From Fraser's Magazine.
CREBILLON, THE FRENCH ÆSCHYLUS.
About the year 1670, there lived at Dijon a certain notary, an original in his way, named Melchior Jolyot. His father was an innkeeper; but of a more ambitious nature than his sire, the son, so soon as he had succeeded in collecting a little money, purchased for himself the office of head clerk in the Chambres des Comptes of Dijon, with the title of Greffier of the same. During the following year, having long been desirous of a title of nobility, he acquired, at a very low price, a little abandoned and almost unknown fief, that of Crebillon, situated about a league and a half from the city.
His son, Prosper Jolyot, the future poet, was at that time a young man of about two-and-twenty years of age, a student at law, and then on the eve of being admitted as advocate at the French bar. From the first years of his sojourn in Paris, we find that he called himself Prosper Jolyot de Crebillon. About sixty years later, a worthy philosopher of Dijon, a certain Monsieur J. B. Michault, writes as follows to the President de Ruffey:—"Last Saturday (June 19th, 1762), our celebrated Crebillon was interred at St. Gervais. In his billets de mort they gave him the title of ecuyer; but what appears to me more surprising, is the circumstance of his son adopting that of messire."
Crebillon had then ended by cradling himself in a sort of imaginary nobility. In 1761, we find him writing to the President de Brosse: "I have ever taken so little thought respecting my own origin, that I have neglected certain very flattering elucidations on this point. M. de Ricard, máitre des comptes at Dijon, gave my father one day two titles he had found. Of these two titles, written in very indifferent Latin, the first concerned one Jolyot, chamberlain of Raoul, Duke of Burgundy; the second, a certain Jolyot, chamberlain of Philippe le Bon. Both of these titles are lost. I can also remember having heard it said in my youth by some old inhabitants of Nuits, my father's native place, that there formerly existed in those cantons a certain very powerful and noble family, named Jolyot."
O vanity of vanities! would it be believed that, under the democratic reign of the Encyclop[oe]dia, a man like Crebillon, ennobled by his own talents and genius, could have thus hugged himself in the possession of a vain and deceitful chimera! For truth compels us to own that, from the fifteenth to the end of the seventeenth century, the Jolyots were never any thing more or less than honest innkeepers, who sold their wine unadulterated, as it was procured from the black or golden grapes of the Burgundy hills.
Meanwhile Crebillon, finding that his titles of nobility were uncontested, pushed his aristocratic weakness so far as to affirm one day that his family bore on its shield an eagle, or, on a field, azure, holding in its beak a lily, proper, leaved and sustained, argent. All went, however, according to his wishes; his son allied himself by an unexpected marriage to one of the first families of England. The old tragic poet could then pass into the other world with the consoling reflection that he left behind him here below a name not only honored in the world of letters, but inscribed also in the golden muster-roll of the French nobility. But unfortunately for poor Crebillon's family tree, about a century after the creation of this mushroom nobility—which, like the majority of the nobilities of the eighteenth century, had its foundation in the sand—a certain officious antiquary, who happened at the time to have nothing better to do, bethought himself one day of inquiring into the validity of his claim. He devoted to this strange occupation several years of precious time. By dint of shaking the dust from off the archives of Dijon and Nuits, and of rummaging the minutes of the notaries of the department, he succeeded at length in ferreting out the genealogical tree of the Jolyot family. Some, the most glorious of its members, had been notaries, others had been innkeepers. Shade of Crebillon, pardon this impious archæologist, who thus, with ruthless hands, destroyed "at one fell swoop" the brilliant scaffolding of your vanity!
Prosper Jolyot de Crebillon was born at Dijon, on the 13th of February, 1674; like Corneille, Bossuet, and Voltaire, he studied at the Jesuits' college of his native town. It is well known that in all their seminaries, the Jesuits kept secret registers, wherein they inscribed, under the name of each pupil, certain notes in Latin upon his intellect and character. It was the Abbé d'Olivet who, it is said, inscribed the note referring to Crebillon:—"Puer ingeniosus sed insignis nebulo." But it must be said that the collegiate establishments of the holy brotherhood housed certain pedagogues, who abused their right of pronouncing judgment on the scholars. Crebillon, after all, was but a lively, frolicksome child, free and unreserved to excess in manners and speech.
His father, notary and later greffier en chef of the "Chambre des Comptes" at Dijon, being above all things desirous that his family should become distinguished in the magistracy, destined his son to the law, saying that the best heritage he could leave him was his own example. Crebillon resigned himself to his father's wishes with a very good grace, and repaired to Paris, there to keep his terms. In the capital, he divided his time between study and the pleasures and amusements natural to his age. As soon as he was admitted as advocate, he entered the chambers of a procureur named Prieur, son of the Prieur celebrated by Scarron, an intimate friend of his father, who greeted him fraternally. One would have supposed that our future poet, who bore audacity on his countenance, and genius on his brow, would, like Achilles, have recognized his sex when they showed him arms; but far from this being the case, not only was it necessary to warn him that he was a poet, but even to impel him bodily, as it were, and despite himself, into the arena.
