"Third circle?" enumerated Lireux.
"The heads of the great banking and financial establishments."
"The galleries and amphitheatre?"
"A carefully selected, but varied, bourgeoisie," wound up Balzac.
Lireux, who was a capital mimic, re-enacted the scene for us four-and-twenty hours after it had been enacted in his own room, and while he was still under the impression that it was merely a huge joke on Balzac's part. He soon discovered, however, that the latter was terribly in earnest, when, a few days later, Balzac claimed the whole of the seats for the first three nights, on the penalty of withdrawing his piece there and then. Lireux foolishly submitted, the box office was closed; every one applying for tickets was referred to Balzac himself, or rather to the shady individual who had egged him on to this speculation. The latter, at the first application, had run up the prices; the public felt disgusted, and when the curtain rose upon "Les Ressources de Quinola," the house was almost empty. Thereupon a batch of nondescripts was sent into the streets to dispose of the tickets at any price; the bait was indignantly rejected, and the curtain fell amidst violent hisses. I repeat, a masterpiece would have failed under such circumstances; but the short run of the revival, almost a quarter of a century later at the Vaudeville, proved that the piece was not even an ordinary money-drawing one. It only kept the bills for about nine or ten days.
Lireux was more fortunate with several other pieces, notably with that of Léon Gozlan, known to students of the French drama as "La Main Droite et la Main Gauche," but which originally bore the title of "Il était une Fois un Roi et une Reine." There could be no doubt about its tendency in its original form; it was nothing less than an indictment for bigamy both against Queen Victoria and her Consort; and the authorities had to insist not only upon the change of title and the names of the dramatis personæ, but upon the action being shifted from London to Stockholm. The author and manager had to comply; but the public, who had got wind of the affair, crowded the house every night in order to read between the lines.
One of my great sources of amusement for many years has been the perusal of political after-dinner speeches, and political leaders in the English papers, especially when the speakers and writers have endeavoured to lay stress upon the cordial relations between the French and the English, upon the friendly feelings guiding their actions on both sides. I am putting together these notes nearly fourteen years after the conclusion of the Franco-German War, nearly three quarters of a century after Waterloo. There is not a single Frenchman, however Chauvinistic, who ever thinks, let alone talks, of avenging Napoléon's defeat by Wellington; while, on the other hand, there is not a single Frenchman, however unpatriotic, who does not dream now and then of wiping out the humiliation suffered at Sedan. Well, in spite of the almost entire oblivion of the one disaster, and the poignant recollection of the other, the French of to-day hate the English more than the Germans; or—let me put it more correctly—they hate the Germans, they despise us. Nothing that we can do will ever remove this dislike of us.
It has been thus as long as I can remember; no royal visits, no exchange of so-called international courtesies will alter the feeling. It is ready to burst forth, the smallest provocation or fancied one will set it ablaze. During the forties there were a good many real or imaginary provocations on the part of England, and, as a consequence, the hostile feeling against her broke forth where it is almost always sure to break forth first in France—on the stage and in song. After "La Main Droite et la Main Gauche," came Halévy's opera of "Charles VI." It is but fair to say that the Government did all it could to stem the tide, but, notwithstanding its positive orders to modify the chorus of the famous war song in the first act, the song was henceforth regarded as a patriotic hymn. Nor did the visit of the Queen to Louis-Philippe at Eu, in 1843, effect much improvement in this state of things; and, as a matter of course, we on the English side of the Channel retaliated the skits, etc., though I do not think we took them au grand sérieux. When, in January, '44, I went to London for a few days, I found the Christmas pantomime of "King Pippin" in full swing at Drury Lane. I well remember a scene of it, laid in the shop of a dealer in plaster figures. Two of these represented respectively the King of France and the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland. At a given moment, the two statues became animated, drew close to one another, and exchanged the most profuse salutations. But meanwhile, at the back of the stage, the Gallic cock and the British lion (or leopard) assumed a threatening attitude, and at each mark of affection between the two royal personages, shook their heads violently and seemed to want desperately to come to close quarters. The audience applauded vociferously, and it was very evident to me that neither in Paris nor in London the two nations shared the entente cordiale of their rulers.
CHAPTER VI.
Rachel and some of her fellow-actors — Rachel's true character — Her greediness and spitefulness — Her vanity and her wit — Her powers of fascination — The cost of being fascinated by her — Her manner of levying toll — Some of her victims, Comte Duchâtel and Dr. Véron — The story of her guitar — A little transaction between her and M. Fould — Her supposed charity and generosity — Ten tickets for a charity concert — How she made them into twenty — How she could have made them into a hundred — Baron Taylor puzzled — Her manner of giving presents — Beauvallet's precaution with regard to one of her gifts — Alexandre Dumas the younger, wiser or perhaps not so wise in his generation — Rachel as a raconteuse — The story of her début at the Gymnase — What Rachel would have been as an actor instead of an actress — Her comic genius — Rachel's mother — What became of Rachel's money — Mama Félix as a pawnbroker — Rachel's trinkets — Two curious bracelets — Her first appearance before Nicholas I. — A dramatic recital in the open air — Rachel's opinion of the handsomest man in Europe — Rachel and Samson — Her obligations to him — How she repays them — How she goes to Berryer to be coached in the fable of "The Two Pigeons" — An anecdote of Berryer — Rachel's fear of a "warm reception" on the first night of "Adrienne Lecouvreur" — How she averts the danger — Samson as a man and as an actor — Petticoat-revolts at the Comédie-Française — Samson and Régnier as buffers — Their different ways of pouring oil upon the troubled waters — Mdlle. Sylvanie Plessy — A parallel between her and Sarah Bernhardt — Samson and Régnier's pride in their profession — The different character of that pride — "Apollo with a bad tailor, and who dresses without a looking-glass" — Samson gives a lesson in declamation to a procureur-impérial — The secret of Régnier's greatness as an actor — A lesson at the Conservatoire — Régnier on "make-up" — Régnier's opinion of genius on the stage — A mot of Augustine Brohan — Giovanni, the wigmaker of the Comédie-Française — His pride in his profession — M. Ancessy, the musical director, and his three wigs.