"SIRE,—The glory of letters is not the least brilliant among French glories, and the glory of our theatre is not the least brilliant of our literary glories. So thought your ancestors when they honoured the Théâtre-Français with a special protection; so thought Louis XIV., to whom it owed its first organisation. That regal protector of letters, persuaded that the chefs d'œuvre which his reign had produced could not be represented too perfectly, decreed that the best actors who were scattered about in the various companies which the capital then possessed should be united into one company, to be called the Comedians in Ordinary to the King. He gave rules to this select company, granted them rights and, among others, the exclusive privilege of representing tragedy and high comedy; and he added to these favours that of endowment. His object in doing this, sire, as you are aware, was not solely to reward those actors who had the good fortune to please him, but also to encourage them in the exercise of an art which by its elevation should be in harmony with his royal spirit; also to perpetuate the prosperity of that art, and to establish a model theatre on a solid foundation, for both actors and authors. For a long while, the intentions of Louis XIV. were fulfilled by his successors, in whom there was no falling off, either in good taste or in generosity; the two arts that he loved, and to which the French stage owed its dignity and its superiority, have reigned there in almost undisputed sway. Such was the condition of things at the time of the decease of your august brother; why must it be confessed that it is no longer the same to-day? The death of the actor whose talents vied with those of the most perfect artist of any epoch, has brought about more than one injury to the noble art which he upheld. Whether from depravity of taste or from consciousness of their inability to take his place, certain associates of the Théâtre-Français have pretended that the method of art in which Talma excelled could no longer be beneficially carried on; they are seeking to exclude tragedy from the stage and to substitute for it plays composed in imitation of the most eccentric dramas that foreign literature affords—dramas which no one had ever dared before to reproduce except in our lowest theatres. It is quite conceivable that third-rate actors should pursue these tactics, which are in accordance with their indifferent performances; and that, since they are incapable of rising to the height of tragedy, they should wish to lower art to the level of their talent; but it is almost inconceivable, sire, that this attitude should be encouraged by those who should combat it. They not only violate the privileges granted them in order to advance, on every possible occasion, the particular method of art to which they have become attached; but, in order to satisfy the exigencies of this method, which seeks less to elevate the soul, entice the heart and occupy the mind, than to dazzle the eyes by material means, by the distraction of vain show and by stage effect, they are exhausting the capital of the theatre, increasing its debt and bringing about its ruin. And, in addition, as tragedy still struggles, and struggles with some success, against its ignoble rival, in spite of all that is done to prevent it, the authorities, not satisfied with refusing to undertake necessary expenses and supply the apparatus needed, are doing their best to discourage tragic representations altogether, and only give subsidies to the principal actors in subjects of which the public disapproves; far worse still, in order to make all tragic acting henceforth impossible, in anticipation of the time when the two leading exponents of tragedy, Mademoiselle Duchesnois and M. Lafond, shall have retired from the stage, they have compelled them to submit to an exile of a year, under cover of a holiday, during which time they promise themselves to complete the absolute ruin of the theatre of Racine, Corneille and Voltaire.
"Sire, are the agents in whom you have placed confidence, to watch over and control the theatre, responding properly to your beneficent designs? Was it intended that the liberty with which they were entrusted was to be used to advance the cause of melodrama to the detriment of tragedy? Ought the funds placed, by your liberality, at their disposal, in order to advance the cause of good taste, to be squandered over their own particular fancies, which tend to make the greatest names in Art subservient to the Melpomene of the boulevards, and to reduce their sublime art to the condition of a vile trade? We are convinced, sire, that the glory of your reign is concerned in the preservation of all sources of French glory, and we therefore consider it our duty to call your attention to the degradation by which the foremost of our theatres is threatened. Sire, the evil is already grave! In a few months' time it will be past redress; in a few months' time the theatre founded by Louis le Grand will be entirely closed to works which have been the delight of the most polite of courts, the most enlightened of nations; it will have fallen below the level of the meanest of stages, or, rather, the Théâtre-Français will have ceased to exist.
"(Signed) A. V. ARNAULT, N. LEMERCIER, VIENNET,
JOUY, ANDRIEUX, JAY, O. LEROY"
This curious epistle was capped by another quite as strange—or, more correctly speaking, it was preceded by it. The letter of Mademoiselle Duchesnois, which we shall produce in its entirety, in the same way that we have produced the petition of these gentlemen, was the rocket which warned the public that a great pyrotechnic display was about to take place.
My readers will recall the visit M. Lafond paid me in my office, to ask me if I had a smart, well-groomed fellow in my play who could say to Queen Christine, "Sacrebleu! your Majesty has not the right to assassinate this poor devil!" It will be remembered that I told him I had not. Whereupon M. Lafond had turned daintily upon his heels, remarking that his visit was, therefore, fruitless.
