"The only thing that marred the play (said Geoffroy) was Talma's lack of intelligence, proportion and nobility in the part of Achilles."
I begin to think we must have been deceived in the matter of worthy M. Geoffroy's impartiality and that he had received before the play a very significant message from one of the members of the Bonaparte family who was in the box of the First Consul.
Mademoiselle Georges played the part of Clytemnestra three times running. It was an immense success. Then she went on to the part of Aménaïde,—that maiden attacked with hysterical vapours, as Geoffroy said later,—and her popularity went on increasing. Then, after the rôle of Aménaïde, she took the part of Idamé in l'Orphelin de la Chine.
If men wondered how debutantes in the part of Clytemnestra would deliver the famous line so unworthy of Racine—
"Vous savez, et Calchas mille fois vous l'a dit...."
women waited just as impatiently for the appearance of debutantes in the part of Idamé to see how they would dress their hair.
Mademoiselle Georges' hair was arranged very simply à la chinoise—that is to say, with her locks arranged on the top of her head and tied with a golden ribbon. This arrangement suited her admirably, so I was told, not by Lucien but by his brother King Jérôme, a keen appreciator of beauty in all its forms, who, like Raucourt, kept the habit of calling Georges, Georgine.
The night that the Orphelin de la Chine was to be played, whilst Georgine, about whom, at that hour, the whole of Paris was talking, was partaking of a lentil supper at the hôtel du Pérou,—not because, like Esau, she was fond of this fare, but because there was nothing else in the house,—Prince Zappia was announced. Who might Prince Zappia be? Was he, too, a prince among critics? Not so: he was a real prince, one of those art-loving princes whose line died out with the Prince de Ligne, a Prince Hénin, one of those princes who frequented the lounge of the Comédie-Française, as Prince Pignatelli did the lounge of the Opéra. The lounge of the Comédie-Française was, apparently, a wonderful place in those days—I only saw the remains of it.
After each great representation—and every time such actors as Talma, Raucourt, Contat, Monvel or Molé played was a great occasion—all the noted people in the artistic, diplomatic or aristocratic circles went to have a few minutes' chat in the box of the hero or of the heroine of the evening; then they returned to the lounge and joined the general company there.
Bonaparte's budding Court, which made such efforts to establish itself as a Court, was rarely as brilliant as the lounge of the Théâtre-Français.