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The Paris Sketch Book

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The great Dumas, like Madame Sand before mentioned, has brought a
vast quantity of religion before the foot-lights. There was his
famous tragedy of "Caligula," which, be it spoken to the shame of
the Paris critics, was coldly received; nay, actually hissed, by
them. And why? Because, says Dumas, it contained a great deal too
much piety for the rogues. The public, he says, was much more
religious, and understood him at once.

"As for the critics," says he, nobly, "let those who cried out
against the immorality of Antony and Marguérite de Bourgogne,
reproach me for THE CHASTITY OF MESSALINA." (This dear creature is
the heroine of the play of "Caligula.") "It matters little to me.
These people have but seen the form of my work: they have walked
round the tent, but have not seen the arch which it covered; they
have examined the vases and candles of the altar, but have not
opened the tabernacle!

"The public alone has, instinctively, comprehended that there was,
beneath this outward sign, an inward and mysterious grace: it
followed the action of the piece in all its serpentine windings; it
listened for four hours, with pious attention (avec recueillement
et religion), to the sound of this rolling river of thoughts, which
may have appeared to it new and bold, perhaps, but chaste and
grave; and it retired, with its head on its breast, like a man who
had just perceived, in a dream, the solution of a problem which he
has long and vainly sought in his waking hours."

You see that not only Saint Sand is an apostle, in her way; but
Saint Dumas is another. We have people in England who write for
bread, like Dumas and Sand, and are paid so much for their line;
but they don't set up for prophets. Mrs. Trollope has never
declared that her novels are inspired by heaven; Mr. Buckstone has
written a great number of farces, and never talked about the altar
and the tabernacle. Even Sir Edward Bulwer (who, on a similar
occasion, when the critics found fault with a play of his, answered
them by a pretty decent declaration of his own merits,) never
ventured to say that he had received a divine mission, and was
uttering five-act revelations.

All things considered, the tragedy of "Caligula" is a decent
tragedy; as decent as the decent characters of the hero and heroine
can allow it to be; it may be almost said, provokingly decent: but
this, it must be remembered, is the characteristic of the modern
French school (nay, of the English school too); and if the writer
take the character of a remarkable scoundrel, it is ten to one but
he turns out an amiable fellow, in whom we have all the warmest
sympathy. "Caligula" is killed at the end of the performance;
Messalina is comparatively well-behaved; and the sacred part of the
performance, the tabernacle-characters apart from the mere "vase"
and "candlestick" personages, may be said to be depicted in the
person of a Christian convert, Stella, who has had the good fortune
to be converted by no less a person than Mary Magdalene, when she,
Stella, was staying on a visit to her aunt, near Narbonne.


STELLA (Continuant.) Voilà
Que je vois s'avancer, sans pilote et sans rames,
Une barque portant deux hommes et deux femmes,
Et, spectacle inouï qui me ravit encor,
Tous quatre avaient au front une auréole d'or
D'où partaient des rayons de si vive lumière
Que je fus obligée à baisser la paupière;
Et, lorsque je rouvris les yeux avec effroi,
Les voyageurs divins étaient auprès de moi.
Un jour de chacun d'eux et dans toute sa gloire
Je te raconterai la marveilleuse histoire,
Et tu l'adoreras, j'espère; en ce moment,
Ma mère, il te suffit de savoir seulement
Que tous quatre venaient du fond de la Syrie:
Un édit les avait bannis de leur patrie,
Et, se faisant bourreaux, des hommes irrités,
Sans avirons, sans eau, sans pain et garrotés,
Sur une frêle barque échouée au rivage,
Les avaient à la mer poussés dans un orage.
Mais à peine l'esquif eut-il touché les flots
Qu'au cantique chanté par les saints matelots,
L'ouragan replia ses ailes frémissantes,
Que la mer aplanit ses vagues mugissantes,
Et qu'un soleil plus pur, reparaissant aux cieux,
Enveloppa l'esquif d'un cercle radieux! . . .

