I had dined so well that I had quite as much of the spirit of indulgence in my stomach as curiosity in my mind.
We went into the theatre. The hall was crowded, although it was about the eighth performance of the play. We had terrible difficulty in obtaining seats: our places were unreserved. Adolphe generously gave forty sous to the woman who showed people to their seats, and she wriggled a way in so well for us that she found us a corner in the centre of the orchestra, into which we slipped like a couple of wedges, which we must have resembled in shape and appearance. We were only just in time, as Adolphe had said. Scarcely were we seated before the curtain went up.
It is odd, is it not, that I should be talking of Sylla to the public of 1851? "What was Sylla?" a whole generation will exclaim. O Hugo! how true are your lines upon Canaris! They come back to me now, and, in spite of my will, flow from my pen:—
"Canaris! Canaris! nous t'avons oublie!
Lorsque sur un héros le temps c'est replie,
Quand ce sublime acteur a fait pleurer ou lire,
Et qu'il a dit le mot que Dieu lui donne à dire;
Quand, venus au hasard des revolutions,
Les grands hommes out fait leurs grandes actions,
Qu'ils ont jeté leur lustre étincelant ou sombre,
Et qu'ils sont, pas à pas, redescendus dans l'ombre;
Leur nom s'éteint aussi! Tout est vain, tout est vain!
Et jusqu'à ce qu'un jour le poëte divin,
Qui peut créer un monde avec une parole,
Les prenne et leur rallume au front une auréole,
Nul ne se souvient d'eux, et la foule aux cent voix,
Qui, rien qu'en les voyant, hurlait d'aise autrefois,
Hélas! si par hasard devant elle on les nomme,
Interroge et s'étonne, et dit:'Quel est cet homme?'"
No! it is true M. de Jouy was not a hero, although he had fought bravely in India, nor a great man, although he had composed l'Ermite de la Chaussée-d'Antin and Sylla; but M. de Jouy was a man of parts, or rather he possessed talent.
This was my conviction then. Thirty years have rolled by since the evening on which I first saw Talma appear on the stage. I have just re-read Sylla and it is my opinion to-day. No doubt M. de Jouy had cleverly turned to account both the historical and the physical likeness. The abdication of Sylla called to mind the emperor's abdication; Talma's head the cast of Napoleon's. No doubt this was the reason why the work met with such an enthusiastic reception, and ran for a hundred times. But there was something else besides the actor's looks and the allusions in the tragedy; there were fine lines, good situations, a dénoûment daring in its simplicity. I am well aware that very often the fine lines of one period are not the fine lines of another,—at least so people hold,—but the four lines which the poet puts into the mouth of Roscius are fine lines for all time: Roscius, the Talma of those last days of Rome, who had witnessed the fall of the Roman Republic, as Talma had witnessed the fall of the French Republic:—
"Ah! puisse la nature épargner aux Romains
Ces sublimes esprits au-dessus des humains!
Trop de maux, trop de pleurs attestent le passage
De ces astres brûlants nés du sein de l'orage!"
Then, again, very fine are the lines that the proscriber, who arrests with his powerful hand the proscription, which was going to include Cæsar, addresses to Ophelia when Ophelia says to him:—
"Oserais-je, à mon tour, demander à Sylla
Quel pouvoir inconnu, quelle ombre protectrice,
Peut dérober César à sa lente justice?
Sylla. J'ai pesé comme vous ses vices, ses vertus,
Et mon œil dans César voit plus d'un Marius!
Je sais de quel espoir son jeune orgueil s'énivre;
Mais Pompée est vivant, César aussi doit vivre.
Parmi tous ces Romains à mon pouvoir soumis,
Je n'ai plus de rivaux, j'ai besoin d'ennemis,
D'ennemis fibres, fiers, dont la seule presence
Atteste mon génie ainsi que ma puissance;
L'histoire à Marius pourrait m'associer,
César aura vécu pour me justifier!"