An Englishman in Paris: Notes and Recollections

by Albert D. Vandam

After this, the orchestra, nine-tenths of whose members are in uniform, performs the overture to "La Muette de Portici" (Masaniello); Pasdeloup conducting. Pasdeloup is a naturalized German, whose real name is Wolfgang, but, in this instance, the public do not seem to mind it; nor is there any protest against the names of two other Germans on the programme, Weber's and Beethoven's. On the contrary, the latter's composition is frantically encored. I believe it is the symphony in C Minor, for it has been wedded to Victor Hugo's words, and it is Madame Ugalde who sings the stirring hymn "Patria."

There is a story connected with this hymn, which is not generally known. I give it as it was told to me a day or so afterwards by Auber, who had it from the lips of Joseph Dartigues, who, at the time of its occurrence, was the musical critic of the Journal des Débats.

Hugo was very young then, and one night he went to the Théâtre de Madame, which has since become the Gymnase. The piece was one of Scribe's—"La Chatte metamorphosée en Femme;" and Jenny Vertpré, whom our grandfathers applauded at the St. James Theatre in the thirties, was to play the principal part. Still, our poet was not particularly struck with the plot, dialogue, or lyrics; but, all at once, he sat upright in his seat, at the strains of a "Hindoo invocation." When the music ceased, Hugo left the house, humming the notes to himself. He was very fond of music, though he could never reconcile himself to have his dramas appropriated by the librettists, and gave his consent but very reluctantly. Next morning, he met Dartigues on the Boulevard des Italiens, then the Boulevard de Gand. He told him what he had heard, and recommended the critic to go and judge for himself. "It is so utterly different from the idiotic stuff one generally hears." Dartigues acted upon the recommendation. A few days later, they met once more. "Did you go and hear that music, at the Théâtre de Madame?" asked Hugo.

"Yes," was the reply. "I am not surprised at your liking it; it is Beethoven's."

Curious to relate, Hugo had not as much as heard the name of the great German composer. The acquaintance with classical music was very limited in the France of those days. But Hugo never forgot the symphony, and, later on, in his exile, he wrote the words I had just heard.

The impulse has been given, and from that moment the walls of Paris display as many bills of theatrical and musical entertainments as if the Germans were not at the gates. I go to nearly all, and, to my great regret, hear a great many actors and actresses who have received favours and honours at the hand of Louis-Napoléon vie with one another in casting obloquy upon him and his reign. One of the few honourable exceptions is M. Got, who, being invited to recite Hugo's "Châtiments," emphatically refuses "to kick a man when he is down."

At the Théâtre-Français, there is a special box—the erstwhile Imperial box—for the convalescents, who are being tended in the theatre itself.

But though I went to hear Melchisedec and Taillade, Caron and Berthelier, there is one performance that stands out vividly from the rest in my memory. It was a representation of Hugo's "Le Roi s'amuse" ("The Fool's Revenge"), at the theatre at Montmartre. Under ordinary circumstances, I should probably not have gone so far afield to see any piece, not even that which was reputed to be the masterpiece of Victor Hugo, but, in this instance, the temptation was too great. The play had only been performed in Paris once—on the 22nd of November, 1832; next day it was suspended by order of the Government. Alexandre Dumas the elder, Théophile Gautier, Nestor Roqueplan, all of whom were present on that memorable night, had spoken to me of its beauties. I had often promised myself to read it, and had never done so. If I had, I should probably not have gone to Montmartre that night, lest my illusions should be disturbed. The performance was intended as a tribute to the genius of the poet, but also as an act of defiance on the part of the young Republic to the preceding régimes; though why it was not revived during the Second Republic I have never been able to make out clearly.

My companion and I toiled up the steep Rue des Martyrs, and it was evident to us, when we got to the Place du Théâtre, that something unusual was going on, for the little square was absolutely black with people. We managed, however, to elbow our way through, and to get two stalls. The house was dimly lighted by gas, the deficiency made up, as far I could see, by lamps in the auditorium, by candles on the stage. There was not an empty seat anywhere. The overture, consisting of snatches from "Rigoletto," was received with deafening applause, and then the curtain rose upon the magnificent hall in the Louvre of François I., with the king surrounded by his courtiers and his favourites. By his side hobbled Triboulet, his evil genius, as Hugo has represented him.

My disappointment was great. I had come to admire, not expecting magnificent scenery, gorgeous costumes, or transcendent acting, but a spirit of reverence for the immortal creation of a great poet. At that time I was not sufficiently familiar with provincial art in England to be able to picture a performance of Shakespeare except under conditions such as prevail in the best of London theatres. I had read accounts, however, of strolling companies and their doings, but I doubt whether the humblest would have been guilty of such utter iconoclasm in the spirit as well as in the letter as I witnessed that night. It was not comic, it was absolutely painful. It was not the glazed calico doing duty for brocade, that made me wince; it was not the anti-macassar replacing lace that made me gasp for breath: it was the miserable failure of those behind the footlights, as well as of those in front, to grasp the meaning of the simplest line. They had been told that this play was an indictment, not against a libertine king, but against generations and generations of rulers to whom debauch was as the air they breathed. And, in order to make the lesson more striking, Saint-Vallier was represented as an old dotard, Triboulet as a pander, the king as an amorous Bill Sykes, and Triboulet's daughter as an hysterical young woman who virtually gloried in her dishonour. I had seen "Orphée aux Enfers," "La Belle Hélène," and "La Grande Duchesse;" I had heard Schneider at her best and at her worst; I had heard women of birth and breeding titter, and gentlemen roar, at allusions which would make a London coalheaver blush;—I had never seen anything so downright degrading as this performance. And when, at last, the dramatis personæ gathered round a bust of Hippocrates—the best substitute for one of Victor Hugo they could find,—and one of them recited "Les Châtiments," I left, hoping that I should never see such an exhibition again. It was one of the first deliberately planned lessons in "king-hatred" I had heard. The disciples looked to me very promising, and the Commune, when it came, was not such a surprise to me, after all. Before then, I had come to the conclusion that the barbarians outside the gates of Paris were less to be feared than those inside—the former, at any rate, believed in a chief; the motto of the others was, "Ni Dieu, ni maître."