it him."
We will let the author reply to the accusation expressed in such beautiful language. If the work is moral in construction, can it be immoral in execution? The question thus put seems to us to answer itself. But let us see. Probably there is nothing immoral in the first or secondact. Is it the situation in the third act which shocks you? Read the third act and tell us if the impression which, in all probability, it produces, is not of profound purity, virtue and rectitude?
"Is it the fourth act? But since when has a king been forbidden to pay court to a public-house servant on the stage? It is no novelty in history, nor in the theatre: history permits us to show you François I. drunk in the kennels of the rue du Pelican. To take a king to a low place is nothing new either: the Greek theatre—the classical one—did it; Shakespeare, who is of the romantic theatre, did it. Very well then, the author of this drama has not done so. He knows all that has been written about the house of Saltabadil; but why make out that he has said what he has not said? Why force him to exceed a limit which is entirely beside the mark, which he has not exceeded? The gipsy Maguelonne so much maligned is surely not bolder than all the Lisettes and Martons of the old-school theatre. Saltabadil's pothouse is a hostelry, a tavern, the tavern de laPomme de pin,a suspected inn and a cut-throat place may be! but not a brothel; it is a sombre, terrible, horrible, fearful place if you like, but it is not an obscene one. There remain details as to style. Read! the author accepts as judges of the strict severity of his style the same persons who are shocked by Juliet's nurse and Ophelia's father, by Beaumarchais and by Regnard, by theÉcole des femmesandAmphitryon,by Dandin and Sganarelle, and by the great scene inTartufe.Tartufe was also accused of immorality, in his time. Only, in this case, when it was necessary to be frank, the author had to do it at his own risk and peril, but always with gravity and restraint; he wished his art to be chaste, but not prudish."
"Is it the fourth act? But since when has a king been forbidden to pay court to a public-house servant on the stage? It is no novelty in history, nor in the theatre: history permits us to show you François I. drunk in the kennels of the rue du Pelican. To take a king to a low place is nothing new either: the Greek theatre—the classical one—did it; Shakespeare, who is of the romantic theatre, did it. Very well then, the author of this drama has not done so. He knows all that has been written about the house of Saltabadil; but why make out that he has said what he has not said? Why force him to exceed a limit which is entirely beside the mark, which he has not exceeded? The gipsy Maguelonne so much maligned is surely not bolder than all the Lisettes and Martons of the old-school theatre. Saltabadil's pothouse is a hostelry, a tavern, the tavern de laPomme de pin,a suspected inn and a cut-throat place may be! but not a brothel; it is a sombre, terrible, horrible, fearful place if you like, but it is not an obscene one. There remain details as to style. Read! the author accepts as judges of the strict severity of his style the same persons who are shocked by Juliet's nurse and Ophelia's father, by Beaumarchais and by Regnard, by theÉcole des femmesandAmphitryon,by Dandin and Sganarelle, and by the great scene inTartufe.Tartufe was also accused of immorality, in his time. Only, in this case, when it was necessary to be frank, the author had to do it at his own risk and peril, but always with gravity and restraint; he wished his art to be chaste, but not prudish."
Let us return to the criticism.[3]
"Saltabadil is to give up the body at midnight. The king, half drunk, is at his house, defenceless and laid down, and it is a quarter to twelve. Maguelonne begs her brother to spare so good looking a young fellow. The brigand refuses, for he is an honest brigand and conductshis trade conscientiously; only, he desires that some one else should appear so that he may kill him and deliver him up in place of the other. Blanche has returned and hears everything; she has been seduced by the king; she does not love him, for he consorts with the most degraded of women. But Blanche will die for him!This is a devotion on the part of a young girl which no one but M. Victor Hugo would have conceived possible...."
"Saltabadil is to give up the body at midnight. The king, half drunk, is at his house, defenceless and laid down, and it is a quarter to twelve. Maguelonne begs her brother to spare so good looking a young fellow. The brigand refuses, for he is an honest brigand and conductshis trade conscientiously; only, he desires that some one else should appear so that he may kill him and deliver him up in place of the other. Blanche has returned and hears everything; she has been seduced by the king; she does not love him, for he consorts with the most degraded of women. But Blanche will die for him!This is a devotion on the part of a young girl which no one but M. Victor Hugo would have conceived possible...."
Why so? Do you mean to say that Victor Hugo is the only one who has a large enough heart to understand such devotion? Then it seems to me that the blame turns singularly into praise.
"Blanche knocks at the door, goes in ... and the curtain falls. Why does not M. Hugo show us the assassination? What is one horror more? In the fifth act, Triboulet comes in front of the pothouse. It is a stormy night; midnight strikes. The brigand then opens his door and drags a sack along the ground containing a dead body. He receives the remainder of the twenty crowns and shuts his door. Triboulet puts his foot on the body, saying—'Ceci, c'est un buffon! et ceci, c'est un roi!'Then he raves over the body and curses it, and struts about and prates of glory, of revolutions and of crowns, and returns to the body and addresses these extraordinary lines to it—'M'entends tu? m'entends-tu? m'entends-tu? m'entends-tu ...'"
"Blanche knocks at the door, goes in ... and the curtain falls. Why does not M. Hugo show us the assassination? What is one horror more? In the fifth act, Triboulet comes in front of the pothouse. It is a stormy night; midnight strikes. The brigand then opens his door and drags a sack along the ground containing a dead body. He receives the remainder of the twenty crowns and shuts his door. Triboulet puts his foot on the body, saying—
'Ceci, c'est un buffon! et ceci, c'est un roi!'
Then he raves over the body and curses it, and struts about and prates of glory, of revolutions and of crowns, and returns to the body and addresses these extraordinary lines to it—
'M'entends tu? m'entends-tu? m'entends-tu? m'entends-tu ...'"
It would, indeed, be very extraordinary if it were thus, but, unfortunately, there is no such line. This is the real line, or, rather these are the lines—
"Je te hais,m'entends-tu? c'est moi, roi gentilhomme;Moi, ce fou, ce bouffon; moi, cette moitié d'homme,Cet animal douteux à qui tu disais: 'Chien!'C'est que, quand la vengeance est en nous, vois-tu bien,Dans le cœur le plus mort, il n'est plus rien qui dorme;Le plus chétif grandit, le plus vil se transforme,L'esclave tirs alors sa haine du fourreau,Et le chat devient tigre, et le bouffon bourreau!'"
Far enough, you will agree, from the line invented by the critic—
"M'entends-tu? m'entends-tu? m'entends-tu? m'entends-tu?"
"Finally," continues our Aristarchus, "after an interminable monologue" (certainly interminable if you have understood all the lines in the same fashion as the one you have quoted, but which, were you a poet, monsieur critic, would seem short to you!),[4]"Triboulet drags the body to him and is going to fling it into the Seine, when a cavalier comes out of the tavern and disappears along the quay. Triboulet has recognised the king; then he tears open the sack, and, by the light of a torch, he recognises his daughter! He calls for help, and torches are brought! Blanche still breathes; they fetch a doctor, but she dies immediately he arrives, and Triboulet falls dead the same instant."Such is this monstrous play, in which history is set at naught, the manners of the times misconstrued, the characters of François I. and of Clément Marot dishonoured and reviled, whereinhardlyany beautiful lines shine to redeem the emptiness of the conception, the absence of clever conduct, the absolute want of interest: where, in short, the horrible and ignoble and immoral are all mixed up together in a chaotic confusion."
"Finally," continues our Aristarchus, "after an interminable monologue" (certainly interminable if you have understood all the lines in the same fashion as the one you have quoted, but which, were you a poet, monsieur critic, would seem short to you!),[4]"Triboulet drags the body to him and is going to fling it into the Seine, when a cavalier comes out of the tavern and disappears along the quay. Triboulet has recognised the king; then he tears open the sack, and, by the light of a torch, he recognises his daughter! He calls for help, and torches are brought! Blanche still breathes; they fetch a doctor, but she dies immediately he arrives, and Triboulet falls dead the same instant.
"Such is this monstrous play, in which history is set at naught, the manners of the times misconstrued, the characters of François I. and of Clément Marot dishonoured and reviled, whereinhardlyany beautiful lines shine to redeem the emptiness of the conception, the absence of clever conduct, the absolute want of interest: where, in short, the horrible and ignoble and immoral are all mixed up together in a chaotic confusion."
