Ah well!...
Chénier had made his début in Charles IX., which he wanted to have reproduced, and its reproduction caused Danton and Camille Desmoulins to be taken before the police magistrate, accused of having got up conspiracies in the pit. Henri VIII. followed Charles IX. with similar success. Two years after Henri VIII., Calas was produced. Finally, on 9 January 1793, at the height of Louis XVI.'s trial, and some days before that poor king's death, Chénier produced Fénélon,, a rose-water tragedy, of the same type as the Mort d'Abel, which had that kind of success one's friends term a triumph, and one's enemies a failure.
Chénier counted on reviving his success by Timoléon. But Robespierre, who had heard the work talked of, read it and stopped it. Listen, you wielders of the Censorship! Robespierre trod in your footsteps; he stopped Timoléon as your confrères, before him, had stopped Tartufe to no purpose; Mahomet, to no purpose; Mariage de Figaro, to no purpose; and so we come at last to you, who have stopped Pinto to no purpose, Marion Delorme to no purpose, and Antony to no purpose.
Robespierre, we repeat, stopped Timoléon, declaring that, as long as he was alive, the piece should never be played. Yes, but Robespierre proved himself ignorant of the temper of the age in which he and his contemporaries lived; he counted without 9 Thermidor.... Robespierre followed Danton to the scaffold, and Timoléon was played.
Unfortunately, two days before Robespierre, death claimed the sweet-voiced swan whom men called André Chénier, a poet even as his brother, though of a different make, and no writer of tragedies.
How was it that Marie-Joseph Chénier found time to look after the rehearsals of his tragedy, so soon after Thermidor, and immediately upon the death of his brother?
Ah! André was only his brother, and Timoléon was his child.
But many-headed Nemesis was watching over the forgotten poet and preparing a terrible vengeance. Timoléon killed his brother, and Chénier was accused of not having saved his.
Cries were raised for the name of the author.
"No need!" cried a voice from the pit. "The author's name is Cain!"