JUNIA.--Mais c'était un prodige.

STELLA.-- Un miracle, ma mère!
Leurs fers tombèrent seuls, l'eau cessa d'être amère,
Et deux fois chaque jour le bateau fut couvert
D'une manne pareille à celle du désert:
C'est ainsi que, poussés par une main céleste,
Je les vis aborder.

JUNIA.-- Oh! dis vîte le reste!

STELLA.--A l'aube, trois d'entre eux quittèrent la maison:
Marthe prit le chemin qui mène à Tarascon,
Lazare et Maximin celui de Massilie,
Et celle qui resta . . . . C'ETAIT LA PLUS JOLIE, (how truly French!)
Nous faisant appeler vers le milieu du jour,
Demanda si les monts ou les bois d'alentour
Cachaient quelque retraite inconnue et profonde,
Qui la pût séparer à tout jamais du monde. . . . .
Aquila se souvint qu'il avait pénétré
Dans un antre sauvage et de tous ignoré,
Grotte creusée aux flancs de ces Alpes sublimes,
Ou l'aigle fait son aire au-dessus des abîmes.
Il offrit cet asile, et dès le lendemain
Tous deux, pour l'y guider, nous étions en chemin.
Le soir du second jour nous touchâmes sa base:
Là, tombant à genoux dans une sainte extase,
Elle pria long-temps, puis vers l'antre inconnu,
Dénouant se chaussure, elle marcha pied nu.
Nos prières, nos cris restèrent sans réponses:
Au milieu des cailloux, des épines, des ronces,
Nous la vîmes monter, un bâton à la main,
Et ce n'est qu'arrivée au terme du chemin,
Qu'enfin elle tomba sans force et sans haleine . . . .

JUNIA.--Comment la nommait-on, ma fille?

STELLA.-- Madeleine.


Walking, says Stella, by the sea-shore, "A bark drew near, that had
nor sail nor oar; two women and two men the vessel bore: each of
that crew, 'twas wondrous to behold, wore round his head a ring of
blazing gold; from which such radiance glittered all around, that I
was fain to look towards the ground. And when once more I raised
my frightened eyne, before me stood the travellers divine; their
rank, the glorious lot that each befell, at better season, mother,
will I tell. Of this anon: the time will come when thou shalt
learn to worship as I worship now. Suffice it, that from Syria's
land they came; an edict from their country banished them. Fierce,
angry men had seized upon the four, and launched them in that
vessel from the shore. They launched these victims on the waters
rude; nor rudder gave to steer, nor bread for food. As the doomed
vessel cleaves the stormy main, that pious crew uplifts a sacred
strain; the angry waves are silent as it sings; the storm, awe-
stricken, folds its quivering wings. A purer sun appears the
heavens to light, and wraps the little bark in radiance bright.

"JUNIA.--Sure, 'twas a prodigy.

"STELLA.--A miracle. Spontaneous from their hands the fetters
fell. The salt sea-wave grew fresh, and, twice a day, manna (like
that which on the desert lay) covered the bark and fed them on
their way. Thus, hither led, at heaven's divine behest, I saw them
land--

"JUNIA.--My daughter, tell the rest.

"STELLA.--Three of the four, our mansion left at dawn. One,
Martha, took the road to Tarascon; Lazarus and Maximin to Massily;
but one remained (the fairest of the three), who asked us, if i'
the woods or mountains near, there chanced to be some cavern lone
and drear; where she might hide, for ever, from all men. It
chanced, my cousin knew of such a den; deep hidden in a mountain's
hoary breast, on which the eagle builds his airy nest. And thither
offered he the saint to guide. Next day upon the journey forth we
hied; and came, at the second eve, with weary pace, unto the lonely
mountain's rugged base. Here the worn traveller, falling on her
knee, did pray awhile in sacred ecstasy; and, drawing off her
sandals from her feet, marched, naked, towards that desolate
retreat. No answer made she to our cries or groans; but walking
midst the prickles and rude stones, a staff in hand, we saw her
upwards toil; nor ever did she pause, nor rest the while, save at
the entry of that savage den. Here, powerless and panting, fell
she then.