The writers and poets of France have ever railed in good set terms against procureurs, advocates, and all such common-place, every-day personages; and in general, we are bound to confess they have had right on their side. We must, however, render justice to one of them, the only one, perhaps, who ever showed a taste for poetry. The worthy man to whom, fortunately for himself, Crebillon had been confided, remarked at an early stage of their acquaintanceship, the romantic disposition of his pupil. Of the same country as Piron and Rameau, Crebillon possessed, like them, the same frank gayety and good-tempered heedlessness of character, which betrayed his Burgundian origin. Having at an early age inhaled the intoxicating perfumes of the Burgundian wines, his first essays in poetry were, as might be expected, certain chansons à boire, none of which, however, have descended to posterity. The worthy procureur, amazed at the degree of power shown even in these slight drinking-songs, earnestly advised him to become a poet by profession.
Crebillon was then twenty-seven years of age; he resisted, alleging that he did not believe he possessed the true creative genius; that every poet is in some sort a species of deity, holding chaos in one hand, and light and life in the other; and that, for his part, he possessed but a bad pen, destined to defend bad causes in worse style. But the procureur was not to be convinced; he had discovered that a spark of the creative fire already shone in the breast of Crebillon. "Do not deny yourself becoming a poet," he would frequently say to him; "it is written upon your brow; your looks have told me so a thousand times. There is but one man in all France capable of taking up the mantle of Racine, and that man is yourself."
Crebillon exclaimed against this opinion; but having been left alone for a few hours to transcribe a parliamentary petition, he recalled to mind the magic of the stage—the scenery, the speeches, the applause; a moment of inspiration seized him. When the procureur returned, his pupil extended his hand to him, exclaiming, enthusiastically, "You have pointed out the way for me, and I shall depart." "Do not be in a hurry," replied the procureur; "a chef d'[oe]uvre is not made in a week. Remain quietly where you are, as if you were still a procureur's clerk; eat my bread and drink my wine; when you have completed your work, you may then take your flight."
Crebillon accordingly remained in the procureur's office, and at the very desk on which he transcribed petitions, he composed the five long acts of a barbarous tragedy, entitled, "The Death of Brutus." The work finished, our good-natured procureur brought all his interest into play, in order to obtain a reading of the piece at the Comedie Française. After many applications, Crebillon was permitted to read his play: it was unanimously rejected. The poet was furious; he returned home to the procureur's, and casting down his manuscript at the good man's feet, exclaimed, in a voice of despair, "You have dishonored me!"
D'Alembert says, "Crebillon's fury burst upon the procureur's head; he regarded him almost in the light of an enemy who had advised him only for his own dishonor, swore to listen to him no more, and never to write another line of verse so long as he lived."
Crebillon, however, in his rage maligned the worthy procureur; he would not have found elsewhere so hospitable a roof or as true a friend. He returned to the study of the law, but the decisive step had been taken; beneath the advocate's gown the poet had already peeped forth. And then, the procureur was never tired of predicting future triumphs. Crebillon ventured upon another tragedy, and chose for his subject the story of the Cretan king, Idomeneus. This time the comedians accepted his piece, and shortly afterwards played it. Its success was doubtful, but the author fancied he had received sufficient encouragement to continue his new career.
In his next piece, "Atrée," Crebillon, who had commenced as a school-boy, now raised himself, as it were, to the dignity of a master. The comedians learned their parts with enthusiasm. On the morning of the first representation, the procureur summoned the young poet to his bedside, for he was then stricken with a mortal disease: "My friend," said he, "I have a presentiment that this very evening you will be greeted by the critics of the nation as a son of the great Corneille. There are but a few days of life remaining for me; I have no longer strength to walk, but be assured that I shall be at my post this evening, in the pit of the Théâtre Française." True to his word, the good old man had himself carried to the theatre. The intelligent judges applauded certain passages of the tragedy, in which wonderful power, as well as many startling beauties, were perceptible; but at the catastrophe, when Atreus compels Thyestes to drink the blood of his son, there was a general exclamation of horror—(Gabrielle de Vergy, be it remarked, had not then eaten on the stage the heart of her lover). "The procureur," says D'Alembert, "would have left the theatre in sorrow, if he had awaited the judgment of the audience in order to fix his own. The pit appeared more terrified than interested; it beheld the curtain fall without uttering a sound either of approval or condemnation, and dispersed in that solemn and ominous silence which bodes no good for the future welfare of the piece. But the procureur judged better than the public, or rather, he anticipated its future judgment. The play over, he proceeded to the green-room to seek his pupil, who, still in a state of the greatest uncertainty as to his fate, was already almost resigned to a failure; he embraced Crebillon in a transport of admiration: 'I die content,' said he. 'I have made you a poet; and I leave a man to the nation!'"
And, in fact, at each representation of the piece, the public discovered fresh beauties, and abandoned itself with real pleasure to the terror which the poet inspired. A few days afterwards, the name of Crebillon became celebrated throughout Paris and the provinces, and all imagined that the spirit of the great Corneille had indeed revisited earth to animate the muse of the young Burgundian.
