Paris and the Parisians in 1835 Volume I Part 11

Horror is his handmaid; and "thousands of liveried _monsters_ lackey him," to furnish the portraits with which it is the occupation of his life to disgust the world.

Can there, think you, be a stronger proof of a diseased intellect among the _decousu_ part of the world, than that they not only admire this man's hideous extravagances, but that they actually believe him to be ... at least they say so ... a second Shakspeare!... A Shakspeare!

To chastise as he deserves an author who may be said to defy mankind by the libels he has put forth on the whole race, requires a stouter and a keener weapon than any a woman can wield; but when they prate of Shakspeare, I feel that it is our turn to speak. How much of grat.i.tude and love does every woman owe to him! He, who has entered deeper into her heart than ever mortal did before or since his day, how has he painted her?--As Portia, Juliet, Constance, Hermione;--as Cordelia, Volumnia, Isabella, Desdemona, Imogene!

Then turn and see for what we have to thank our modern painter. Who are his heroines?--Lucrece Borgia, Marion de Lorme, Blanche, Maguelonne, with I know not how many more of the same stamp; besides his novel heroine, whom Mr. Henry Lytton Bulwer calls "the most delicate female ever drawn by the pen of romance"--The Esmeralda! ...

whose sole accomplishments are dancing and singing in the streets, and who ... delicate creature! ... being caught up by a horseman in a midnight brawl, throws her arms round his neck, swears he is very handsome, and thenceforward shows the delicate tenderness of her nature, by pertinaciously doting upon him, without any other return or encouragement whatever than an insulting caress bestowed upon her one night when he was drunk ... "delicate female!"

But this is all too bad to dwell upon. It is, however, in my estimation a positive duty, when mentioning the works of Victor Hugo, to record a protest against their tone and tendency; and it is also a duty to correct, as far as one can, the erroneous impression existing in England respecting his reputation in France.

Whenever his name is mentioned in England, his success is cited as a proof of the depraved state, moral and intellectual, of the French people. And such it would be, were his success and reputation such as his partisans represent them to be. But, in point of fact, the manner in which he is judged by his own countrymen is the strongest possible evidence that neither a powerful fancy, a commanding diction, nor an imagination teeming with images of intense pa.s.sion, can suffice to ensure an author any exalted reputation in France at the present day if he outrages good feeling and good taste.

Should any doubt the correctness of this statement, I can only refer them to the source from whence I derived the information on which it is founded,--I can only refer them to France herself. There is one fact, however, which may be ascertained without crossing the Channel;--namely, that when one of their reviews found occasion to introduce an article upon the modern drama, the editors acquitted themselves of the task by translating the whole of the able article upon that subject which appeared about a year and a half ago in the Quarterly, acknowledging to what source they were indebted for it.

Were the name and the labours of Victor Hugo confined to his own country, it would now be high time that I should release you from him; but it is an English critic who has said, that he has heaved the ground from under the feet of Racine; and you must indulge me for a few minutes, while I endeavour to bring the two parties together before you. In doing this, I will be generous; for I will introduce M.

Hugo in "Le Roi s'amuse," which, from the circ.u.mstance (the happiest, I was a.s.sured, that ever befel the author) of its being withdrawn by authority from the Theatre Francais, has become infinitely more celebrated than any other he has written.

It may be remarked by the way, that a few more such acts of decent watchfulness over the morals and manners of the people may redeem the country from the stigma it now bears of being the most licentious in its theatre and its press in the world.

The first glorious moment of being forbidden at the Francais appears almost to have turned the lucky author's brain. His preface to "Le Roi s'amuse," among many other symptoms of insanity has the following:--

"Le premier mouvement de l'auteur fut de douter.... L'acte etait arbitraire au point d'etre incroyable.... L'auteur ne pouvait croire a tant d'insolence et de folie.... Le ministre avait en effet, de son droit divin de ministre, intime l'ordre.... Le ministre lui avait pris sa piece, lui avait pris son droit, lui avait pris sa chose. Il ne restait plus qu'a le mettre, lui poete, a la Bastille.... Est-ce qu'il y a eu en effet quelque chose qu'on a appele la revolution de Juillet?... Que peut etre le motif d'une pareille mesure?... Il parait que nos faiseurs de censure se pretendent scandalises dans leur morale par 'Le Roi s'amuse;' le nom seul du poete inculpe aurait du etre une suffisante refutation (!!!)... Cette piece a revolte la pudeur des gendarmes; la brigade Leotaud y etait, et l'a trouve obscene; le bureau des moeurs s'est voile la face; M. Vidocq a rougi.... Hola, mes maitres! Silence sur ce point!... Depuis quand n'est-il plus permis a un roi de courtiser sur la scene une servante d'auberge?...

Mener un roi dans un mauvais lieu, cela ne serait pas meme nouveau non plus.... L'auteur veut l'art chaste, et non l'art prude.... Il est profondement triste de voir comment se termine la revolution de Juillet...."

Then follows a _precis_ of the extravagant and hateful plot, in which the heroine is, as usual, "une fille seduite et perdue;" and he sums it up thus pompously:--"Au fond d'un des ouvrages de l'auteur il y a la fatalite--au fond de celui-ci il y a la providence."