"JUNIA.--What was her name, my daughter?

"STELLA. MAGDALEN."


Here the translator must pause--having no inclination to enter "the
tabernacle," in company with such a spotless high-priest as
Monsieur Dumas.

Something "tabernacular" may be found in Dumas's famous piece of
"Don Juan de Marana." The poet has laid the scene of his play in a
vast number of places: in heaven (where we have the Virgin Mary and
little angels, in blue, swinging censers before her!)--on earth,
under the earth, and in a place still lower, but not mentionable to
ears polite; and the plot, as it appears from a dialogue between a
good and a bad angel, with which the play commences, turns upon a
contest between these two worthies for the possession of the soul
of a member of the family of Marana.

"Don Juan de Marana" not only resembles his namesake, celebrated by
Mozart and Molière, in his peculiar successes among the ladies, but
possesses further qualities which render his character eminently
fitting for stage representation: he unites the virtues of Lovelace
and Lacenaire; he blasphemes upon all occasions; he murders, at the
slightest provocation, and without the most trifling remorse; he
overcomes ladies of rigid virtue, ladies of easy virtue, and ladies
of no virtue at all; and the poet, inspired by the contemplation of
such a character, has depicted his hero's adventures and
conversation with wonderful feeling and truth.

The first act of the play contains a half-dozen of murders and
intrigues; which would have sufficed humbler genius than M.
Dumas's, for the completion of, at least, half a dozen tragedies.
In the second act our hero flogs his elder brother, and runs away
with his sister-in-law; in the third, he fights a duel with a
rival, and kills him: whereupon the mistress of his victim takes
poison, and dies, in great agonies, on the stage. In the fourth
act, Don Juan, having entered a church for the purpose of carrying
off a nun, with whom he is in love, is seized by the statue of one
of the ladies whom he has previously victimized, and made to behold
the ghosts of all those unfortunate persons whose deaths he has
caused.

This is a most edifying spectacle. The ghosts rise solemnly, each
in a white sheet, preceded by a wax-candle; and, having declared
their names and qualities, call, in chorus, for vengeance upon Don
Juan, as thus:--


DON SANDOVAL loquitur.

"I am Don Sandoval d'Ojedo. I played against Don Juan my fortune,
the tomb of my fathers, and the heart of my mistress;--I lost all:
I played against him my life, and I lost it. Vengeance against the
murderer! vengeance!"--(The candle goes out.)


THE CANDLE GOES OUT, and an angel descends--a flaming sword in his
hand--and asks: "Is there no voice in favor of Don Juan?" when lo!
Don Juan's father (like one of those ingenious toys called "Jack-
in-the-box,") jumps up from his coffin, and demands grace for his
son.

When Martha the nun returns, having prepared all things for her
elopement, she finds Don Juan fainting upon the ground.--"I am no
longer your husband," says he, upon coming to himself; "I am no
longer Don Juan; I am Brother Juan the Trappist. Sister Martha,
recollect that you must die!"

This was a most cruel blow upon Sister Martha, who is no less a
person than an angel, an angel in disguise--the good spirit of the
house of Marana, who has gone to the length of losing her wings and
forfeiting her place in heaven, in order to keep company with Don
Juan on earth, and, if possible, to convert him. Already, in her
angelic character, she had exhorted him to repentance, but in vain;
for, while she stood at one elbow, pouring not merely hints, but
long sermons, into his ear, at the other elbow stood a bad spirit,
grinning and sneering at all her pious counsels, and obtaining by
far the greater share of the Don's attention.