Well, monsieur critic, are you satisfied? Are you being well avenged at the expense of the man of genius? Have you trodden his dramas sufficiently under foot, as Triboulet trod on the corpse of the person he thought his enemy? No! You begin your monologue again. Ah! it seems short to you, does it not? because it is one of hatred.[5]Proceed then! the hatred of the petty for the great is not groundless, and at all times, as Triboulet shows us with regard to the king, and as you exhibit with regard to the drama, such hatred ever yearns to slay.
"At the first performance," adds the critic, "a scandal was caused by the crazy andtumultuous admirerswho, at each hiss that was raised, shouted, 'Down with the idiots!Put the brutes out!' It was a large, well-drilled cohort of friends who were sent into the theatre before the proper hour, and they applauded to excess all that the public thought truly disgusting. Notwithstanding this, and in spite of this extraordinaryclaque,the hissing was strong enough for the name of M. Victor Hugo to be flung out amidst the tumult. In spite of this startling failure, a second performance was announced for Thursday. Compared with this,Hernaniis a genuine masterpiece ..." (Ah! monsieur critic, if we had but the time how we would like to read what you said aboutHernani!) "and Boileau's epigram against Corneille might be applied to M. Victor Hugo.
"'Aprèsl'Agésilas,Hélas!Mais, aprèsl'Attila,Holà!'"
Do you not think these four lines of Boileau against the author of theCid,ofCinnaand ofPolyeuctewere among the unworthy things he wrote? But Boileau at least confined himself to denouncing the plays of old Corneille as weak: he did not denounce them to the police as immoral. Then, with great satisfaction, the critic ends up his article in these words—
"We learn to-night that the ministre des travaux publics has given orders to stop the performance of the play."
"We learn to-night that the ministre des travaux publics has given orders to stop the performance of the play."
Now let us follow the drama of our friend Victor Hugo before the Tribunal de Commerce, as we have followed it on the stage of the Théâtre-Richelieu, only let the author himself speak. M. Victor Hugo's prose is much better than mine, consequently my readers will have no ground for complaint.
"The appearance of this drama at the theatre gave rise to an unprecedented ministerial act. The day after the first performance, the author received from M. Jouslin de la Salle, stage manager of the Théâtre-Français, thefollowing note, the original copy of which he preserves most preciously—"'It is half-past ten and I have just received theorderto suspend the performance ofLe Roi s'amuse.M. Taylor has sent me the order on behalf of the Government."'23November.'"The first impulse of the author was to doubt it. The act was arbitrary to the point of incredibility. In fact, what is called theCharte-Véritésays, 'The French have the right ofpublishing...' Note that the text does not merely say theright of printing,but, large and clear, theright of publishing.Now, the theatre is only another means of publication, like the press, like sculpture or lithography. The liberty of the theatre is, therefore, implicitly indited in the Charter with every other form of liberty of thought. The law adds fundamentally, 'The censorship can never be re-established.' Now, the text does not say thecensorship of newspapers or of books,it sayscensorshipin general, all censure, that of the theatres as well as of writings. The theatre cannot, then, henceforth be legally censured."Besides, the Charter says, 'Confiscation is abolished.' Now, the suppression of a theatrical play after representation is not merely a monstrous act of censorship and arbitrariness, it is confiscation out and out, it is the violent robbery of a property belonging to the theatre and the author."Finally, to make all plain and clear, to preserve the four or five great special principles which the French Revolution has cast in bronze intact on their granite pedestals, in order that they cannot surreptitiously attack the common right of the French with forty thousand ancient damaged arms which rust and disuse have eaten away in the arsenal of our laws, the Charter, in a final article, expressly abolishes all that which in laws anterior to it would be contrary to its wording and its spirit. This is explicit. The ministerial suppression of a theatrical play attacks its liberty through the censorship, and its copyright through confiscation. Our whole sense of public right rises in revolt against such a method of procedure. The author, unable to believe in such insolence and folly, rushed to the theatre. There, the fact wasconfirmed, in every particular. The Government had, indeed, notified theorderin question, by its divine right of governance. It had no reasons to offer. It had taken his play, deprived him of his right and seized his property. There was but one thing more to do to the poet—to put him into the Bastille."We repeat, at the time we are living, when such an act comes and bars your way and lays hands on you roughly, the first feeling is one of profound surprise. A thousand questions occur to your mind—Where is justice, where is right? Can such things really happen? Was there, indeed, such a thing as the July Revolution? It is evident we are no longer in Paris! In what pachalic do we live?"The Comédie-Française, stupefied and struck with consternation, wished to try some advances towards the Government to obtain the revocation of this strange decision, but its labour was in vain. The divan, ... I mean the council of ministers, had met during the day. On the 23rd, it was an order from the Government—the same on the 24th. On the 23rd, the play was only suspended; on the 24th, it was definitely forbidden. The theatre was even enjoined to erase the four dreadful words 'Le Roi s'amuse.' The unlucky Théâtre-Français was, moreover, instructed that it was not to complain or to breathe a word. It may be fine, loyal and noble to resist such Asiatic despotism; but theatres dare not do it. The fear of the withdrawal of their privileges makes them serfs and slaves, liable to taxation and statute-labour at the mercy of eunuchs and the dumb."An author should be and remain a stranger to these theatrical proceedings. He, a poet, does not depend upon any Government. His duty as a free writer forbids him to make the entreaties and solicitation he might make if he meanly consulted his own interests. But to ask for grace from a power is to admit that power. Liberty and ownership are not matters for antechamber settlement. A right does not solicit like a favour. For a favour he must beseech the Government; but for a right he appeals to the country. He must, then, go to the country for redress. There are two ways of obtaining justice: public opinion and the law courts. He chose both. The caseis already judged and won in the eyes of public opinion. Here the author must warmly thank all thoughtful and independent persons connected with literature and the arts, who showed him on that occasion many proofs of sympathy and cordiality. He reckoned upon their support in anticipation. He knows that, when it is a question of struggling for liberty of intellect and thought, he will not go singly to battle."Let us say, in passing, that the ruling power, with very mean-spirited calculation, prided itself it would have on that occasion, as its auxiliaries, the literary passions that have for a long period raged round the author. Literary hatreds the author supposed were even more tenacious than political animosities, seeing the former have their root inamour propre,and the latter simply in principles. The Government is mistaken. Its brutal act has disgusted right-thinking men in all camps. There rallied round the author to oppose arbitrariness and injustice those even who a little time before had attacked him the most violently. If, by chance, a few inveterate haters persisted, they have since regretted the momentary support they gave to the Government. Every honourable and loyal man amongst the author's enemies stretched out hands to him, even though ready to begin the literary battle again as soon as the political fight is at an end. In France, whoever he is who is persecuted, his sole enemy is the persecutor."So, now, having settled that the Government's act is detestable, unjustifiable, impossible in right, we will condescend for a moment to discuss it as a material fact, and try to find of what elements it would seem to have been composed. To this end, the first question which presents itself is one which everybody will put—What can be the motive for such a measure?"Certainly, if we deign to condescend for one moment to accept the ridiculous fiction that, in this instance, it is the care of public morals which moves our rulers, and that, shocked by the condition of licence into which certain theatres have fallen during the last six years, they wished at last, urged to extreme measures, to make an example, in the teeth of all laws and rights, of one work and writer, the choice of the work would, it must be confessed, be asingular one, but the choice of the author would be no less strange. In fact, who is the man that this short-sighted power attacks so strangely? A writer so placed that, though his talent may be contested by everybody, his character is called in question by no one. He is a man of avowed, proved and established character, a rare and valuable thing in these days. A poet who was the first to be disgusted with the licence to which the theatres were yielding; who, eighteen months ago, upon the rumour that the inquisition of theatres was going to be illegally re-established, went himself personally, with several other dramatic authors to warn the Government that it ought to guard against such a measure; and who there openly urged for a repressive law to regulate the excesses off the stage, whilst yet protesting against the censorship in such severe words that the Government is very sure not to forget them. He is an artist devoted to art, who has never sought success by ignoble means, who has been accustomed all his life to look the public straight in the face; a sincere and temperate man who has already fought more than one battle for liberty and against despotism; who, in 1829, in the last year of the Restoration, rejected everything which the Government then offered him in compensation for the interdict laid onMarion Delorme,and who, more than a year later, in 1830, after the revolution of July, refused, in spite