After the reading of Henri III., M. Lafond had said to himself that the part of that extremely well set up courtier, the Duc de Guise, would be his by right; but, alack, he had seen the rôle given to Joanny, who played it strikingly well although he was not irreproachable. It had been just as bad for poor Mademoiselle Duchesnois: she had seen successively the rôle of Christine and that of the Duchesse de Guise pass over her; she had done me the honour of wishing to act them both, and each time, with infinite trouble, I had had to explain to her how impossible it was for her to undertake either rôle; consequently, she was furious. Now, anger is a bad counsellor, so it came about that Mademoiselle Duchesnois wrote the following letter under its sway:—
"MONSIEUR,—I should have preferred to keep out of the quarrel which is engaging the attention of the newspapers concerning the Théâtre-Français; but, inasmuch as the defence of a system which is compromising our social existence is based upon erroneous facts, I have thought it my duty to the public to offer certain explanations which will show the question in its true light. Unquestionably, the first duty of the French Comedians should be to retain the favour of the public, and we cannot be reproached with respect to this, since, during the past three years, we have successively produced, at a very heavy expense, all the works of the new school; in consequence, our shares have fallen from sixteen thousand to seven thousand francs, and we have contracted, in the interim, a debt estimated at a hundred thousand francs. However, the old repertoire and works based on those of the old masters, such as Tartufe, Phèdre, Zaïre, Germanicus, Sylla, Pierre de Portugal, Marie Stuart, l'École des Vieillards, Blanche, le Roman while they no longer glorify the stage, still bring some money to our pockets, and help to provide for the terrible expenses of the scenery and properties required for the dramas. In spite of the ruin of our prosperity and the increase of our liabilities, I should have kept silence if the rumour had not spread abroad that we were about to dissolve our Association in order to prepare ourselves for a new management, and to raise a so-called Romantic theatre on our ruins. These reports have gained enough strength to be repeated by several papers, and it has been noticed that the usual supporters of the Commissary Royal have gone out of their way to point out the advantages of such an absurd proposition, instead of denying it. The tragic actors, who, since the arrival of M. Taylor, have been the object of an animadversion for which, until recently, they have not been able to find a cause, were attacked in these same papers with unheard-of bitterness, and with the catchword of the moment, The public does not want any more tragedies. There is no denying that tragedy no longer brings in the enormous sums of the prosperous days of Talma and of the first fifteen years of my theatrical career; but, without dwelling upon its importance and its necessity, it can be seen by the receipts—not those obtained from the Commissary Royal, but the actual receipts entered on the registre des pauvres (which I am having looked out, at this very moment, in order to their publication)—that tragedy would again see prosperous days if the Government would grant it the protection that is its due, rather than persecute the actors and authors who are still its supporters. It would be a difficult task to enumerate all the instances of M. Taylor's ill-will: here are one or two which will be enough to convince you. Three young actors who were taken away from the Odéon showed some interest and aptitude for tragedy. M. Taylor tried to drive them away from the Comédie-Française. He succeeded with regard to MM. Ligier and Victor; and, if M. David has been saved to us, it was because a decision of the court overruled the Commissary Royal. M. Beauvallet, a young man who roused high hopes among the friends of dramatic art, has been obliged to take an engagement at a secondary theatre. Nor is this all; my presence and that of M. Lafond were obstacles in the way of carrying out the plans of the Romantic school. So we received, this winter, an intimation, almost tantamount to a command, to leave Paris for a year, without having solicited anything of the kind, as certain wrongly informed journals have announced. It is under these circumstances, monsieur, that distinguished literary men who, by their connection with actors, are much better acquainted with the situation at the Théâtre-Français than are the writers of many articles, have felt it their duty to present a memorial to the King, not in order to exclude the new style of drama (a pleasantry invented by M. Taylor's friends to hold up to ridicule a perfectly justifiable proceeding), but to claim a protection for authors who belong to the Classical school and for the actors who support them, at least equal to that given to the Romantic school.
"I beg you, monsieur, to have the goodness to announce that I have just cited MM. Taylor and the Vicomte de la Rochefoucauld before the courts to answer for their violation of the rules of our company, by means of which they have prorogued a committee for the past four years, a third part of which, according to the terms of our statutes, ought to have been renewed annually. I beg you also to be so good as to announce, in my name, that the article contained in the Journal de Paris of this morning is incorrect in all its statements and in all its calculations, and that I shall hasten to put the proofs of this statement before the public with the least possible delay. Allow me at the same time to contradict the false statement that any one of those who signed the petition wished to withdraw or to disown his signature; on the contrary, I know that several of our most distinguished authors are preparing to make public their adhesion to the memorial to the King.—I am, etc.,
J. DUCHESNOIS"
We said before that under a clever ministry everybody, even the king, has his wits sharpened.
The king made answer to his petitioners as follows:—
"GENTLEMEN,—I cannot do anything in the matter you desire; I only occupy one seat in the theatre, like every other Frenchman."
Now, I shall be asked how it was that M. Arnault reconciled this demand directed against me with his friendliness towards me? How could he receive me intimately at his house and table every Sunday, while he was doing his best to have me driven away from the theatre? Oh! be quite easy on that score! M. Arnault had a more logical mind than that. On the Sunday following the production of Henri III.—namely, the very next day—I found Madame Arnault quite alone in the house, and she said to me, in course of conversation—
"Dumas, when you intend dining with us, tell us beforehand; for otherwise you will run the risk of dining tête-à-tête with me, as to-day, which is not very entertaining for you."