And he never forgave the bad turn played him by the gentlemen of the Comédie-Française.
But Delrieu's sayings would lead us too far astray. Let us go back from the revival of Artaxercès to its first performance, which will bring us to 30 April 1808.
Mademoiselle Georges had created the rôle of Mandane, and had played it four times; but on the day of the fifth performance an ominous rumour spread through the theatre, and from the theatre out into the town. Mandane had disappeared. A satrap more powerful than Arbaces had carried her off—His Majesty the Emperor of All the Russias.
The Russians have never had any other aristocratic literature than ours: Russians do not usually speak Russian; instead of this, they talk much better French than we do.
The Théâtre-Français was rich in crowned heads at this period. In tragedy queens alone it could boast Mademoiselle Raucourt, Mademoiselle Duchesnois and Mademoiselle Georges.
The Emperor Alexander naturally considered that the rich should lend to the poor. Besides, the Russians had just lost Austerlitz and Eylau, and they felt quite entitled to some compensation. The business was arranged through the intermediary of the exalted Russian diplomatic corps. M. de Nariskin, who fulfilled the functions of Grand Chamberlain, commissioned M. de Beckendorf, on behalf of the emperor, to arrange the flight. It was conducted with the utmost secrecy. Nevertheless, the telegraph wires along the route to the North were busily at work within twenty-four hours after the disappearance of Mademoiselle Georges.
But, as everyone knows, actresses who escape from the Théâtre-Français fly on faster wings than those of the telegraph, and not one has ever been overtaken. So Mademoiselle Georges entered Kehl just as the news of her flight reached Strassbourg. This was the first defection the Emperor Napoleon had experienced; that Hermione, the ungrateful Hermione, should go over to the enemy! Mademoiselle Georges did not stop until she reached Vienna and the salon of Princess Bagration; but, as we were at peace with Austria, the French Ambassador bestirred himself, and laid claim to Mademoiselle Georges; this was equivalent, in diplomatic terms, to a casus belli, and Mademoiselle Georges received an invitation to continue her journey.
If the reader does not know what a casus belli is, he can learn it from M. Thiers. During the lifetime of two or three ministries M. Thiers presented two or three casus belli to the Powers, to which the Powers paid not the slightest attention. Consequently they came back to him, quite fresh and unused.
Four days later, the fugitive stopped at the house of the governor of Vilna, where she made her second halt, to the accompaniment of applause from all the Polish princesses, not only in Poland, but throughout the world. It is a well-known fact that no persons are so abundantly scattered abroad over the face of the earth as Polish princesses, unless it be Russian princes. Ten days later, Mademoiselle Georges was in St. Petersburg.