of the advantages to his material interests, to allow that sameMarion Delormeto be played, because it might have been made the occasion of attack and insult against the fallen king, who had proscribed it; a very simple line of conduct, no doubt, that every man of honour would have followed under similar circumstances, but which, perhaps, might have rendered him henceforth inviolate from all censure, and about which he wrote himself in 1831 as follows: 'Successes gained by hunting out scandals and by making political allusions hardly pleased him.' He admits that 'such success is worth but little and is short-lived. It is precisely when there is no public censorship that authors should criticise one another, honestly and conscientiously. In this way, they will exalt the dignity of art: when people have entire liberty it is desirable to keep within due bounds.'"Now, that the supposed immorality of the drama is reduced to nothing, now that all the display of evil and shameful arguments lies beneath our feet, now is the time to point out the true motive of the measure, the motive behind the scenes in the Court, and the motives they do not give because they dare not admit them among themselves, and therefore have carefully concealed them beneath a pretext. This motive has already transpired among the outside public and the public has guessed it correctly. We will say no more about it. It is probably of service to our cause that we should set our adversaries the example of courtesy and of moderation. It is good that the lesson of dignity and wisdom be set the Government by a private individual, by him who is persecuted to the body which is persecuting him. Though we are not of the number of those who think to cure their own wounds by poisoning the wounds of others, it is but too true that there is, in the third act of this play, a line where the untoward sagacity of some familiars of the palace discovered an allusion (I ask you myself where is this allusion?), of which neither the public nor the author had thought until then, but which, when proclaimed in this fashion, becomes the cruellest and most deadly of insults. It is all too true that this line was enough to cause the order to be given for the playbills of the Théâtre-Français to be taken down, in order that the curiosity of the public should not again be afforded the sight of that little seditious phrase,le Roi s'amuse.We will not quote the line which is such a red rag to a bull; furthermore, we will not point it out unless we are pushed to the last extremity, and people are imprudent enough to make us take our stand upon it in self-defence. We will not revive old historic scandals. We will spare as far as possible an exalted personage the consequences of the thoughtlessness of his courtiers. It is possible to be generous in warfare even to a king. We mean to be so. Only, let those in power consider the inconvenience of having as friend a bear, as it were, who crushes with the pavingstone of censorship the imperceptible allusions which happen to cross their minds. We are not even sure that we do not feel some sympathy for the ministry itself. To tell the truth, the whole thing inspires us with great pity. The Government ofJuly is new-born, it is only thirty months old and still in its infancy, with the puerile passions of childhood. Is it, indeed, worthwhile to spend much virile anger against it? When it is full-grown, then we will see."Meantime, to look at the question for a moment from the individual point of view, the censorial confiscation under consideration perhaps causes more injury to the author of this drama than of any other. In fact, for the fourteen years he has been writing, not one of his works but has had the unfortunate distinction of being chosen as a battlefield upon its appearance, and disappeared after a more or less lengthy period in the dust and smoke and turmoil of a battle. Therefore, when he produces a play for the theatre, the most important thing to him of all, as he cannot expect a quiet audience after the first night, is a series of performances. If it happens on the first day that his voice is drowned in uproar, that his idea is not understood, the following days may correct the first one.Hernanihad fifty-three performances,Marion Delormehad sixty-one;Le Roi s'amuse,thanks to ministerial violence, only had one. The injustice done the author is assuredly great. Who can give him back intact at the point he left off, the third experiment, so important to him? Who can tell him what might have occurred after the first performance? Who can give him back the public of the morrow, a public ordinarily impartial and without friends or enemies, the public which teaches the poet and which the poet instructs?"We are at a curious period of political transition. One of those moments of general lassitude when all kinds of despotic acts are possible in society, even the most advanced ideas of emancipation and of liberty. France advanced rapidly in July 1830; she did three good days' work then; she made three great oases in the field of civilisation and of progress. Now, many are harassed, many are out of breath, many demand a halt. They want to keep back the energetic spirits who are not tired, but still press on; they wish to wait for the laggards who have stopped behind and give them time to catch up. Hence, a strange fear of everything that moves and talks and thinks. It is an odd situation, easily defined. They are all the elements which are afraid of ideas; the league of interests clashingwith the movement of theories begins, and takes fright at systems: the merchant who wants to sell; the street which is frightened of the counting-house; the armed shop on the defensive."In our opinion, the Government takes unfair advantage of this disposition to repose, this fear of fresh revolutions. It has come to petty tyranny. It does wrong towards itself and towards us. If it thinks there is indifference now in people's minds towards liberty of ideas, it is mistaken; it is only lassitude. It will demand severe account some day of all the illegal actions that have been accumulating for some time past. What a dance it has led us! Two years ago, one feared for order; now, one trembles for liberty! Questions of free thought, of intellect and of art are imperiously mowed down by the viziers of the King of the Barricades. It is profoundly sad to see how the revolution of July has ended,mulier formosa supernè."No doubt, if one only considered the slight importance of the work of the author now in question, the ministerial measure which has smitten it down is not a great matter. It is but a malicious little literarycoup d'étatwhose only merit is that of not spoiling the series of arbitrary acts of which it forms a part. But, if we look higher, we see that this affair is not merely one that affects a drama and a poet, but, as we said at first, both liberty and the rights of ownership are involved in the question. Great and serious interests are involved in it, and, although the author be compelled to deal with this important affair by a simple commercial lawsuit at the Théâtre-Français, not being able to attack the Government directly, barricaded behind the principles of non-receivers of State advice, he hopes that his cause will be regarded as a great one in the eyes of all when he takes it to the bar of the Consular tribunal, with liberty in his right hand and proprietorship in his left. He will himself speak of the need for the independence of his art. He will plead his right resolutely with gravity and simplicity, without personal animosity, and yet, at the same time, fearlessly. He counts upon the concurrence of all, upon the free and cordial support of the press, on the justice of opinion and on the equity of the courts. He has no doubt he will besuccessful. The state of siege will be raised in literary precincts as in political."When that is done, and he has secured his liberty as poet and as citizen intact, inviolable and sacred, he will peaceably return to his life's work, from which he has been violently torn away, which he would like never to have had to leave. He has his duty to do, he knows, and nothing will distract him from it. For the moment, the political rôle has come to him: he has not sought it out, but he accepts it. Surely the power which attacks us will not have gained much, in forcing us who are artists to quit our conscientious, tranquil, honest, serious task, our sacred task, a task which belongs to the past and to the future, in order to mix ourselves indignant and angry with the irreverent and scoffing audience which, for the last fifteen years, has watched the various poor devils of political bunglers as they pass by hooting and whistling, thinking they are building up a social edifice because they go daily, at great trouble to themselves, sweating and panting, to cart heaps of legal schemes from the Tuileries to the Palais-Bourbon and from the Palais-Bourbon to the Luxembourg!30November1832."
"The appearance of this drama at the theatre gave rise to an unprecedented ministerial act. The day after the first performance, the author received from M. Jouslin de la Salle, stage manager of the Théâtre-Français, thefollowing note, the original copy of which he preserves most preciously—
"'It is half-past ten and I have just received theorderto suspend the performance ofLe Roi s'amuse.M. Taylor has sent me the order on behalf of the Government.
"'23November.'
"The first impulse of the author was to doubt it. The act was arbitrary to the point of incredibility. In fact, what is called theCharte-Véritésays, 'The French have the right ofpublishing...' Note that the text does not merely say theright of printing,but, large and clear, theright of publishing.Now, the theatre is only another means of publication, like the press, like sculpture or lithography. The liberty of the theatre is, therefore, implicitly indited in the Charter with every other form of liberty of thought. The law adds fundamentally, 'The censorship can never be re-established.' Now, the text does not say thecensorship of newspapers or of books,it sayscensorshipin general, all censure, that of the theatres as well as of writings. The theatre cannot, then, henceforth be legally censured.
"Besides, the Charter says, 'Confiscation is abolished.' Now, the suppression of a theatrical play after representation is not merely a monstrous act of censorship and arbitrariness, it is confiscation out and out, it is the violent robbery of a property belonging to the theatre and the author.