Crebillon's father was greatly irritated on finding that his son had, as they said then, abandoned Themis for Melpomene. In vain did the procureur plead his pupil's cause—in vain did Crebillon address to this true father a supplication in verse, to obtain pardon for him from his sire; the greffier en chef of Dijon was inexorable; to his son's entreaties he replied that he cursed him, and that he was about to make a new will. To complete, as it were, his downfall in the good opinion of this individual, who possessed such a blind infatuation for the law, Crebillon wrote him a letter, in which the following passage occurs: "I am about to get married, if you have no objection, to the most beautiful girl in Paris; you may believe me, sir, upon this point, for her beauty is all that she possesses."
To this his father replied: "Sir, your tragedies are not to my taste, your children will not be mine; commit as many follies as you please, I shall console myself with the reflection that I refused my consent to your marriage; and I would strongly advise you, sir, to depend more than ever on your pieces for support, for you are no longer a member of my family."
Crebillon, for all that, married, as he said, the most beautiful girl in Paris—the gentle and charming Charlotte Peaget, of whom Dufresny has spoken. She was the daughter of an apothecary, and it was while frequenting her father's shop that Crebillon became acquainted with her. There was nothing very romantic, it is true, in the match; but love spreads a charm over all that it comes in contact with. Thus, a short time before his marriage, Crebillon perceived his intended giving out some marshmallow and violets to a sick customer: "My dear Charlotte," said he, "we will go together, some of these days, among our Dijonnaise mountains, to collect violets and marshmallows for your father."
It was shortly after his marriage and removal to the Place Maubert, that he first evinced his strange mania for cats and dogs, and, above all, his singular passion for tobacco. He was, beyond contradiction, the greatest smoker of his day. It has been stated by some of the writers of the time, that he could not turn a single rhyme of a tragedy, save in an obscure and smoky chamber, surrounded by a noisy pack of dogs and cats; according to the same authorities, he would very frequently, also, in the middle of the day, close the shutters, and light candles. A thousand other extravagances have been attributed to Crebillon; but we ought to accept with caution the recitals of these anecdote-mongers, who were far too apt to imagine they were portraying a man, when in reality they were but drawing a ridiculous caricature.
When M. Melchior Jolyot learned that his son had, in defiance of his paternal prohibition, actually wedded the apothecary's daughter, his grief and rage knew no bounds. The worthy man believed in his recent nobility as firmly as he did in his religion, and his son's mesalliance nearly drove him to despair: this time he actually carried his threat into execution, and made a formal will, by virtue of which he completely disinherited the poet.—Fortunately for Crebillon, his father, before bidding adieu to the world and his nobility, undertook a journey to Paris, curious, even in the midst of his rage, to judge for himself the merits and demerits of the theatrical tomfooleries, as he called them, of his silly boy, who had married the apothecary's daughter, and who, in place of gaining nobility and station in a procureur's office, had written a parcel of trash for actors to spout. We must say, however, that Crebillon could not have retained a better counsel to urge his claims before the paternal tribunal than his wife, the much maligned apothecary's daughter, one of the loveliest and most amiable women in Paris; and we may add, that this nobility of which his father thought so much—the nobility of the robe—which had not been acquired in a Dijonnaise family until after the lapse of three generations, was scarcely equal to the nobility of the pen, which Crebillon had acquired by the exercise of his own talents.
The old greffier, then, came to Paris for the purpose of witnessing one of the sad tomfooleries of that unhappy profligate, who in better times had been his son. Fate so willed it that on that night "Atrée" should be performed. The old man was seized with mingled emotions of terror, grief, and admiration. That very evening, being resolved not to rest until he had seen his son, he called a coach on leaving the theatre, and drove straight to the Faubourg Saint Marceau, to the house which had been pointed out to him as the dwelling of Crebillon. No sooner had the doors opened than out rushed seven or eight dogs, who cast themselves upon the old greffier, uttering in every species of canine patois the loudest possible demonstrations of welcome. One word from Madame Crebillon, however, was sufficient to recall this unruly pack to order; yet the dogs, having no doubt instinctively discovered a family likeness, continued to gambol round the limbs of M. Melchior Jolyot, to the latter's no small confusion and alarm. Charlotte, who was alone, waiting supper for her husband, was much surprised at this unexpected visit. At first she imagined that it was some great personage who had come to offer the poet his patronage and protection; but after looking at her visitor two or three times, she suddenly exclaimed: "You are my husband's father, or at least you are one of the Jolyot family." The old greffier, though intending to have maintained his incognito until his son's return, could no longer resist the desire of abandoning himself to the delights of a reconciliation; he embraced his daughter-in-law tenderly, shedding tears of joy, and accusing himself all the while for his previous unnatural harshness: "Yes, yes," cried he, "yes, you are still my children—all that I have is yours!" then, after a moment's silence, he continued, in a tone of sadness: "But how does it happen that, with his great success, my son has condemned his wife to such a home and such a supper?"