In spite, however, of the utter contempt with which Don Juan treats
her,--in spite of his dissolute courses, which must shock her
virtue,--and his impolite neglect, which must wound her vanity, the
poor creature (who, from having been accustomed to better company,
might have been presumed to have had better taste), the unfortunate
angel feels a certain inclination for the Don, and actually flies
up to heaven to ask permission to remain with him on earth.

And when the curtain draws up, to the sound of harps, and discovers
white-robed angels walking in the clouds, we find the angel of
Marana upon her knees, uttering the following address:--


LE BON ANGE.

Vierge, à qui le calice à la liqueur amère
Fut si souvent offert,
Mère, que l'on nomma la douloureuse mère,
Tant vous avez souffert!

Vous, dont les yeux divins sur la terre des hommes
Ont versé plus de pleurs
Que vos pieds n'ont depuis, dans le ciel où nous sommes,
Fait éclore de fleurs.

Vase d'élection, étoile matinale,
Miroir de pureté,
Vous qui priez pour nous, d'une voix virginale,
La suprême bonté;

A mon tour, aujourd'hui, bienheureuse Marie,
Je tombe à vos genoux;
Daignez donc m'écouter, car c'est vous que je prie,
Vous qui priez pour nous.


Which may be thus interpreted:--


O Virgin blest! by whom the bitter draught
So often has been quaffed,
That, for thy sorrow, thou art named by us
The Mother Dolorous!

Thou, from whose eyes have fallen more tears of woe,
Upon the earth below,
Than 'neath thy footsteps, in this heaven of ours,
Have risen flowers!

O beaming morning star! O chosen vase!
O mirror of all grace!
Who, with thy virgin voice, dost ever pray
Man's sins away;

Bend down thine ear, and list, O blessed saint!
Unto my sad complaint;
Mother! to thee I kneel, on thee I call,
Who hearest all.


She proceeds to request that she may be allowed to return to earth,
and follow the fortunes of Don Juan; and, as there is one
difficulty, or, to use her own words,--


Mais, comme vous savez qu'aux voûtes éternelles,
Malgré moi, tend mon vol,
Soufflez sur mon étoile et détachez mes ailes,
Pour m'enchainer au sol;


her request is granted, her star is BLOWN OUT (O poetic allusion!)
and she descends to earth to love, and to go mad, and to die for
Don Juan!

The reader will require no further explanation, in order to be
satisfied as to the moral of this play: but is it not a very bitter
satire upon the country, which calls itself the politest nation in
the world, that the incidents, the indecency, the coarse blasphemy,
and the vulgar wit of this piece, should find admirers among the
public, and procure reputation for the author? Could not the
Government, which has re-established, in a manner, the theatrical
censorship, and forbids or alters plays which touch on politics,
exert the same guardianship over public morals? The honest English
reader, who has a faith in his clergyman, and is a regular
attendant at Sunday worship, will not be a little surprised at the
march of intellect among our neighbors across the Channel, and at
the kind of consideration in which they hold their religion. Here
is a man who seizes upon saints and angels, merely to put sentiments
in their mouths which might suit a nymph of Drury Lane. He shows
heaven, in order that he may carry debauch into it; and avails
himself of the most sacred and sublime parts of our creed as a
vehicle for a scene-painter's skill, or an occasion for a handsome
actress to wear a new dress.

M. Dumas's piece of "Kean" is not quite so sublime; it was brought
out by the author as a satire upon the French critics, who, to
their credit be it spoken, had generally attacked him, and was
intended by him, and received by the public, as a faithful
portraiture of English manners. As such, it merits special
observation and praise. In the first act you find a Countess and
an Ambassadress, whose conversation relates purely to the great
actor. All the ladies in London are in love with him, especially
the two present. As for the Ambassadress, she prefers him to her
husband (a matter of course in all French plays), and to a more
seducing person still--no less a person than the Prince of Wales!
who presently waits on the ladies, and joins in their conversation
concerning Kean. "This man," says his Royal Highness, "is the very
pink of fashion. Brummell is nobody when compared to him; and I
myself only an insignificant private gentleman. He has a
reputation among ladies, for which I sigh in vain; and spends an
income twice as great as mine." This admirable historic touch at
once paints the actor and the Prince; the estimation in which the
one was held, and the modest economy for which the other was so
notorious.