"Finally, to make all plain and clear, to preserve the four or five great special principles which the French Revolution has cast in bronze intact on their granite pedestals, in order that they cannot surreptitiously attack the common right of the French with forty thousand ancient damaged arms which rust and disuse have eaten away in the arsenal of our laws, the Charter, in a final article, expressly abolishes all that which in laws anterior to it would be contrary to its wording and its spirit. This is explicit. The ministerial suppression of a theatrical play attacks its liberty through the censorship, and its copyright through confiscation. Our whole sense of public right rises in revolt against such a method of procedure. The author, unable to believe in such insolence and folly, rushed to the theatre. There, the fact wasconfirmed, in every particular. The Government had, indeed, notified theorderin question, by its divine right of governance. It had no reasons to offer. It had taken his play, deprived him of his right and seized his property. There was but one thing more to do to the poet—to put him into the Bastille.
"We repeat, at the time we are living, when such an act comes and bars your way and lays hands on you roughly, the first feeling is one of profound surprise. A thousand questions occur to your mind—Where is justice, where is right? Can such things really happen? Was there, indeed, such a thing as the July Revolution? It is evident we are no longer in Paris! In what pachalic do we live?
"The Comédie-Française, stupefied and struck with consternation, wished to try some advances towards the Government to obtain the revocation of this strange decision, but its labour was in vain. The divan, ... I mean the council of ministers, had met during the day. On the 23rd, it was an order from the Government—the same on the 24th. On the 23rd, the play was only suspended; on the 24th, it was definitely forbidden. The theatre was even enjoined to erase the four dreadful words 'Le Roi s'amuse.' The unlucky Théâtre-Français was, moreover, instructed that it was not to complain or to breathe a word. It may be fine, loyal and noble to resist such Asiatic despotism; but theatres dare not do it. The fear of the withdrawal of their privileges makes them serfs and slaves, liable to taxation and statute-labour at the mercy of eunuchs and the dumb.
"An author should be and remain a stranger to these theatrical proceedings. He, a poet, does not depend upon any Government. His duty as a free writer forbids him to make the entreaties and solicitation he might make if he meanly consulted his own interests. But to ask for grace from a power is to admit that power. Liberty and ownership are not matters for antechamber settlement. A right does not solicit like a favour. For a favour he must beseech the Government; but for a right he appeals to the country. He must, then, go to the country for redress. There are two ways of obtaining justice: public opinion and the law courts. He chose both. The caseis already judged and won in the eyes of public opinion. Here the author must warmly thank all thoughtful and independent persons connected with literature and the arts, who showed him on that occasion many proofs of sympathy and cordiality. He reckoned upon their support in anticipation. He knows that, when it is a question of struggling for liberty of intellect and thought, he will not go singly to battle.
"Let us say, in passing, that the ruling power, with very mean-spirited calculation, prided itself it would have on that occasion, as its auxiliaries, the literary passions that have for a long period raged round the author. Literary hatreds the author supposed were even more tenacious than political animosities, seeing the former have their root inamour propre,and the latter simply in principles. The Government is mistaken. Its brutal act has disgusted right-thinking men in all camps. There rallied round the author to oppose arbitrariness and injustice those even who a little time before had attacked him the most violently. If, by chance, a few inveterate haters persisted, they have since regretted the momentary support they gave to the Government. Every honourable and loyal man amongst the author's enemies stretched out hands to him, even though ready to begin the literary battle again as soon as the political fight is at an end. In France, whoever he is who is persecuted, his sole enemy is the persecutor.
"So, now, having settled that the Government's act is detestable, unjustifiable, impossible in right, we will condescend for a moment to discuss it as a material fact, and try to find of what elements it would seem to have been composed. To this end, the first question which presents itself is one which everybody will put—What can be the motive for such a measure?
"Certainly, if we deign to condescend for one moment to accept the ridiculous fiction that, in this instance, it is the care of public morals which moves our rulers, and that, shocked by the condition of licence into which certain theatres have fallen during the last six years, they wished at last, urged to extreme measures, to make an example, in the teeth of all laws and rights, of one work and writer, the choice of the work would, it must be confessed, be asingular one, but the choice of the author would be no less strange. In fact, who is the man that this short-sighted power attacks so strangely? A writer so placed that, though his talent may be contested by everybody, his character is called in question by no one. He is a man of avowed, proved and established character, a rare and valuable thing in these days. A poet who was the first to be disgusted with the licence to which the theatres were yielding; who, eighteen months ago, upon the rumour that the inquisition of theatres was going to be illegally re-established, went himself personally, with several other dramatic authors to warn the Government that it ought to guard against such a measure; and who there openly urged for a repressive law to regulate the excesses off the stage, whilst yet protesting against the censorship in such severe words that the Government is very sure not to forget them. He is an artist devoted to art, who has never sought success by ignoble means, who has been accustomed all his life to look the public straight in the face; a sincere and temperate man who has already fought more than one battle for liberty and against despotism; who, in 1829, in the last year of the Restoration, rejected everything which the Government then offered him in compensation for the interdict laid onMarion Delorme,and who, more than a year later, in 1830, after the revolution of July, refused, in spite of the advantages to his material interests, to allow that sameMarion Delormeto be played, because it might have been made the occasion of attack and insult against the fallen king, who had proscribed it; a very simple line of conduct, no doubt, that every man of honour would have followed under similar circumstances, but which, perhaps, might have rendered him henceforth inviolate from all censure, and about which he wrote himself in 1831 as follows: 'Successes gained by hunting out scandals and by making political allusions hardly pleased him.' He admits that 'such success is worth but little and is short-lived. It is precisely when there is no public censorship that authors should criticise one another, honestly and conscientiously. In this way, they will exalt the dignity of art: when people have entire liberty it is desirable to keep within due bounds.'
"Now, that the supposed immorality of the drama is reduced to nothing, now that all the display of evil and shameful arguments lies beneath our feet, now is the time to point out the true motive of the measure, the motive behind the scenes in the Court, and the motives they do not give because they dare not admit them among themselves, and therefore have carefully concealed them beneath a pretext. This motive has already transpired among the outside public and the public has guessed it correctly. We will say no more about it. It is probably of service to our cause that we should set our adversaries the example of courtesy and of moderation. It is good that the lesson of dignity and wisdom be set the Government by a private individual, by him who is persecuted to the body which is persecuting him. Though we are not of the number of those who think to cure their own wounds by poisoning the wounds of others, it is but too true that there is, in the third act of this play, a line where the untoward sagacity of some familiars of the palace discovered an allusion (I ask you myself where is this allusion?), of which neither the public nor the author had thought until then, but which, when proclaimed in this fashion, becomes the cruellest and most deadly of insults. It is all too true that this line was enough to cause the order to be given for the playbills of the Théâtre-Français to be taken down, in order that the curiosity of the public should not again be afforded the sight of that little seditious phrase,le Roi s'amuse.We will not quote the line which is such a red rag to a bull; furthermore, we will not point it out unless we are pushed to the last extremity, and people are imprudent enough to make us take our stand upon it in self-defence. We will not revive old historic scandals. We will spare as far as possible an exalted personage the consequences of the thoughtlessness of his courtiers. It is possible to be generous in warfare even to a king. We mean to be so. Only, let those in power consider the inconvenience of having as friend a bear, as it were, who crushes with the pavingstone of censorship the imperceptible allusions which happen to cross their minds. We are not even sure that we do not feel some sympathy for the ministry itself. To tell the truth, the whole thing inspires us with great pity. The Government ofJuly is new-born, it is only thirty months old and still in its infancy, with the puerile passions of childhood. Is it, indeed, worthwhile to spend much virile anger against it? When it is full-grown, then we will see.
"Meantime, to look at the question for a moment from the individual point of view, the censorial confiscation under consideration perhaps causes more injury to the author of this drama than of any other. In fact, for the fourteen years he has been writing, not one of his works but has had the unfortunate distinction of being chosen as a battlefield upon its appearance, and disappeared after a more or less lengthy period in the dust and smoke and turmoil of a battle. Therefore, when he produces a play for the theatre, the most important thing to him of all, as he cannot expect a quiet audience after the first night, is a series of performances. If it happens on the first day that his voice is drowned in uproar, that his idea is not understood, the following days may correct the first one.Hernanihad fifty-three performances,Marion Delormehad sixty-one;Le Roi s'amuse,thanks to ministerial violence, only had one. The injustice done the author is assuredly great. Who can give him back intact at the point he left off, the third experiment, so important to him? Who can tell him what might have occurred after the first performance? Who can give him back the public of the morrow, a public ordinarily impartial and without friends or enemies, the public which teaches the poet and which the poet instructs?
