The year 1823, which we might style the "year of trials," opened by the trial of Potier on 7 January. Those who never saw Potier can form no conception of the influence this great comedian, who was much admired by Talma, had on the public; yet the damages and compensation that M. Serres, the manager of the Porte-Sainte-Martin, demanded from him, may give some idea of the value that was put upon him. One morning Potier, faithful, as M. Étienne would have said, to his first loves, took it into his head to return to the Variétés, a project which he carried out, it appears, forgetting to ask M. Serres to cancel his engagement before he left. Now Potier had been acting the part of old Sournois in Petites Dandaïdes, with such success both in the way of applause and in packed houses, that M. Serres not only refused to sanction this desertion, but reckoning up the losses which he considered Potier had caused him by his departure, and would cause him in the future, because of this same departure, decided, after sending through the sheriffs officer his account to the famous comedian, to send a duplicate copy of it to the first Chamber of the Royal Court. The odd thing about the account was that the manager of the theatre of Porte-Sainte-Martin claimed absolutely nothing but what was due to him under the terms of his contract. These are the particulars of his claim:—
1. For each day's delay, reckoning at the
highest receipts taken in the theatre,
from 1 March 1822 to 1 April in
the same year, being at a rate
of three thousand six hundred and
eleven francs ... 144,408 fr.
2. Restitution of money.. 30,000 "
3. Amount paid in advance, forfeited. 20,000 "
4. Damage and compensation.. 60,000 "
5. For one hundred and twenty-two days
which have expired since the first claim.... 440,542 "
6. For the seven years and ten months
which remain to run before the end of the
engagement.. 10,322,840 "
7. Finally, as damages and compensation
in respect of this period of seven years.... 200,000 "
Total. 11,217,790 "
If the manager of the Porte-Sainte-Martin had had the misfortune to win his case, he would have been obliged to pay Potier, in order to notify the sentence, a registration fee of three to four hundred thousand francs.
The Court condemned Potier to resume his engagement within a week's time: as to damages and compensation, it condemned him, par corps, to pay them according to the estimated scale. Three days later, it was known that the matter had been settled, less a discount of eleven million two hundred and seven thousand seven hundred and ninety francs made by the manager.
On 8 February it was the turn of Magallon, the chief editor of the Album. Magallon appeared before the seventh Chamber of the Police Correctional Court, accused of having hidden political articles under the cloak of literature, with intent to incite hatred and contempt towards the Government. The Court condemned Magallon to thirteen months' imprisonment and to pay a fine of two thousand francs.
It was a monstrous sentence, and it created great uproar; but a far greater scandal still, or rather, what converted a matter of scandal into an outrage, was that for this slight literary offence, and on the pretext that the sentence exceeded one year, Magallon was taken to the central prison of Poissy, on foot, with his hands bound, tied to a filthy criminal condemned afresh to penal servitude, who, dead-drunk, kept yelling unceasingly the whole way, "Long live galley slaves! honour to, all galley slaves!"
When they reached Poissy, Magallon was put into prison clothes. From that evening he had to live on skilly and learn to pick oakum.... We content ourselves with relating the bare facts; although we cannot resist adding that they happened under the reign of a prince who pretended to be a man of letters, since he had ordered a quatrain from Lemierre and a comedy from Merville....
We have already related that M. Arnault, whose Marius à Minturnes had succeeded, in spite of Monsieur's prediction, paid, in all probability, for this want of respect for the opinion of His Royal Highness by four years of exile, on the return of the Bourbons.
And this was not Louis XVIII.'s first attempt on his confrères, the men of letters. Without mentioning M. de Chateaubriand, whom he hounded out of the ministry as though he were a lackey,—an act which caused that worthy gentleman to remark, on receiving his dismissal, "It is strange, for I have not stolen the king's watch!"—without counting Magallon, whom he sent to Poissy chained to a scurvy convict; without counting M. Arnault, whom he banished from the country; there was, besides, a little story of the same kind in connection with Beaumarchais.
More than once has M. Arnault related in my hearing the curious and too little known history of Beaumarchais' imprisonment. These are the facts.