Then we have Kean, at a place called the Trou de Charbon, the "Coal
Hole," where, to the edification of the public, he engages in a
fisty combat with a notorious boxer. This scene was received by
the audience with loud exclamations of delight, and commented on,
by the journals, as a faultless picture of English manners. "The
Coal Hole" being on the banks of the Thames, a nobleman--LORD
MELBOURN!--has chosen the tavern as a rendezvous for a gang of
pirates, who are to have their ship in waiting, in order to carry
off a young lady with whom his lordship is enamored. It need not
be said that Kean arrives at the nick of time, saves the innocent
Meess Anna, and exposes the infamy of the Peer. A violent tirade
against noblemen ensues, and Lord Melbourn slinks away, disappointed,
to meditate revenge. Kean's triumphs continue through all the acts:
the Ambassadress falls madly in love with him; the Prince becomes
furious at his ill success, and the Ambassador dreadfully jealous.
They pursue Kean to his dressing-room at the theatre; where,
unluckily, the Ambassadress herself has taken refuge. Dreadful
quarrels ensue; the tragedian grows suddenly mad upon the stage, and
so cruelly insults the Prince of Wales that his Royal Highness
determines to send HIM TO BOTANY BAY. His sentence, however, is
commuted to banishment to New York; whither, of course, Miss Anna
accompanies him; rewarding him, previously, with her hand and twenty
thousand a year!

This wonderful performance was gravely received and admired by the
people of Paris: the piece was considered to be decidedly moral,
because the popular candidate was made to triumph throughout, and
to triumph in the most virtuous manner; for, according to the
French code of morals, success among women is, at once, the proof
and the reward of virtue.

The sacred personage introduced in Dumas's play behind a cloud,
figures bodily in the piece of the Massacre of the Innocents,
represented at Paris last year. She appears under a different
name, but the costume is exactly that of Carlo Dolce's Madonna; and
an ingenious fable is arranged, the interest of which hangs upon
the grand Massacre of the Innocents, perpetrated in the fifth act.
One of the chief characters is Jean le Précurseur, who threatens
woe to Herod and his race, and is beheaded by orders of that
sovereign.

In the Festin de Balthazar, we are similarly introduced to Daniel,
and the first scene is laid by the waters of Babylon, where a
certain number of captive Jews are seated in melancholy postures; a
Babylonian officer enters, exclaiming, "Chantez nous quelques
chansons de Jerusalem," and the request is refused in the language
of the Psalm. Belshazzar's Feast is given in a grand tableau,
after Martin's picture. That painter, in like manner, furnished
scenes for the Deluge. Vast numbers of schoolboys and children are
brought to see these pieces; the lower classes delight in them.
The famous Juif Errant, at the theatre of the Porte St. Martin, was
the first of the kind, and its prodigious success, no doubt,
occasioned the number of imitations which the other theatres have
produced.