"We are at a curious period of political transition. One of those moments of general lassitude when all kinds of despotic acts are possible in society, even the most advanced ideas of emancipation and of liberty. France advanced rapidly in July 1830; she did three good days' work then; she made three great oases in the field of civilisation and of progress. Now, many are harassed, many are out of breath, many demand a halt. They want to keep back the energetic spirits who are not tired, but still press on; they wish to wait for the laggards who have stopped behind and give them time to catch up. Hence, a strange fear of everything that moves and talks and thinks. It is an odd situation, easily defined. They are all the elements which are afraid of ideas; the league of interests clashingwith the movement of theories begins, and takes fright at systems: the merchant who wants to sell; the street which is frightened of the counting-house; the armed shop on the defensive.
"In our opinion, the Government takes unfair advantage of this disposition to repose, this fear of fresh revolutions. It has come to petty tyranny. It does wrong towards itself and towards us. If it thinks there is indifference now in people's minds towards liberty of ideas, it is mistaken; it is only lassitude. It will demand severe account some day of all the illegal actions that have been accumulating for some time past. What a dance it has led us! Two years ago, one feared for order; now, one trembles for liberty! Questions of free thought, of intellect and of art are imperiously mowed down by the viziers of the King of the Barricades. It is profoundly sad to see how the revolution of July has ended,mulier formosa supernè.
"No doubt, if one only considered the slight importance of the work of the author now in question, the ministerial measure which has smitten it down is not a great matter. It is but a malicious little literarycoup d'étatwhose only merit is that of not spoiling the series of arbitrary acts of which it forms a part. But, if we look higher, we see that this affair is not merely one that affects a drama and a poet, but, as we said at first, both liberty and the rights of ownership are involved in the question. Great and serious interests are involved in it, and, although the author be compelled to deal with this important affair by a simple commercial lawsuit at the Théâtre-Français, not being able to attack the Government directly, barricaded behind the principles of non-receivers of State advice, he hopes that his cause will be regarded as a great one in the eyes of all when he takes it to the bar of the Consular tribunal, with liberty in his right hand and proprietorship in his left. He will himself speak of the need for the independence of his art. He will plead his right resolutely with gravity and simplicity, without personal animosity, and yet, at the same time, fearlessly. He counts upon the concurrence of all, upon the free and cordial support of the press, on the justice of opinion and on the equity of the courts. He has no doubt he will besuccessful. The state of siege will be raised in literary precincts as in political.
"When that is done, and he has secured his liberty as poet and as citizen intact, inviolable and sacred, he will peaceably return to his life's work, from which he has been violently torn away, which he would like never to have had to leave. He has his duty to do, he knows, and nothing will distract him from it. For the moment, the political rôle has come to him: he has not sought it out, but he accepts it. Surely the power which attacks us will not have gained much, in forcing us who are artists to quit our conscientious, tranquil, honest, serious task, our sacred task, a task which belongs to the past and to the future, in order to mix ourselves indignant and angry with the irreverent and scoffing audience which, for the last fifteen years, has watched the various poor devils of political bunglers as they pass by hooting and whistling, thinking they are building up a social edifice because they go daily, at great trouble to themselves, sweating and panting, to cart heaps of legal schemes from the Tuileries to the Palais-Bourbon and from the Palais-Bourbon to the Luxembourg!
30November1832."
On 19 December 1832, the matter came before the Tribunal de Commerce. All the artist world of Paris gathered together in the Salle de la Bourse, surprised to find itself in such good company. After his barrister had spoken, Victor Hugo rose and made the following speech:—
"Gentlemen, after the eloquent orator[6]who so generously lends me the powerful assistance of his speech, I should have nothing to say if I did not believe it my duty not to let pass the daring, culpable act which has violated our public rights through my person without a solemn and serious protest. This is not an ordinary cause, gentlemen. It seems to some persons, at the first glance, to be only a simple commercial action, a claim for indemnity for the non-execution of a private contract—in a word, simply the lawsuit of an author against a theatre. No, gentlemen, it is more than that, it is the lawsuit of acitizen against a government. The basis of this matter is a play forbiddenby order; now, a play forbidden by order is censorship and the Charter abolished censorship; a play forbidden by order is confiscation. Your sentence, if favourable to me, and, it seems to me, I do you wrong to doubt it, will be to lay the blame manifestly, although indirectly, at the door of censorship and confiscation."You see, gentlemen, how the horizon of this cause lifts and widens. I plead here for something higher than my own interest, I plead for my rights in general, for my right to think, and to possess, that is to say, for the common right due to all. Mine is a general cause, as is absolute equity yours. The minor details of the case are lost sight of before the question thus put. I am not simply a writer, you are not merely consular judges. Your conscience confronts mine. At this tribunal, you represent a great idea, and I, at the bar, stand for another. Your seat is justice; mine, liberty. Now, justice and liberty are made to be heard. Liberty is right, and justice is free."This is not the first time that M. Odilon Barrot has told you before me, gentlemen, that the Tribunal of Commerce has been called upon to condemn, without departing from its jurisdiction, the arbitrary acts of those in authority. The first tribunal to declare the ordinances of 25 July 1830 illegal has been forgotten by no one, it was the Tribunal of Commerce. You, gentlemen, will follow that memorable precedent, and, although the question is much smaller, you will uphold right to-day as you upheld it then; you will, I hope, listen to what I have to say to you with sympathy; you will warn the Government by your sentence, that it is on a bad path, and is wrong to degrade art and thought; you will give me back my rights and property; you will brand the police and censorship on the brow, who came by night to steal my liberty and my property from me by breaking the Charter."What I say here I say without anger, the reparation I demand of you I ask with due gravity and moderation. God forbid I should spoil the beauty and rectitude of my cause by violent words! He who has right on his side has strength, and the strong scorn violence."Yes, gentlemen, right is on my side. M. Odilon Barrot's admirable argument has victoriously proved toyou that the ministerial act which has forbiddenLe Roi s'amuse,is arbitrary, illegal and unconstitutional. It is in vain for them to attempt to revive a law of the Reign of Terror by attributing the censorship to authority, a law which commands in clear terms the theatres to play the tragedies ofBrutusand ofWilhelm Tellthree times per week, only to give republican plays, and to stop representations of all work which tends, I quote word for word, 'to deprave the public mind and to awaken the shameful superstition of royalty.' Gentlemen, dare the actual supporters of the new royalty indeed invoke such a law, and invoke it againstLe Roi s'amuse? Is it not evidently abrogated in its text as in its spirit? Made for the Terror, it died with the Terror. Is it not the same with all imperious decrees by which, forsooth, officials will have the right not merely to censure theatrical works, but the power of sending an author to prison according to its own good pleasure without trial? Do such things exist nowadays? Was not all this irregular and haphazard legislation solemnly done away with by the Charter of 1830? We appeal to the solemn oath of 9 August. The France of July did not reckon for either conventional or imperial despotism. The Charter of 1830 did not allow itself to be gagged either by 1807 or by '93."Liberty of thought in all its various methods of expression, at the theatre as in the press, in the pulpit as in the tribune, there, gentlemen, lies one of the fundamental principles of our public rights. No doubt each of these modes of expression needs an organic law in accord with the fundamental law, a law of good faith, repressive but not preventive, which, leaving each career at liberty, shall imprison licence under strict penal laws. The theatre in particular as a public place, we are anxious to declare, does not know how to protect itself from the legal surveillance of the municipal authority. Well, gentlemen, this law, easier to make, probably, than is commonly supposed, which each of us dramatic poets has probably constructed in his own mind more than once, is wanting, and is not created. Our ministers, who produce year in year out from seventy to eighty laws per session, have not deemed it fitting to make such a one as this. A law for theatres did not seem urgentlyneeded. Not urgent, when it concerns the liberty of thought, the progress of civilisation, public morality, the reputation of families, the tranquillity of Paris, which means that of France, and, indeed, the tranquillity of Europe itself!"A law affecting the liberty of theatres ought to have been proclaimed since 1830, in the spirit of the new Charter, but it is still wanting, I repeat, through the fault of the Government. Past legislation has evidently fallen away, and all the sophistries with which they plaster its ruins will not build it up again. So, between a law which no longer exists and one which is still needed, the authorities do not possess the right to stop a play at a theatre. I will not linger over what M. Odilon Barrot has demonstrated so supremely well."Here an objection of secondary importance arises which I am, however, going to discuss. True, such a law is needed, people will say, but in the absence of legislation, ought authority to be completely defenceless? Might there not appear suddenly on the stage one of those infamous pieces—evidently made on purpose to make money and scandal—where all that is sacred in religion and morality and in the heart of man is insolently scoffed at and ridiculed; where all that goes to make the peace of family life and of citizenship is held up to question; where even living personages are pilloried on the stage amidst the hootings of the multitude? Do not State reasons lay upon the Government the duty of closing the theatre to such monstrous work, in spite of the silence of law? I do not know, gentlemen, if such a type of work has even been produced, and I do not wish to know, or to believe it, and I will not accept here, in any degree whatever, the task of denouncing them; but, even in such a case, I declare, whilst deploring the scandal caused, and realising that others would advise the State to stop works of this kind immediately, and at once to demand the Chambers for a bill of indemnity, I would not relax the strictness of the principle. I would say to the Government: See the consequences of your negligence to create a law so pressingly needed