"Condemned, did you say?" murmured Charlotte; "do not deceive yourself, we are quite happy here;" so saying she took her father-in-law by the hand, and led him into the adjoining room, to a cradle covered with white curtains. "Look!" said she, turning back the curtains with maternal solicitude.
The old man's heart melted outright at the sight of his grandchild.
"Are we not happy?" continued the mother. "What more do we require? We live on a little, and when we have no money, my father assists us."
They returned to the sitting-room.
"What wine is this?" said the old Burgundian, uncorking the bottle intended to form part of their frugal repast. "What!" he exclaimed, "my son fallen so low as this! The Crebillons have always drunk good wine."
At this instant, the dogs set up a tremendous barking: Crebillon was ascending the stairs. A few moments afterwards he entered the room escorted by a couple of dogs, which had followed him from the theatre.
"What! two more!" exclaimed the father; "this is really too much. Son," he continued, "I am come to entreat your pardon; in my anxiety to show myself your father, I had forgotten that my first duty was to love you."
Crebillon cast himself into his father's arms.
"But parbleu, Monsieur," continued the old notary, "I cannot forgive you for having so many dogs."
"You are right, father; but what would become of these poor animals were I not to take compassion upon them? It is not good for man to be alone, says the Scripture. No longer able to live with my fellow-creatures, I have surrounded myself with dogs. The dog is the solace and friend of the solitary man."
"But I should imagine you were not alone here," said the father, with a glance towards Charlotte, and the infant's cradle.
"Who knows?" said the young wife, with an expression of touching melancholy in her voice. "It is perhaps through a presentiment that he speaks thus. I much fear that I shall not live long. He has but one friend upon the earth, and that friend is myself. Now, when I shall be no more——"
"But you shall not die," interrupted Crebillon, taking her in his arms. "Could I exist without you?"
Madame Crebillon was not deceived in her presentiments: the poet, who, we know, lived to a patriarchal age, lived on in widowed solitude for upwards of fifty years.
Crebillon and his wife accompanied the old greffier back from Paris to Dijon, where, to the great surprise of the inhabitants, the father presented his son as "M. Jolyot de Crebillon, who has succeeded Messieurs Corneille and Racine in the honors of the French stage." Crebillon had the greatest possible difficulty in restraining the enthusiasm of his sire. He succeeded, however, at length, not through remonstrance, but by the insatiable ardor he displayed in diving into the paternal money-bags. After a sojourn of three months at Dijon, Crebillon returned to Paris; and well for him it was that he did so; a month longer, and the father would indubitably have quarrelled with him again, and would have remade his will, disinheriting this time, not the rebellious child, but the prodigal son. Crebillon, in fact, never possessed the art of keeping his money; and in this respect he but followed the example of all those who, in imagination, remove mountains of gold.
Scarcely had he arrived in Paris when he was obliged to return to Dijon. The old greffier had died suddenly. The inheritance was a most difficult one to unravel. "I have come here," writes Crebillon to the elder of the brothers Pâris, "only to inherit law-suits." And, true enough, he allowed himself to be drawn blindly into the various suits which arose in consequence of certain informalities in the old man's will, and which eventually caused almost the entire property to drop, bit by bit, into the pockets of the lawyers.
"I was a great blockhead," wrote Crebillon later; "I went about reciting passages from my tragedies to these lawyers, who feigned to pale with admiration; and this man[oe]uvre of theirs blinded me; I perceived not that all the while these cunning foxes were devouring my substance; but it is the fate of poets to be ever like La Fontaine's crow."
Out of this property he succeeded only in preserving the little fief of Crebillon, the income derived from which he gave up to his sisters. On his return to Paris, however, he changed altogether his style of living; he removed his penates to the neighborhood of the Luxembourg, and placed his establishment on quite a seignorial footing, as if he had become heir to a considerable property. This act of folly can scarcely be explained. The report, of course, was spread, that he had inherited property to a large amount. Most probably he wished, by acting thus, to save the family honor, or, to speak more correctly, the family vanity, by seeking to deceive the world as to the precise amount of the Jolyot estate.
True wisdom inhabits not the world in which we dwell. Crebillon sought all the superfluities of luxury. In vain did his wife endeavor to restrain him in his extravagances; in vain did she recal to his mind their frugal but happy meals, and the homely furniture of their little dwelling in the Place Maubert; "so gay for all that on sunny days."
"Well," he would reply, "if we must return there, I shall not complain. What matters if the wine be not so good, so that it is always your hand which pours it out."
Fortunately, that year was one of successive triumphs for Crebillon. The "Electre" carried off all suffrages, and astonished even criticism itself. In this piece the poet had softened down the harshness of his tints, and while still maintaining his "majestic" character, had kept closer to nature and humanity.
