After M. Liadière's production of Jane Shore, the Odéon presented M. Ancelot's Fiesque. But M. Ancelot was a purist: he never for one moment supposed that Schiller's Fiesque could be presented complete as in the German play; therefore he entirely and discreetly suppressed the character of the Moor.
Can you imagine Fiesque shorn of the Moor! without the Moor! the main peg on which the drama is hung! Without the Moor! the character for which Schiller constructed his play! When shall we have a law which, whilst permitting translation, will forbid mutilation? The Italians have no law affecting translators; but they have a proverb as short as it is expressive, as concise as it is true, "Traduttore, traditore."
Meanwhile, the Romantic school, although still shy in theatrical and literary circles, was boldly invading other branches of art.
M. Thiers, in history, had published his Révolution française, and Botta his Histoire d'Italie; M. de Barante was producing his excellent Chronique des ducs de Bourgogne, a work full of knowledge and brilliancy, which justly, this time, though accidentally, opened the Academy doors to its author. But the struggle was more noticeable in painting. David dead and Girodet just dead, their successors were such men as Scheffer, Delacroix, Sigalon, Schnetz, Coigniet, Boulanger and Géricault. The works of this galaxy of bold young artists adorned the walls of the Salon of 1824. Scheffer hung his Mort de Gaston de Foix. It was one of his first pictures, and rather gaudy in colouring, but the face of the warrior kneeling at the head of Gaston stood out most remarkably; Scheffer was the painter-poet, the best translator of Goethe I know; he re-created a whole world of German characters, from Mignon to the King of Thule, from Faust to Marguerite.
It was Scheffer who transferred to canvas Dante's great and exquisite story of Francesca da Rimini, a conception which all dramatic poets have failed to reproduce; Scheffer found time to join in every conspiracy going, in Dermoncourt's, Caron's and la Fayette's, and yet managed to become one of the finest painters France has ever produced.
Then there was Delacroix, whose Massacre de Scio roused much discussion among all schools of painters. Delacroix was doomed to be pursued by fanatical ignoramuses and determined vilifiers, just as was Hugo in literature; he had already become known though his Dante traversant le Styx; and all his life he maintained the privilege—rare among artists—of being able to arouse a storm of hatred and of admiration upon the production of each fresh work. Delacroix is an intellectual man, full of knowledge as well as imagination, but he has one idiosyncrasy, he will persist in trying to become the colleague of M. Picot and of M. Abel de Pujol, who, let us hope, will happily have none of him.
Next comes Sigalon, with his rough, passionate Southern nature. His picture, Locuste faisant sur un esclave l'essai de ses poisons, had been recommended to the notice of M. Laffitte, and this banker patron of art bought it, probably before he had seen it; when it was hung in his salon, it terrified the bank clientèle and all the jobbers of the money market. Everyone asked the future minister why he had bought such a horrible picture, rather than one of Madame Haudebourg-Lescaut's or Mademoiselle d'Hervilly's little gems. M. Laffitte was plagued to such an extent that he sent for Sigalon and begged him to take back his Locuste, which threatened to send the great ladies of the commercial world into hysterics, imploring him to paint him something else in its place.
Sigalon took back his Locuste, but I do not know what he gave in exchange. Alas! Sigalon was among the number of those destined to premature death. He was sent to Rome to copy Michael Angelo's Last Judgment, and he had but just time to bequeath that great piece of work to France, and to stretch out his arms towards his country, before he died.
Schnetz had three pictures in the Salon of 1824—two great canvases which might have been painted by anybody just as well as by himself, and one of those genre paintings in which he is inimitable. This genre painting was called un Sixte-Quint enfant, the subject being a gipsy woman predicting he would become pope. The reader will guess with what fidelity Schnetz succeeded in depicting in his canvas, six foot high by four feet wide, an old fortune-teller, a shepherd lad and a young Roman girl: the Sixte-Quint was a masterpiece.
Coigniet's le Massacre des Innocents was hung opposite the door, and riveted attention directly people entered. It showed a woman crouching down, disordered in appearance by a long journey, terror in her looks and very pale, hiding herself, or rather hiding her child, in the corner of a ruined wall, whilst the massacre was proceeding in the distance. It was a fine piece of work, every detail of which, well thought out, well executed, well painted, I can still recall, after twenty-five years.