as a law affecting theatrical liberty! You have done this wrong, repair it and hasten to ask the Chambers for penal legislation, and, meantime, pursuethe guilty drama with the code of the press, which, until special laws be made will, in my opinion, rule all public fashions. I say, in my opinion, for this is but my own personal view. My illustrious defender would, I know, only allow liberty to theatres with greater restrictions than I should; I speak here not with the opinion of a lawyer, but with the simple common sense of the citizen; if I am wrong, do not let my words be laid to the account of my defender, but at my own door solely. I repeat it, gentlemen, I would not relax the strictness of the principle; I would not grant the ruling authorities the power to confiscate liberty even in a case, apparently, where it was legitimate, for fear a day would come when it would confiscate it in all cases; I think that to repress scandal by arbitration is to create two scandals in place of one, and I say with an eloquent and serious-minded man who must shudder to-day at the way in which his disciples apply his doctrines: 'Il n'y a pas de droit au-dessus du droit' ('There is no right over right')."Now, gentlemen, if such an abuse of power, exercised even upon a licentious, impudent or defamatory work would have been inexcusable, how much more so when it fastens upon a work of pure art, when it picks out for proscription among all the plays which have been produced for the last two years, a serious composition, strict in its morality? And that is precisely what the left-handed power which governs us has done in stoppingLe Roi s'amuse.M. Odilon Barrot has proved to you that it has acted without justice; I will prove that it has acted without reason."The motives that those who are in with the police have been whispering abroad for some days to explain the prohibition of this play are of three kinds: there is the moral reason, the political reason and—we must say the words though they be laughable—the literary reason. Vergil relates that several ingredients went to make up the thunder which Vulcan made for Jupiter. The petty ministerial thunder which has struck my play, which the censorship had forged for the police, is made up of three bad reasons rolled up, intermingled and united,très imbris torti radios."There is, first of all, or, rather, there was, the moralreason. Yes, gentlemen, I swear it, because it seems incredible, the police made out at first thatLe Roi s'amusewas, I quote the actual expression, 'animmoral play.' I have already silenced the police on that point. In publishingLe Roi s'amuse,I declared openly, not for the benefit of the police, but for those honourable men who wished to read me, that the drama was profoundly and strictly moral. No one has disbelieved me and no one will, it is my profound conviction as an honest man. All the precautions the police for a time succeeded in raising against the morality of this work have disappeared at the time I am now speaking. Four thousand copies of the book issued to the public have pleaded this trial in their own way, and these four thousand advocates have won their cause. In such a matter, also, an affirmative is sufficient; I shall not, therefore, enter upon a superfluous discussion. Only, for the sake of the future as well as the past, I would have the police to know, once for all, that I do not write immoral works. Let this be taken as conclusive, for I shall not return to it again."After the moral argument there comes the political. Here, gentlemen, as I can only express the same ideas in other terms, allow me to quote you a page from the preface I put to the drama ..." (We have ourselves laid that page of preface before our readers.)[7]"After moral and political reasons, come the literary. A Government stopping a play for literary reasons is a strange thing, but it is not, however, without foundation. You remember—if by chance it was worth your trouble to remember it—that, in 1829, at the period when the first works calledromanticappeared upon the stage, about the time when the Comédie-Française receivedMarion Delorme,a petition signed by seven persons was presented to King Charles X. to demand that the Théâtre-Français be closed by the king, simply to the works of what was called theNew School.Charles took it laughingly, and replied wittily that in literary questions he had onlyhis placein thepit of the theatrelike the rest of us. The petition collapsed beneath ridicule. Well, gentlemen, to-day many of the signers of this petition are deputies, influential deputies belonging to the majority,having a share in the governmental powers and voting for the budget. What they timidly petitioned for in 1829, they are able, all-powerful as they are, to carry out in 1832."Public rumour, in fact, says that it was they who, the day after the first performance, approached the minister at the Chamber of Deputies and obtained a promise from him under the most moral and politic excuses imaginable, thatLe Roi s'amuseshould be stopped. The minister, an ingenuous, innocent and candid man, bravely took up the challenge; he could not distinguish beneath all those wrappings the direct and personal animosity; he believed he was performing a political proscription. I am sorry for him, they made him execute a literary proscription. I will not say more on this point.... It inspires me with infinitely less anger than pity; it is odd, that is all. The Government lending assistance to the Academy in 1832! Aristotle become the law of the State once more! An imperceptible literary revolution being carried on at the brink of, and in the midst of, our great political revolutions! The deputies who deposed Charles X. working in a tiny corner to restore Boileau! How despicable!..."Gentlemen, I will sum up. By stopping my play, the Government has not, on the one hand, an article of law to quote from; on the other, not a single valuable reason to give. This measure has two aspects, both equally bad: as law, it is arbitrary; as reasoning, it is absurd. What, then, can the power which has neither reason nor law on its side allege as its motives? Its caprice, fancy, desire —that is to say, nothing!"You will do justice, gentlemen, to that desire, fancy, caprice. Your sentence, by giving me the case, will inform the country of this business—which is but small as compared with the greatness of the ordinance of July—whatforce majeurethere is in France besides that of the law, and that at the basis of this trial there is an illegal order which the Government did wrong to issue, and the theatre was wrong to obey; your sentence will teach the powers that its very friends blame it candidly on this occasion; that the rights of every citizen are to be respected by all Governments, that, given the conditions of order and of general safety are fulfilled, the theatre ought to be respected like other means of expression of publicthought, and that, whether it be the press, the tribune or the theatre, none of the loopholes for the escape of liberty of intellect can be closed without peril. I address myself to you with profound faith in the worthiness of my cause. I shall never be afraid under similar occasions of grappling with a ministry hand to hand; the law courts are the natural judges of honourable duels of pure right against arbitrary dealings, duels less unequal than people think; for if, on the one side, there is a whole Government, and, on the other, only a simple citizen, that simple citizen is, indeed, strong when he can bring an illegal act before your bar, ashamed of being thus exposed to public view and public scourging, and confronting it as I am doing with four articles from the Charter!"I do not, however, disguise from myself that the present time is not like the latter years of the Restoration, when resistance to the encroachments of the Government was so much applauded and so popular. The ideas of stability and of authority are momentarily more in favour than those of progress and of freedom. It is a natural reaction after that rough revival of all our liberty at a rush styled the Revolution of 1830. But this reaction will not last long. Our ministers will some day be surprised by the implacable memory with which the men even who compose their majority then will recall all the grievances they seem to have forgotten so quickly to-day; moreover, let that day be late or soon in coming it will not matter: on that score I neither look for applause nor fear invective; I have but followed the strict monitions of my right and my duty."I ought to say here that I have strong reasons for believing that the Government will take advantage of this fleeting torpor of the public mind formally to reestablish the censorship, and my affair is but a prelude, a preparation, a step to a putting of all theatrical liberty outside general laws. By not making a repressive law, by purposely letting licence have free scope on the stage for the past two years, the Government imagines it has created, in the opinion of respectable men, who might be disgusted with that licence, a prejudice in favour of dramatic censorship. In my opinion it is mistaken, and the censorship will never be anything else in Francethan an unpopular and illegal proceeding. As far as I myself am concerned, whether the censorship of the theatres he re-established by an illegal decree or an unconstitutional law, I declare I will never submit to such an act of authority without protesting; and I make such a protest solemnly now and here both for the present and for the future."Further, observe how wanting in greatness, openness and courage the Government has been in the series of arbitrary acts which have succeeded one another for some time past. It has slowly, subterraneously, surreptitiously, indirectly, tortuously undermined the beautiful though incomplete edifice which the revolution of July had reared. It always took us treacherously from behind when we least expected. It dared not censure my play before the representation; it stopped it the following day. It attacks our most vital liberties; it cavils at our best attained efforts; it bases its despotism on a heap of ancient worm-eaten and repealed laws; it lies in wait to rob us of our rights in that Forest of Bondy of imperial decrees, through which liberty never passes without being stripped...."I say it is for the probity of the law courts to stop its course, which is as dangerous to it as to us. I say that the ruling power is specially wanting in greatness and courage by the underhand manner in which it has performed this hazardous operation, which each Government in strange blindness attempts in its turn, and which consists in substituting, more or less rapidly, arbitrariness for the constitution, despotism for liberty.[8]... If it only continues for some time longer in this way, if the proposed laws are adopted, the confiscation of all our rights will be complete. To-day, they take away my liberty as a poet by censure: to-morrow, they will take away my liberty as a citizen by a gendarme; to-day, they banish me from the theatre: to-morrow, they will banish me from the country; to-day, they stop my mouth: to-morrow, they will transport me; to-day, the state of siege is in literature: to-morrow, it will be in citizenship; in liberties, guarantees, charters, public rights, in a word, annihilation!"If the Government be not better advised by its owninterests to stop at the precipice while there is yet time, before long we shall have all the despotism of 1807 without its glory: we shall have the Empire without the Emperor. I have only a word more to say, gentlemen, and I desire it may be in your mind whilst you are deciding. There has been in this century but one great man, Napoleon, and but one great thing, liberty! The great man is no more with us, let us try to have the great thing.V. HUGO."