"Electre" was followed by "Rhadamiste," which was at the time extolled as a perfect chef-d'[oe]uvre of style and vigor. There is in this play, if we may be allowed the term, a certain rude nobility of expression, which is the true characteristic of Crebillon's genius. It was this tragedy which inspired Voltaire with the idea, that on the stage it is better to strike hard than true. The enthusiastic auditory admitted, that if Racine could paint love, Crebillon could depict hatred. Boileau, who was then dying, and who, could he have had his wish, would have desired that French literature might stop at his name, exclaimed, that this success was scandalous. "I have lived too long!" cried the old poet, in a violent rage. "To what a pack of Visigoths have I left the French stage a prey! The Pradons, whom we so often ridiculed, were eagles compared to these fellows." Boileau resembled in some respect old "Nestor" of the Iliad, when he said to the Greek kings—"I would advise you to listen to me, for I have formerly mixed with men who were your betters." The public, however, amply avenged Crebillon for the bitter judgment of Boileau; in eight days two editions of the "Rhadamiste" were exhausted. And this was not all: the piece having been played by command of the Regent before the court at Versailles, was applauded to the echo.
Despite these successes, Crebillon was not long in getting to the bottom of his purse. In the hope of deferring as long as he possibly could the evil hour when he should be obliged to return to his former humble style of living, he used every possible means to replenish his almost exhausted exchequer. He borrowed three thousand crowns from Baron Hoguer, who was the resource of literary men in the days of the Regency; and sold to a Jew usurer his author's rights upon a tragedy which was yet to be written. He had counted upon the success of "Xerxes;" but this tragedy proved an utter failure. Crebillon, however, was a man of strong mind. He returned home that evening with a calm, and even smiling countenance: "Well," eagerly exclaimed Madame Crebillon, who had been awaiting in anxiety the return of her husband. "Well," replied he, "they have damned my play; to-morrow we will return to our old habits again."
And, true to his word, on the following morning Crebillon returned to the Place Maubert, where he hired a little apartment near his father-in-law, who could still offer our poet and his wife, when hard pressed, a glass of his vin ordinaire and a share of his dinner. Out of all his rich furniture Crebillon selected but a dozen cats and dogs, whom he chose as the companions of his exile. To quote d'Alembert's words—"Like Alcibiades, in former days, he passed from Persian luxury to Spartan austerity, and, what in all probability Alcibiades was not, he was happier in the second state than he had been in the first."
His wife was in retirement what she had been in the world. She never complained. Perhaps even she showed herself in a more charming light, as the kind and devoted companion of the hissed and penniless poet, than as the admired wife of the popular dramatist. Poor Madame Crebillon hid their poverty from her husband with touching delicacy; he almost fancied himself rich, such a magic charm did she contrive to cast over their humble dwelling. Like Midas, she appeared to possess the gift of changing whatever she touched into gold, that is to say, of giving life and light by her winning grace to every thing with which she came in contact. Blessed, thrice blessed is that man, be he poet or philosopher, who, like Crebillon, has felt and understood that amiability and a contented mind are in a wife treasures inexhaustible, compared to which mere mundane wealth fades into utter insignificance. No word of complaint or peevish expression ever passed Madame Crebillon's lips; she was proud of her poet's glory, and endeavored always to sustain him in his independent ideas; she would listen resignedly to all his dreams of future triumphs, and knew how to cast herself into his arms when he would declare that he desired nothing more from mankind. One day, however, when there was no money in the house, on seeing him return with a dog under each arm, she ventured on a quiet remonstrance. "Take care, Monsieur de Crebillon," she said, with a smile, "we have already eight dogs and fifteen cats."
"Well, I know that," replied Crebillon; "but see how piteously these poor dogs look at us; could I leave them to die of hunger in the street?"
"But did it not strike you that they might possibly die of hunger here? I can fully understand and enter into your feelings of love and pity for these poor animals, but we must not convert the house into a hospital for foundling dogs."
"Why despair?" said Crebillon. "Providence never abandons genius and virtue. The report goes that I am to be of the Academy."
"I do not believe it," said Madame Crebillon. "Fontenelle and La Motte, who are but beaux esprits, will never permit a man like you to seat himself beside them, for if you were of the Academy, would you not be the king of it?"
Crebillon, however, began his canvass, but as his wife had foreseen, Fontenelle and La Motte succeeded in having him black-balled.
All these little literary thorns, however, only imparted greater charms to the calm felicity of Crebillon's domestic hearth; but we must now open the saddest page of our poet's hitherto peaceful and happy existence.
One evening, on his return from the Café Procope, the resort of all the wits and litterateurs of the eighteenth century, Crebillon found his wife in a state of great agitation, half-undressed, and pressing their sleeping infant to her bosom.
"Why, Charlotte, what is the matter?" he exclaimed.
"I am afraid," replied she, trembling, and looking towards the bed.
"What folly! you are like the children, you are frightened at shadows."
"Yes, I am frightened at shadows; just now, as I was undressing, I saw a spectre glide along at the foot of the bed. I was ready to sink to the earth with terror, and it was with the greatest difficulty that I could muster strength enough to reach the child's cradle."
"Child yourself," said Crebillon, playfully; "you merely saw the shadow of the bed-curtains."