The taste of such exhibitions, of course, every English person will
question; but we must remember the manners of the people among whom
they are popular; and, if I may be allowed to hazard such an
opinion, there is in every one of these Boulevard mysteries, a kind
of rude moral. The Boulevard writers don't pretend to "tabernacles"
and divine gifts, like Madame Sand and Dumas before mentioned. If
they take a story from the sacred books, they garble it without
mercy, and take sad liberties with the text; but they do not deal in
descriptions of the agreeably wicked, or ask pity and admiration for
tender-hearted criminals and philanthropic murderers, as their
betters do. Vice is vice on the Boulevard; and it is fine to hear
the audience, as a tyrant king roars out cruel sentences of death,
or a bereaved mother pleads for the life of her child, making their
remarks on the circumstances of the scene. "Ah, le gredin!" growls
an indignant countryman. "Quel monstre!" says a grisette, in a
fury. You see very fat old men crying like babies, and, like
babies, sucking enormous sticks of barley-sugar. Actors and audience
enter warmly into the illusion of the piece; and so especially are
the former affected, that at Franconi's, where the battles of the
Empire are represented, there is as regular gradation in the ranks
of the mimic army as in the real imperial legions. After a man has
served, with credit, for a certain number of years in the line, he
is promoted to be an officer--an acting officer. If he conducts
himself well, he may rise to be a Colonel or a General of Division;
if ill, he is degraded to the ranks again; or, worst degradation of
all, drafted into a regiment of Cossacks or Austrians. Cossacks is
the lowest depth, however; nay, it is said that the men who perform
these Cossack parts receive higher wages than the mimic grenadiers
and old guard. They will not consent to be beaten every night, even
in play; to be pursued in hundreds, by a handful of French; to fight
against their beloved Emperor. Surely there is fine hearty virtue
in this, and pleasant child-like simplicity.

So that while the drama of Victor Hugo, Dumas, and the enlightened
classes, is profoundly immoral and absurd, the DRAMA of the common
people is absurd, if you will, but good and right-hearted. I have
made notes of one or two of these pieces, which all have good
feeling and kindness in them, and which turn, as the reader will
see, upon one or two favorite points of popular morality. A drama
that obtained a vast success at the Porte Saint Martin was "La
Duchesse de la Vauballière." The Duchess is the daughter of a poor
farmer, who was carried off in the first place, and then married by
M. le Duc de la Vauballière, a terrible roué, the farmer's
landlord, and the intimate friend of Philippe d'Orléans, the Regent
of France.

Now the Duke, in running away with the lady, intended to dispense
altogether with ceremony, and make of Julie anything but his wife;
but Georges, her father, and one Morisseau, a notary, discovered
him in his dastardly act, and pursued him to the very feet of the
Regent, who compelled the pair to marry and make it up.

Julie complies; but though she becomes a Duchess, her heart remains
faithful to her old flame, Adrian, the doctor; and she declares
that, beyond the ceremony, no sort of intimacy shall take place
between her husband and herself.

Then the Duke begins to treat her in the most ungentleman-like
manner: he abuses her in every possible way; he introduces improper
characters into her house; and, finally, becomes so disgusted with
her, that he determines to make away with her altogether.

For this purpose, he sends forth into the highways and seizes a
doctor, bidding him, on pain of death, to write a poisonous
prescription for Madame la Duchesse. She swallows the potion; and
O horror! the doctor turns out to be Dr. Adrian; whose woe may be
imagined, upon finding that he has been thus committing murder on
his true love!

Let not the reader, however, be alarmed as to the fate of the
heroine; no heroine of a tragedy ever yet died in the third act;
and, accordingly, the Duchess gets up perfectly well again in the
fourth, through the instrumentality of Morisseau, the good lawyer.

And now it is that vice begins to be really punished. The Duke,
who, after killing his wife, thinks it necessary to retreat, and
take refuge in Spain, is tracked to the borders of that country by
the virtuous notary, and there receives such a lesson as he will
never forget to his dying day.

Morisseau, in the first instance, produces a deed (signed by his
Holiness the Pope), which annuls the marriage of the Duke de la
Vauballière; then another deed, by which it is proved that he was
not the eldest son of old La Vauballière, the former Duke; then
another deed, by which he shows that old La Vauballière (who seems
to have been a disreputable old fellow) was a bigamist, and that,
in consequence, the present man, styling himself Duke, is
illegitimate; and finally, Morisseau brings forward another
document, which proves that the REG'LAR Duke is no other than
Adrian, the doctor!

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