"Gentlemen, after the eloquent orator[6]who so generously lends me the powerful assistance of his speech, I should have nothing to say if I did not believe it my duty not to let pass the daring, culpable act which has violated our public rights through my person without a solemn and serious protest. This is not an ordinary cause, gentlemen. It seems to some persons, at the first glance, to be only a simple commercial action, a claim for indemnity for the non-execution of a private contract—in a word, simply the lawsuit of an author against a theatre. No, gentlemen, it is more than that, it is the lawsuit of acitizen against a government. The basis of this matter is a play forbiddenby order; now, a play forbidden by order is censorship and the Charter abolished censorship; a play forbidden by order is confiscation. Your sentence, if favourable to me, and, it seems to me, I do you wrong to doubt it, will be to lay the blame manifestly, although indirectly, at the door of censorship and confiscation.
"You see, gentlemen, how the horizon of this cause lifts and widens. I plead here for something higher than my own interest, I plead for my rights in general, for my right to think, and to possess, that is to say, for the common right due to all. Mine is a general cause, as is absolute equity yours. The minor details of the case are lost sight of before the question thus put. I am not simply a writer, you are not merely consular judges. Your conscience confronts mine. At this tribunal, you represent a great idea, and I, at the bar, stand for another. Your seat is justice; mine, liberty. Now, justice and liberty are made to be heard. Liberty is right, and justice is free.
"This is not the first time that M. Odilon Barrot has told you before me, gentlemen, that the Tribunal of Commerce has been called upon to condemn, without departing from its jurisdiction, the arbitrary acts of those in authority. The first tribunal to declare the ordinances of 25 July 1830 illegal has been forgotten by no one, it was the Tribunal of Commerce. You, gentlemen, will follow that memorable precedent, and, although the question is much smaller, you will uphold right to-day as you upheld it then; you will, I hope, listen to what I have to say to you with sympathy; you will warn the Government by your sentence, that it is on a bad path, and is wrong to degrade art and thought; you will give me back my rights and property; you will brand the police and censorship on the brow, who came by night to steal my liberty and my property from me by breaking the Charter.
"What I say here I say without anger, the reparation I demand of you I ask with due gravity and moderation. God forbid I should spoil the beauty and rectitude of my cause by violent words! He who has right on his side has strength, and the strong scorn violence.
"Yes, gentlemen, right is on my side. M. Odilon Barrot's admirable argument has victoriously proved toyou that the ministerial act which has forbiddenLe Roi s'amuse,is arbitrary, illegal and unconstitutional. It is in vain for them to attempt to revive a law of the Reign of Terror by attributing the censorship to authority, a law which commands in clear terms the theatres to play the tragedies ofBrutusand ofWilhelm Tellthree times per week, only to give republican plays, and to stop representations of all work which tends, I quote word for word, 'to deprave the public mind and to awaken the shameful superstition of royalty.' Gentlemen, dare the actual supporters of the new royalty indeed invoke such a law, and invoke it againstLe Roi s'amuse? Is it not evidently abrogated in its text as in its spirit? Made for the Terror, it died with the Terror. Is it not the same with all imperious decrees by which, forsooth, officials will have the right not merely to censure theatrical works, but the power of sending an author to prison according to its own good pleasure without trial? Do such things exist nowadays? Was not all this irregular and haphazard legislation solemnly done away with by the Charter of 1830? We appeal to the solemn oath of 9 August. The France of July did not reckon for either conventional or imperial despotism. The Charter of 1830 did not allow itself to be gagged either by 1807 or by '93.
"Liberty of thought in all its various methods of expression, at the theatre as in the press, in the pulpit as in the tribune, there, gentlemen, lies one of the fundamental principles of our public rights. No doubt each of these modes of expression needs an organic law in accord with the fundamental law, a law of good faith, repressive but not preventive, which, leaving each career at liberty, shall imprison licence under strict penal laws. The theatre in particular as a public place, we are anxious to declare, does not know how to protect itself from the legal surveillance of the municipal authority. Well, gentlemen, this law, easier to make, probably, than is commonly supposed, which each of us dramatic poets has probably constructed in his own mind more than once, is wanting, and is not created. Our ministers, who produce year in year out from seventy to eighty laws per session, have not deemed it fitting to make such a one as this. A law for theatres did not seem urgentlyneeded. Not urgent, when it concerns the liberty of thought, the progress of civilisation, public morality, the reputation of families, the tranquillity of Paris, which means that of France, and, indeed, the tranquillity of Europe itself!
"A law affecting the liberty of theatres ought to have been proclaimed since 1830, in the spirit of the new Charter, but it is still wanting, I repeat, through the fault of the Government. Past legislation has evidently fallen away, and all the sophistries with which they plaster its ruins will not build it up again. So, between a law which no longer exists and one which is still needed, the authorities do not possess the right to stop a play at a theatre. I will not linger over what M. Odilon Barrot has demonstrated so supremely well.
"Here an objection of secondary importance arises which I am, however, going to discuss. True, such a law is needed, people will say, but in the absence of legislation, ought authority to be completely defenceless? Might there not appear suddenly on the stage one of those infamous pieces—evidently made on purpose to make money and scandal—where all that is sacred in religion and morality and in the heart of man is insolently scoffed at and ridiculed; where all that goes to make the peace of family life and of citizenship is held up to question; where even living personages are pilloried on the stage amidst the hootings of the multitude? Do not State reasons lay upon the Government the duty of closing the theatre to such monstrous work, in spite of the silence of law? I do not know, gentlemen, if such a type of work has even been produced, and I do not wish to know, or to believe it, and I will not accept here, in any degree whatever, the task of denouncing them; but, even in such a case, I declare, whilst deploring the scandal caused, and realising that others would advise the State to stop works of this kind immediately, and at once to demand the Chambers for a bill of indemnity, I would not relax the strictness of the principle. I would say to the Government: See the consequences of your negligence to create a law so pressingly needed as a law affecting theatrical liberty! You have done this wrong, repair it and hasten to ask the Chambers for penal legislation, and, meantime, pursuethe guilty drama with the code of the press, which, until special laws be made will, in my opinion, rule all public fashions. I say, in my opinion, for this is but my own personal view. My illustrious defender would, I know, only allow liberty to theatres with greater restrictions than I should; I speak here not with the opinion of a lawyer, but with the simple common sense of the citizen; if I am wrong, do not let my words be laid to the account of my defender, but at my own door solely. I repeat it, gentlemen, I would not relax the strictness of the principle; I would not grant the ruling authorities the power to confiscate liberty even in a case, apparently, where it was legitimate, for fear a day would come when it would confiscate it in all cases; I think that to repress scandal by arbitration is to create two scandals in place of one, and I say with an eloquent and serious-minded man who must shudder to-day at the way in which his disciples apply his doctrines: 'Il n'y a pas de droit au-dessus du droit' ('There is no right over right').