"No, no," cried the young wife, seizing the poet's hand—"it was Death! I recognized him; for it is not the first time that he has shown himself to me. Ah! mon ami, with what grief and terror shall I prepare to lie down in the cold earth! If you love me as I love you, do not leave me for an instant; help me to die, for if you are by my side at that hour, I shall fancy I am but dropping asleep."
Greatly shocked at what he heard, Crebillon took his child in his arms, and carried it back to its cradle. He returned to his wife, pressed her to his bosom, and sought vainly for words to relieve her apprehensions, and to lead back her thoughts into less sombre channels. He at length succeeded, but not without great difficulty, in persuading her to retire to rest; she scarcely closed an eye. Poor Crebillon sat in silence by the bedside of his wife praying fervently in his heart; for perhaps he believed in omens and presentiments even to a greater degree than did Charlotte. Finding, at length, that she had dropped asleep, he got into bed himself. When he awoke in the morning, he beheld Charlotte bending over him in a half-raised posture, as though she had been attentively regarding him as he slept. Terrified at the deadly paleness of her cheeks, and the unnatural brilliancy of her eyes, and sensitive and tender-hearted as a child, he was unable to restrain his tears. She cast herself passionately into his arms, and covered his cheeks with tears and kisses.
"'Tis all over now," she whispered, in a broken voice; "my heart beats too strongly to beat much longer, but I die contented and happy, for I see by your tears that you will not forget me."
Crebillon rose hastily and ran to his father-in-law. "Alas!" said the poor apothecary, "her mother, who was as beautiful and as good as she, died young of a disease of the heart, and her child will go the same way."
All the most celebrated physicians of the day were called in, but before they could determine upon a method of treatment, the spirit of poor Charlotte had taken flight from its earthly tabernacle.
Crebillon, inconsolable at his loss, feared not the ridicule (for in the eighteenth century all such exhibitions of feeling were considered highly ridiculous) of lamenting his wife; he wept her loss during half a century—in other words, to his last hour.
During the space of two years he scarcely appeared once at the Théâtre Française. He had the air of a man of another age, so completely a stranger did he seem to all that was going on around him. One might say that he still lived with his divine Charlotte; he would speak to her unceasingly, as if her gentle presence was still making the wilderness of his solitary dwelling blossom like the rose. After fifteen years of mourning, some friends one day surprised him in his solitude, speaking aloud to his dear Charlotte, relating to her his projects for the future, and recalling their past days of happiness: "Ah, Charlotte," he exclaimed, "they all tell me of my glory, yet I think but of thee!"
The friends of Crebillon, uneasy respecting his future destiny, had advised him during the preceding year to present himself at court, where he was received and recognized as a man of genius. In the early days of his widowhood, he quitted Paris suddenly and took up his residence at Versailles. But at Versailles he lived as he had done in Paris, immured in his chamber, and entirely engrossed with his own sombre and lugubrious thoughts and visions; in consequence of this, he was scarcely noticed; the king seeing before him a species of Danubian peasant, proud of his genius and his poverty, treated him with an almost disdainful coldness of manner. Crebillon did not at first comprehend his position at Versailles. He was a simple-minded philosopher, who had studied heroes and not men. At length, convinced that a poet at court is like a fish out of water, he returned to Paris to live more nobly with his heroes and his poverty. He retired to the Marais, to the Rue des Deux-Portes, taking with him only a bed, a table, two chairs, and an arm-chair, "in case," to use his own words, "an honest man should come to visit him."
Irritated at the rebuff he had met with at Versailles, ashamed of having solicited in vain the justice of the king, he believed henceforth only in liberty. "Liberty," said he, "is the most vivid sentiment engraven on my heart." Unintentionally, perhaps, he avenged himself in the first work he undertook after this event: the tragedy of "Cromwell,"—"an altar," as he said, "which I erect to liberty." According to D'Alembert, he read to his friends some scenes of this play, in which our British aversion for absolutism was painted with wild and startling energy; in consequence thereof, he received an order forbidding him to continue his piece. His Cromwell was a villain certainly, but a villain which would have told well upon the stage, from the degree of grandeur and heroic dignity with which the author had invested the character. From that day he had enemies; but indeed it might be said that he had had enemies from the evening of the first representation of his "Electre." Success here below has no other retinue.
Crebillon was now almost penniless. By degrees, without having foreseen such an occurrence, he began to hear his numerous creditors buzzing around him like a swarm of hornets. Not having any thing else to seize, they seized at the theatre his author's rights. The affair was brought before the courts, and led to a decree of parliament which ordained that the works of the intellect were not seizable, consequently Crebillon retained the income arising from the performance of his tragedies.
Some years now passed away without bringing any fresh successes. Compelled by the court party to discontinue "Cromwell," he gave "Semiramis," which, like "Xerxes," some time previously, was a failure. Under the impression that the public could not bring itself to relish "sombre horrors of human tempests," he sought to arm himself as it were against his own nature, to subdue and soften it. The tragedy of "Pyrrhus," which recalled the tender colors of Racine, cost him five years' labor. At that time, so strong in France was the empire of habit, that this tragedy, though utterly valueless as a work of art, and wanting both in style, relief, and expression, was received with enthusiasm. But Crebillon possessed too much good sense to be blinded by this spurious triumph. "It is," said he, when speaking of his work, "but the shadow of a tragedy."
