There would seem to be little difference between this kind of torture and the treatment inflicted, under the Empire, on dramatic authors and their interpreters.
We have seen examples of cabals against the artists, and the demonstrations marking the first appearance of the young Plantou, of Auguste Thenard and Mile Horde might complete the series. These incidents were aU the more exasperating in that the critics were so often at fault.
Audiences were not very knowledgeable. They might, for instance, mistake Esther for Les Liaisons dangereuses. One day when the former was being performed at the theatre of the Jeunes Artistes, the tragedian playing the part of Aman had hardly spouted the line: Malheureaux, fai serm de heraut a sa gloire! when a member of the audience interrupted him with
'We say "de heros a sa gloire!" 51
'Ta sa gloire!' repeated Aman,
'Za!' persisted the other. And a violent altercation ensued between these two purists, each of them appealing to syntax and to the shades of Racine.
There was an even greater hubbub on the first night of Pierre le Grand, a tragedy by Carrion-Nisas given at the Theatre-Frangais in 1804. But this time the pit had its knife in the author, and began shouting in advance, 'Down with de CarillonY In spite of Talmas efforts the curtain had to be rung down before the end. As in Esther, a dangerous alexandrine had precipitated disaster. 'Whistles fetched a huge price on the day of Carrion's play/ wrote Julie Talma. 'One of the lines contained the words:
*Le vizir a tout craint. [The vizier feared the worst.]
'The audience took this for a tons crins, [with flowing mane and tail] and someone suggested cutting off his tail! A poor playwright is much to be pitied when he is thus misunderstood. I saw people laughing three days after the performance as though they were still there. Carrion may say with pride that he has contributed more than anybody to the amusement of his fellow-citizens/
On another occasion the new piece presented was Octavie, a horrifying tragedy, in the last act of which Nero's wife is seen taking poison. As she raised the fatal cup to her lips, some wag shouted, 'The Queen drinks I* The unfortunate princess was shattered by the blow, and so was the play.
1 Mistaking herald for hero. [Translator.]
Dramatic works without number suffered the same misfortune. Nearly all the authors of new tragedies —Arnault with Don Pedro, Nepomucene Lemercier with Isule et Orovize, Aignan with Polyxene, Marie-Joseph Chenier with Cyrus, learnt to their cost that the bear-pit in the Jardin des Plantes had a branch establishment in the House of Moliere. In the year 1812, out of six new works produced in the Rue de la Loi, two never reached the last act, and in the case of the other four, the pit refused to let the authors be announced. The Crochet might have begun.
Why did the Empire generations show so much severity towards some productions and so much indulgence to others? Why was Les Templiers by Raynouard considered a masterpiece? Why did the arch-critics of the Opera go crazy over Lesueur's Les Bardes and fail to appreciate GlucFs Alceste and Mozart's Noces de Figaro? 1 Why should such inane productions as Fanchon la Vietteuse and Le Pied de Motiton make all Paris rush to the theatre? Such things cannot be explained. Good taste and fashion seldom agree; they were never more at variance than between 1800 and 1815.
The most that can be said of the theatre at that time was that it still found a good deal of room for the old repertory, for tragedy especially, restored to honour by Talrna. Tragedy was liked firstly for its own sake, and secondly because many lines of our great classic authors could easily be applied to events of the time. Lovers of allusions drew attention to them by cheers or laughter. If the passage applauded celebrated the victories of Achilles or the moderation of Augustus, the demonstration was a tribute to the fame of Napoleon, and Dubois referred to it with satisfaction in his report next day. But under cover of Athens or Rome the little game was often imbued with a very different spirit.
1 Geoffrey's verdicts in his Debats articles are beyond belief. Writing of Alceste, lie deplores "the prostitution of Mme Annand's beautiful voice to this disagreeable, noisy music*. As for the Noces, he says that Mozart 'has preserved none of the gaiety, comedy and wit of Beaumarchais" play*.
When Mile Bourgoin, whose liaison with Chaptal was common knowledge, poured forth Junie's lament:
'My Lord! I will go join the company of the Vestals!' the whole theatre rocked with laughter, and the Minister of Interior, seated at the back of his box, looked somewhat embarrassed. From the lips of Mile George, too, Emilie's retort:
If I could seduce Cinna, I can seduce many others' was all too clearly a reminder of Napoleon's extra-conjugal fancies. Not many months before the Coronation, when the pit acclaimed the distich spoken by Cinna:
"And the name of Emperor, Concealing that of King, does not lessen the horror .. .*
people at the Tuileries had the right to consider the joke in doubtful taste.
But one 'application' was to outdo all others. The incident occurred, not in a public theatre but at Grosbois, Berthier's house, in the course of a performance given by the Prince of Wagram to the Imperial Court.
In December 1809 the news of the impending divorce, already in the air, lent an atmosphere of discomfort to the party. In the hope of cheering things up, Berthier had asked Brunet to come and give a performance of his latest farce, Cadet Roussely with the company of the Varietes.
In the presence of Napoleon and Josephine the plot unfolded more or less smoothly until the moment when Cadet's father says to his son, to put him on his guard against the machinations of a countrified gallant, in love with his wife, 'Do you know what it is that attracts this libertine? It's your divorce he's aiming at!'
The audience was startled, but worse was to come. Cadet explains why he got married. "Do you suppose it was for pleasure? It was for something far more solid - not to allow the perpetuity of my family to die out; to see myself reborn, and to have predecessors^
It was as though lightning had struck the gallery at Grosbois. Josephine turned pale behind her fan. Napoleon had ceased to laugh. Berthier tore his hair behind the scenes, and exchanged acid remarks with the chamberlain, M. de Saint-Cyr. "Who chose the play?' 'Yourself!' 'I didn't know anything about it!' "You ought to have read it!' 'How absurd!' 'What a disaster!'
But they were joined by the Emperor, who had already recovered his equanimity. *I see, messieurs/ he said, 'that my secret has been well kept. If these good people had known it, they would certainly not have uttered the things I have just heard/
Not for the first time., Napoleon was determined to prove that of all the actors of his day he was still the best.
It is always very risky for the theatre to meddle with politics, for politics will hit back, and it will soon feel the smart. During the Revolution a number of theatres had made use of material that smacked of public meetings. Under the Consular regime they were early subjected to fairly strict supervision, and had to make shift with this up to the day when the Emperor, by his decree of 1807, decided to authorize the existence of only eight Paris theatres, suppressing all the others at a single blow, much as one might tear up the undergrowth of a wood to facilitate the work of the gamekeepers.