"Now, gentlemen, if such an abuse of power, exercised even upon a licentious, impudent or defamatory work would have been inexcusable, how much more so when it fastens upon a work of pure art, when it picks out for proscription among all the plays which have been produced for the last two years, a serious composition, strict in its morality? And that is precisely what the left-handed power which governs us has done in stoppingLe Roi s'amuse.M. Odilon Barrot has proved to you that it has acted without justice; I will prove that it has acted without reason.
"The motives that those who are in with the police have been whispering abroad for some days to explain the prohibition of this play are of three kinds: there is the moral reason, the political reason and—we must say the words though they be laughable—the literary reason. Vergil relates that several ingredients went to make up the thunder which Vulcan made for Jupiter. The petty ministerial thunder which has struck my play, which the censorship had forged for the police, is made up of three bad reasons rolled up, intermingled and united,très imbris torti radios.
"There is, first of all, or, rather, there was, the moralreason. Yes, gentlemen, I swear it, because it seems incredible, the police made out at first thatLe Roi s'amusewas, I quote the actual expression, 'animmoral play.' I have already silenced the police on that point. In publishingLe Roi s'amuse,I declared openly, not for the benefit of the police, but for those honourable men who wished to read me, that the drama was profoundly and strictly moral. No one has disbelieved me and no one will, it is my profound conviction as an honest man. All the precautions the police for a time succeeded in raising against the morality of this work have disappeared at the time I am now speaking. Four thousand copies of the book issued to the public have pleaded this trial in their own way, and these four thousand advocates have won their cause. In such a matter, also, an affirmative is sufficient; I shall not, therefore, enter upon a superfluous discussion. Only, for the sake of the future as well as the past, I would have the police to know, once for all, that I do not write immoral works. Let this be taken as conclusive, for I shall not return to it again.
"After the moral argument there comes the political. Here, gentlemen, as I can only express the same ideas in other terms, allow me to quote you a page from the preface I put to the drama ..." (We have ourselves laid that page of preface before our readers.)[7]
"After moral and political reasons, come the literary. A Government stopping a play for literary reasons is a strange thing, but it is not, however, without foundation. You remember—if by chance it was worth your trouble to remember it—that, in 1829, at the period when the first works calledromanticappeared upon the stage, about the time when the Comédie-Française receivedMarion Delorme,a petition signed by seven persons was presented to King Charles X. to demand that the Théâtre-Français be closed by the king, simply to the works of what was called theNew School.Charles took it laughingly, and replied wittily that in literary questions he had onlyhis placein thepit of the theatrelike the rest of us. The petition collapsed beneath ridicule. Well, gentlemen, to-day many of the signers of this petition are deputies, influential deputies belonging to the majority,having a share in the governmental powers and voting for the budget. What they timidly petitioned for in 1829, they are able, all-powerful as they are, to carry out in 1832.
"Public rumour, in fact, says that it was they who, the day after the first performance, approached the minister at the Chamber of Deputies and obtained a promise from him under the most moral and politic excuses imaginable, thatLe Roi s'amuseshould be stopped. The minister, an ingenuous, innocent and candid man, bravely took up the challenge; he could not distinguish beneath all those wrappings the direct and personal animosity; he believed he was performing a political proscription. I am sorry for him, they made him execute a literary proscription. I will not say more on this point.... It inspires me with infinitely less anger than pity; it is odd, that is all. The Government lending assistance to the Academy in 1832! Aristotle become the law of the State once more! An imperceptible literary revolution being carried on at the brink of, and in the midst of, our great political revolutions! The deputies who deposed Charles X. working in a tiny corner to restore Boileau! How despicable!...
"Gentlemen, I will sum up. By stopping my play, the Government has not, on the one hand, an article of law to quote from; on the other, not a single valuable reason to give. This measure has two aspects, both equally bad: as law, it is arbitrary; as reasoning, it is absurd. What, then, can the power which has neither reason nor law on its side allege as its motives? Its caprice, fancy, desire —that is to say, nothing!
"You will do justice, gentlemen, to that desire, fancy, caprice. Your sentence, by giving me the case, will inform the country of this business—which is but small as compared with the greatness of the ordinance of July—whatforce majeurethere is in France besides that of the law, and that at the basis of this trial there is an illegal order which the Government did wrong to issue, and the theatre was wrong to obey; your sentence will teach the powers that its very friends blame it candidly on this occasion; that the rights of every citizen are to be respected by all Governments, that, given the conditions of order and of general safety are fulfilled, the theatre ought to be respected like other means of expression of publicthought, and that, whether it be the press, the tribune or the theatre, none of the loopholes for the escape of liberty of intellect can be closed without peril. I address myself to you with profound faith in the worthiness of my cause. I shall never be afraid under similar occasions of grappling with a ministry hand to hand; the law courts are the natural judges of honourable duels of pure right against arbitrary dealings, duels less unequal than people think; for if, on the one side, there is a whole Government, and, on the other, only a simple citizen, that simple citizen is, indeed, strong when he can bring an illegal act before your bar, ashamed of being thus exposed to public view and public scourging, and confronting it as I am doing with four articles from the Charter!
"I do not, however, disguise from myself that the present time is not like the latter years of the Restoration, when resistance to the encroachments of the Government was so much applauded and so popular. The ideas of stability and of authority are momentarily more in favour than those of progress and of freedom. It is a natural reaction after that rough revival of all our liberty at a rush styled the Revolution of 1830. But this reaction will not last long. Our ministers will some day be surprised by the implacable memory with which the men even who compose their majority then will recall all the grievances they seem to have forgotten so quickly to-day; moreover, let that day be late or soon in coming it will not matter: on that score I neither look for applause nor fear invective; I have but followed the strict monitions of my right and my duty.
"I ought to say here that I have strong reasons for believing that the Government will take advantage of this fleeting torpor of the public mind formally to reestablish the censorship, and my affair is but a prelude, a preparation, a step to a putting of all theatrical liberty outside general laws. By not making a repressive law, by purposely letting licence have free scope on the stage for the past two years, the Government imagines it has created, in the opinion of respectable men, who might be disgusted with that licence, a prejudice in favour of dramatic censorship. In my opinion it is mistaken, and the censorship will never be anything else in Francethan an unpopular and illegal proceeding. As far as I myself am concerned, whether the censorship of the theatres he re-established by an illegal decree or an unconstitutional law, I declare I will never submit to such an act of authority without protesting; and I make such a protest solemnly now and here both for the present and for the future.
"Further, observe how wanting in greatness, openness and courage the Government has been in the series of arbitrary acts which have succeeded one another for some time past. It has slowly, subterraneously, surreptitiously, indirectly, tortuously undermined the beautiful though incomplete edifice which the revolution of July had reared. It always took us treacherously from behind when we least expected. It dared not censure my play before the representation; it stopped it the following day. It attacks our most vital liberties; it cavils at our best attained efforts; it bases its despotism on a heap of ancient worm-eaten and repealed laws; it lies in wait to rob us of our rights in that Forest of Bondy of imperial decrees, through which liberty never passes without being stripped....
"I say it is for the probity of the law courts to stop its course, which is as dangerous to it as to us. I say that the ruling power is specially wanting in greatness and courage by the underhand manner in which it has performed this hazardous operation, which each Government in strange blindness attempts in its turn, and which consists in substituting, more or less rapidly, arbitrariness for the constitution, despotism for liberty.[8]... If it only continues for some time longer in this way, if the proposed laws are adopted, the confiscation of all our rights will be complete. To-day, they take away my liberty as a poet by censure: to-morrow, they will take away my liberty as a citizen by a gendarme; to-day, they banish me from the theatre: to-morrow, they will banish me from the country; to-day, they stop my mouth: to-morrow, they will transport me; to-day, the state of siege is in literature: to-morrow, it will be in citizenship; in liberties, guarantees, charters, public rights, in a word, annihilation!
"If the Government be not better advised by its owninterests to stop at the precipice while there is yet time, before long we shall have all the despotism of 1807 without its glory: we shall have the Empire without the Emperor. I have only a word more to say, gentlemen, and I desire it may be in your mind whilst you are deciding. There has been in this century but one great man, Napoleon, and but one great thing, liberty! The great man is no more with us, let us try to have the great thing.V. HUGO."