On the 12 th, at three o'clock in the morning, M. de Beausset received the following letter from Alexandre Berthier, Prince of Neuchâtel:—
"MY DEAR BEAUSSET,—The emperor commands me to tell you that the French actors who are here must leave either to-day or to-morrow morning at the latest, to return to Paris. Have the goodness to inform them of this.—Yours, etc.,
"ALEXANDRE"
The actors left, and then the battle of Leipzig took place. The Empire's dying struggle had begun. The actors meanwhile returned to Paris. Mademoiselle Georges resumed her ascendency at the Comédie-Française, after an absence of five years. Raucourt, though still alive, had practically abandoned her career. For a long time past the theatrical life had weighed upon her; she only acted when obliged, and remained almost all the year round in the country. When Mademoiselle Georges was reinstalled, it was arranged that she should become a full member of the company, and her absence was reckoned as though she were present. She reappeared as Clytemnestre when she was still only twenty-eight years of age. Her success was immense. There had not been many changes during those last five years at the Théâtre-Français. The important pieces played during the absence of Mademoiselle Georges were, Hector and Christophe Colombo to which we have referred; the Deux Gendres, by M. Étienne; Mahomet II., by M. Baour-Lormian; and Tippo-Saëb, by M. de Jouy.
The success of the Deux Gendres was not contested, and it could not be contested. But since people must always contest some point or other in the case of an author of any merit, the paternity of M. Étienne's comedy was contested.
A worm-eaten manuscript written by a forgotten Jesuit was dragged out of some bookcase or other, and it was said that M. Étienne had robbed this unlucky Jesuit. It should be stated that the plot of the Deux Gendres was the same that Shakespeare had utilised two centuries before, in King Lear, and that M. de Balzac made use of twenty-five years later, in Père Goriot. All these polemical discussions greatly annoyed M. Étienne, and probably hindered him from writing a sequel to the Deux Gendres. Mahomet II. met with but indifferent success: the play was lifeless and dull.
Nevertheless, M. Baour-Lormian was a meritorious writer: he left, or rather he will leave, a few poems charged with melancholy feeling, all the more striking as such a sentiment was entirely unknown during the Empire, which can offer us, in this respect, nothing save the Chute des Feuilles by Millevoie, and the Feuille de Rose by M. Arnault. Besides, the Chute des Feuilles was written before, and the Feuille de Rose after, the Empire.
Let me quote a few of M. Baour-Lormian's pleasant lines:—
"Ainsi qu'une jeune beauté
Silencieuse et solitaire,
Du sein du nuage argente
La lune sort avec mystere....
Fille aimable du ciel, à pas lents et sans bruit,
Tu glisses dans les airs où brille ta couronne;
Et ton passage s'environne
Du cortège pompeux des soleils de la nuit....
Que fais-tu loin de nous, quand l'aube blanchissante
Efface, à nos yeux attristés,
Ton sourire charmant et tes molles clartés?
Vas-tu, comme Ossian, plaintive et gémissante,
Dans l'asile de la douleur
Ensevelir ta beauté languissante?
Fille aimable du ciel, connais-tu le malheur?"
We must now return to Mademoiselle Georges.