"Pyrrhus" obtained, after all, but a transitory success. After a brief period, the public began to discover that it was a foreign plant, which under a new sky gave out but a factitious brilliancy. In despair at having wasted so much precious time in fruitless labor, and disgusted besides at the conduct of some shameless intriguers who frequented the literary cafés of the capital, singing his defeat in trashy verse, Crebillon now retired almost wholly from the world. He would visit the theatre, however, occasionally to chat with a few friends over the literary topics of the day; but at length even this recreation was abandoned, and he was seen in the world no more.
He lived now without any other friends than his heroes and his cats and dogs, devouring the novels of La Calprenède, and relating long-winded romances to himself. His son affirms having seen fifteen dogs and as many cats barking and mewing at one time round his father, who would speak to them much more tenderly than he would to himself. According to Freron's account, Crebillon would pick up and carry home under his cloak all the wandering dogs he met with in the street, and give them shelter and hospitality. But in return for this, he would require from them an aptitude for certain exercises; when, at the termination of the prescribed period, the pupil was convicted of not having profited by the education he had received, the poet would take him under his cloak again, put him down at the corner of a street and fly from the spot with tears in his eyes.
On the death of La Motte, Crebillon was at length admitted into the Academy. As he was always an eccentric man, he wrote his "Discourse" of reception in verse, a thing which had never been done before. On pronouncing this line, which has not yet been forgotten—
Aucun fiel n'a jamais empoisonné ma plume—
he was enthusiastically applauded. From that day, but from that day only, Crebillon was recognized by his countrymen as a man of honor and virtue, as well as genius. It was rather late in the day, however; he had lost his wife, his son was mixing in the fashionable world, he was completely alone, and almost forgotten, expecting nothing more from the fickle public. More idle than a lazzarone, he passed years without writing a single line, though his ever-active imagination would still produce, mentally, tragedy after tragedy. As he possessed a wonderful memory, he would compose and rhyme off-hand the entire five acts of a piece without having occasion to put pen to paper. One evening, under the impression that he had produced a masterpiece, he invited certain of his brother Academicians to his house to hear his new play. When the party had assembled, he commenced, and declaimed the entire tragedy from beginning to end without stopping. Judging by the ominous silence with which the conclusion was received, that his audience was not over delighted with his play, he exclaimed, in a pet—
"You see, my friends, I was right in not putting my tragedy on paper."
"Why so?" asked Godoyn.
"Because, I should have had the trouble of throwing it into the fire. Now, I shall merely have to forget it, which is easier done."
When Crebillon seemed no longer formidable in the literary world, and all were agreed he was in the decline of his genius, the very men who had previously denied his power, now thought fit to combat Voltaire by exalting Crebillon, in the same way as they afterwards exalted Voltaire so soon as another star appeared on the literary horizon.
"With the intention of humbling the pride of Voltaire, they proceeded," says a writer of the time, "to seek out in his lonely retreat the now aged and forsaken Crebillon, who, mute and solitary for the last thirty years, was no longer a formidable enemy for them, but whom they flattered themselves they could oppose as a species of phantom to the illustrious writer by whom they were eclipsed; just as, in former days, the Leaguers drew an old cardinal from out the obscurity in which he lived, to give him the empty title of king, only that they themselves might reign under his name."
The literary world was then divided into two adverse parties—the Crebillonists, and the Voltairians. The first, being masters of all the avenues, succeeded for a length of time in blinding the public. Voltaire passed for a mere wit; Crebillon, for the sole heir of the sceptre of Corneille and Racine. It was this clique which invented the formula ever afterwards employed in the designation of these three poets—Corneille the great, Racine the tender, and Crebillon the tragic. One great advantage Crebillon possessed over Voltaire: he had written nothing for the last thirty years. His friends, or rather Voltaire's enemies, now began to give out that the author of "Rhadamiste" was engaged in putting the finishing hand to a tragedy, a veritable dramatic wonder, by name "Catilina." Madame de Pompadour herself, tired of Voltaire's importunate ambition, now went over with her forces to the camp of the Crebillonists. She received Crebillon at court, and recommended him to the particular care of Louis XV., who conferred a pension on him, and also appointed him to the office of censor royal.
"Catilina" was at length produced with great éclat. The court party, which was present in force at the first performance, doubtless contributed in a great measure to the success of the piece. The old poet, thus encouraged, set to work on a new play, the "Triumvirat," with fresh ardor; but as was Voltaire's lot in after years, it was soon perceptible that the poet was but the shadow of what he had been. Out of respect, however, for Crebillon's eighty-eight years, the tragedy was applauded, but in a few days the "Triumvirat" was played to empty benches. Crebillon had now but one thing left to do: to die, which, in fact, he did in the year 1762.