I wish much that some one would collect and publish in a separate volume all M. Victor Hugo's prefaces; I would purchase it instantly, and it would be a fund of almost inexhaustible amus.e.m.e.nt. He a.s.sumes a tone in them which, all things considered, is perhaps unequalled in the history of literature. In another part of the one from which I have given the above extracts, he says--

"Vraiment, le pouvoir qui s'attaque a nous n'aura pas gagne grand'

chose a ce que nous, hommes d'art, nous quittions notre tache consciencieuse, tranquille, sincere, profonde; notre tache sainte...."

What on earth, if it be not insanity, could have put it into Mr.

Hugo's head that the manufacturing of his obscene dramas was "une tache sainte"?

The princ.i.p.al characters in "Le Roi s'amuse" are Francois Premier; Triboulet, his pander and buffoon; Blanche, the daughter of Triboulet, "la fille seduite," and heroine of the piece; and Maguelonne, another Esmeralda.

The interest lies in the contrast between Triboulet pander and Triboulet pere. He is himself the most corrupt and infamous of men; and because he is humpbacked, makes it both his pastime and his business to lead the king his master into every species of debauchery: but he shuts up his daughter to preserve her purity; and the poet has put forth all his strength in describing the worship which Triboulet pere pays to the virtue which he pa.s.ses his life as Triboulet pander in destroying.

Of course, the king falls in love with Blanche, and she with him; and Triboulet pander is made to a.s.sist in carrying her off in the dark, under the belief that she was the wife of a n.o.bleman to whom also his majesty the king was making love.

When Triboulet pere and pander finds out what he has done, he falls into a terrible agony: and here again is a _tour de force_, to show how pathetically such a father can address such a daughter.

He resolves to murder the king, and informs his daughter, who is pa.s.sionately attached to her royal seducer, of his intention. She objects, but is at length brought to consent by being made to peep through a hole in the wall, and seeing his majesty King Francis engaged in making love to Maguelonne.

This part of the plot is brought out shortly and pithily.

BLANCHE (_peeping through the hole in the wall_).

Et cette femme! ... est-elle affrontee! ... oh!...

TRIBOULET.

Tais-toi; Pas de pleurs. Laisse-moi te venger!

BLANCHE.

Helas!--Faites-- Tout ce que vous voudrez.

TRIBOULET.

Merci!

This _merci_, observe, is not said ironically, but gravely and gratefully. Having arranged this part of the business, he gives his daughter instructions as to what she is to do with herself, in the following sublime verses:--

TRIBOULET.

ecoute. Va chez moi, prends-y des habits d'homme, Un cheval, de l'argent, n'importe quelle somme; Et pars, sans t'arreter un instant en chemin, Pour Evreux, ou j'irai te joindre apres-demain.

--Tu sais ce coffre aupres du portrait de ta mere; L'habit est la,--je l'ai d'avance expres fait faire.

Having dismissed his daughter, he settles with a gipsy-man named Saltabadil, who is the brother of Maguelonne, all the details of the murder, which is to be performed in their house, a small cabaret at which the foul weather and the fair Maguelonne induce the royal rake to pa.s.s the night. Triboulet leaves them an old sack in which they are to pack up the body, and promises to return at midnight, that he may himself see it thrown into the Seine.

Blanche meanwhile departs; but feeling some compunctious visitings about the proposed murder of her lover, returns, and again applying her ear to the hole in the wall, finds that his majesty is gone to bed in the garret, and that the brother and sister are consulting about his death. Maguelonne, a very "delicate female," objects too; she admires his beauty, and proposes that his life shall be spared if any stranger happens to arrive whose body may serve to fill the sack.

Blanche, in a fit of heroic tenderness, determines to be that stranger; exclaiming,

"Eh bien! ... mourons pour lui!"

But before she knocks at the door, she kneels down to say her prayers, particularly for forgiveness to all her enemies. Here are the verses, making part of those which have overthrown Racine:--

BLANCHE.

Oh! Dieu, vers qui je vais, Je pardonne a tous ceux qui m'ont ete mauvais: Mon pere et vous, mon Dieu! pardonnez-leurs de meme Au roi Francois Premier, que je plains et que j'aime.

She knocks, the door opens, she is stabbed and consigned to the sack.

Her father arrives immediately after as by appointment, receives the sack, and prepares to drag it towards the river, handling it with revengeful ecstasy, and exclaiming--

Maintenant, monde, regarde-moi: Ceci, c'est un bouffon; et ceci, c'est un roi.

At this triumphant moment he hears the voice of the king, singing as he walks away from the dwelling of Maguelonne.

TRIBOULET.

Mais qui donc m'a-t-il mis a sa place, le traitre!

He cuts open the sack; and a flash of lightning very melodramatically enables him to recognise his daughter, who revives, to die in his arms.

This is beyond doubt what may be called "a tragic situation;" and I confess it does seem very hard-hearted to laugh at it: but the _pas_ that divides the sublime from the ridiculous is not distinctly seen, and there is something vulgar and ludicrous, both in the position and language of the parties, which quite destroys the pathetic effect.

It must be remembered that she is dressed in the "habit d'homme" of which her father says so poetically--

Je l'ai d'avance expres fait faire.

Observe, too, that she is still in the sack; the stage directions being, "Le bas du corps, qui est reste vetu, est cache dans le sac."

BLANCHE.

Ou suis-je?

TRIBOULET.