It cannot be denied that Crebillon was one of the remarkable men of his century. That untutored genius, so striking in the boldness and brilliancy of its creations, but which more frequently repels through its own native barbarity, was eminently the genius of Crebillon. But what, above all, characterizes the genius of the French nation—wit, grace, and polish—Crebillon never possessed; consequently, with all his vigor and all his force, he never succeeded in creating a living work. He has depicted human perversity with a proud and daring hand—he has shown the fratricide, the infanticide, the parricide, but he never succeeded in attaining the sublimity of the Greek drama. And yet J. J. Rousseau affirmed that of all the French tragic poets, Crebillon alone had recalled to him the grandeur of the Greeks. If so, it was only through the nudity of terror, for the "French Æschylus" was utterly wanting in what may be termed human and philosophical sentiment.
There is a very beautiful portrait of Crebillon extant, by Latour. It would doubtless be supposed that the man, so terrible in his dramatic furies, was of a dark and sombre appearance. Far from it; Crebillon was of a fair complexion, and had an artless expression of countenance, and a pair of beautiful blue eyes. It must, however, be confessed, that by his method of borrowing the gestures of his heroes, coupled, moreover, with the habit he had acquired of contracting his eyebrows in the fervor of composition, Crebillon in the end became a little more the man of his works. He was, moreover, impatient and irritable, even with his favorite dogs and cats, and occasionally with his sweet-tempered and angelic wife, the ever cheerful partner alike of his joys and sorrows, who had so nobly resigned herself to the chances and changes of his good and ill-fortune; that loving companion of his hours of profusion and gaiety, when he aped the grand seigneur, as well as the devoted sharer of those days of poverty and neglect, when he retired from the world in disgust, to the old dwelling-house of the Place Maubert.
HABITS OF FREDERICK THE GREAT.
The principal part of the life of this great monarch was spent in camp, and in a constant struggle with a host of enemies. Yet even then, when the busy day scarcely afforded a vacant moment, that moment, if it came, was sure to be given to study. Let the young shopocracy of Glasgow never forget that Frederic had very early formed an attachment to reading, which neither the opposition of his father—who thought that the scholar would spoil the soldier—nor the schemes of ambition and conquest, which occupied him so much in after life, were able to destroy or weaken. When at last, therefore, he felt himself at liberty to sheathe the sword, he gave himself up to the cultivation and patronage of literature and the arts of peace, as eagerly as he had ever done to the pursuit of military renown. Even before his accession to the throne, and while yet but a young man, he had established in his residence at Rheimsberg nearly the same system of studious application and economy in the management of his time to which he ever afterwards continued to adhere. His relaxations even then were almost entirely of an intellectual character; and he had collected around him a circle of literary associates, with whom it was his highest enjoyment to spend his hours in philosophic conversation, or in amusements not unfitted to adorn a life of philosophy. In a letter written to one of his friends, he says—"I become every day more covetous of my time; I render an account of it to myself, and lose none of it but with great regret. My mind is entirely turned toward philosophy; it has rendered me admirable services, and I am greatly indebted to it. I find myself happy, abundantly more tranquil than formerly; my soul is less subject to violent agitations; and I do nothing till I have considered what course of action I ought to adopt." Let young men contrast such conduct with the frivolities of other noble and royal persons, and be faithful to her whose ways are pleasantness, and whose paths are peace. I shall conclude this paper with a sketch of his doings for the ordinary four-and-twenty hours. Dr. Towers, who has written a history of his reign, informs us that it was his general custom to rise at five o'clock in the morning, and sometimes earlier. He commonly dressed his hair himself, and seldom employed more than two minutes for that purpose. His boots were put at the bedside, for he scarcely ever wore shoes. After he was dressed, the adjutant of the first battalion of his guards brought him a list of all the persons that had arrived at Potsdam, or departed from thence. When he had delivered his orders to this officer he retired into an inner cabinet, where he employed himself in private till seven o'clock. He then went into another apartment, where he drank coffee or chocolate, and here he found all the letters addressed to him from Potsdam and Berlin. Foreign letters were placed upon a separate table. After reading all these letters, he wrote hints or notes on the margin of those which his secretaries were to answer, and then returning into the inner cabinet carried with him such as he meant to write or dictate an answer to himself. Here he employed himself until nine o'clock. At ten the generals who were about his person attended. At eleven he mounted his horse and rode to the parade, when he reviewed and exercised his guards; and at the same hour, says Voltaire, all the colonels did the same throughout the provinces. He afterwards walked for some time in the garden with his generals. At one o'clock he sat down to dinner. He had no carver, but did the honors of the table like a private gentleman. His dinner-time did not much exceed an hour. He then retired into his private apartment, making low bows to his company. He remained in private till five o'clock, when his reader waited on him. His reading lasted about two hours, and this was succeeded by a concert upon the flute which lasted till nine. He supped at half-past nine with his favorite literati, and at twelve the king went to bed.—Communication from David Vedder, in the Glasgow Citizen.