My Memoirs, Vol. V, 1831 to 1832

by Alexandre Dumas

"Que de fois tu m'as dit, aux heures du délire,
Quand mon front tout à coup devenait soucieux:
'Sur ta bouche pourquoi cet effrayant sourire?
Pourquoi ces larmes dans tes yeux?'
Pourquoi? C'est que mon cœur, au milieu des délices,
D'un souvenir jaloux constamment oppressé,
Froid au bonheur présent, va chercher ses supplices
Dans l'avenir et le passé!
Jusque dans tes baisers je retrouve des peines,
Tu m'accables d'amour!... L'amour, je m'en souviens,
Pour la première fois s'est glissé dans tes veines
Sous d'autres baisers que les miens!
Du feu des voluptés vainement tu m'enivres!
Combien, pour un beau jour, de tristes lendemains!
Ces charmes qu'à mes mains, en palpitant, tu livres,
Palpiteront sous d'autres mains!
Et je ne pourrai pas, dans ma fureur jalouse,
De l'infidélité te réserver le prix;
Quelques mots à l'autel t'ont faite son épouse,
Et te sauvent de mon mépris.
Car ces mots pour toujours ont vendu tes caresses;
L'amour ne les doit plus donner ni recevoir;
L'usage des époux à réglé les tendresses,
Et leurs baisers sont un devoir.
Malheur, malheur à moi, que le ciel, en ce monde,
A jeté comme un hôte à ses lois étranger!
À moi qui ne sais pas, dans ma douleur profonde,
Souffrir longtemps sans me venger!
Malheur! car une voix qui n'a rien de la terre
M'a dit: 'Pour ton bonheur, c'est sa mort qu'il te faut?'
Et cette voix m'a fait comprendre le mystère
Et du meurtre et de l'échafaud....
Viens donc, ange du mal, dont la voix me convie,
Car il est des instants où, si je te voyais,
Je pourrais, pour son sang, t'abandonner ma vie
Et mon âme ... si j'y croyais!"

What do you think of my lines? They are impious, blasphemous and atheistic, and, in fact, I will proclaim it, as I copy them here nearly a quarter of a century after they were made, they would be inexcusably poor if they had been written in cold blood. But they were written at a time of passion, at one of those crises when a man feels driven to give utterance to his sorrows, and to describe his sufferings in another language than his ordinary speech. Therefore, I hope they may earn the indulgence of both poets and philosophers.

Now, was Antony really as immoral a work as certain of the papers made out? No; for, in all things, says an old French proverb (and, since the days of Sancho Panza, we know that proverbs contain the wisdom of nations), we must see the end first before passing judgment. Now, this is how Antony ends. Antony is engaged in a guilty intrigue, is carried away by an adulterous passion, and kills his mistress to save her honour as a wife, and dies afterwards on the scaffold, or at least is sent to the galleys for the rest of his days. Very well, I ask you, are there many young society people who would be disposed to fling themselves into a sinful intrigue, to enter upon an adulterous passion,—to become, in short, Antonys and Adèles, with the prospect in view, at the end of their passion and romance, of death for the woman and of the galleys for the man? People will answer me, that it is the form in which it is put that is dangerous, that Antony makes murder admirable, and Adèle justifies adultery.

But what would you have! I cannot make my lovers hideous in character, unsightly in looks and repulsive in manners. The love-making between Quasimodo and Locuste would not be listened to beyond the third scene! Take Molière for instance. Does not Angélique betray Georges Dandin in a delightful way? And Valère steal from his father in a charming fashion? And Don Juan deceive Dona Elvire in the most seductive of language? Ah! Molière knew as well as the moderns what adultery was! He died from its effects. What broke his heart, the heart which stopped beating at the age of fifty-three? The smiles given to the young Baron by la Béjart, her ogling looks at M. de Lauzun, a letter addressed by her to a third lover and found the morning of that ill-fated representation of the Malade imaginaire which Molière could scarcely finish! It is true that, in Molière's time, it was called cuckoldry and made fun of; that nowadays, we style it adultery, and weep over it. Why was it called cuckoldry in the seventeenth century and adultery in the nineteenth? I will tell you. Because, in the seventeenth century, the Civil Code had not been invented. The Civil Code? What has that to do with it? You shall see. In the seventeenth century there existed the rights of primogeniture, seniority, trusteeship and of entail; and the oldest son inherited the name, title and fortune; the other sons were either made M. le Chevalier or M. le Mousquetaire or M. l'Abbé, as the case might be. They decorated the first with the Malta Cross, the second they decked out in a helmet with buffalo tails, they endowed the third with a clerical collar. While, as for the daughters, they did not trouble at all about them; they married whom they liked if they were pretty, and anybody who would have them if they were plain. For those who either would not or could not be married there remained the convent, that vast sepulchre for aching hearts. Now, although three-quarters of the marriages were marriages de convenance, and contracted between people who scarcely knew each other, the husband was nearly always sure that his first male child was his own. This first male child secured,—that is to say, the son to inherit his name, title and fortune, when begotten by him,—what did it matter who was the father of M. le Chevalier, M. le Mousquetaire or M. l'Abbé? It was all the same to him, and often he did not even inquire into the matter! Look, for example, at the anecdote of Saint-Simon and of M. de Mortemart.

But in our days, alas, it is very different! The law has abolished the right of primogeniture; the Code forbids seniorities, entail and trusteeships. Fortunes are divided equally between the children; even daughters are not left out, but have the same right as sons to the paternal inheritance. Now, from the moment that the quem nuptiœ demonstrant knows that children born during wedlock will share his fortune in equal portions, he takes care those children shall be his own; for a child, not his, sharing with his legitimate heirs, is simply a thief. And this is the reason why adultery is a crime in the nineteenth century, and why cuckoldom was only treated as a joke in the seventeenth.

Now, what is the reason that people do not exclaim at the immorality of Angélique, who betrays Georges Dandin, of Valère who robs his papa, of Don Juan who deceives Charlotte, Mathurine and Doña Elvire all at the same time? Because all those characters—Georges Dandin, Harpagon, Don Carlos, Don Alonzo and Pierrot—lived two or three centuries before us, and did not talk as we do, nor were dressed as we dress; because they wore breeches, jerkins, cloaks and plumed hats, so that we do not recognise ourselves in them. But directly a modern author, more bold than others, takes manners as they actually are, passion as it really is, crime from its secret hiding-places and presents them upon the stage in white ties, black coats, and trousers with straps and patent leather boots—ah! each one sees himself as in a mirror, and sneers instead of laughing, attacks instead of approving, groans instead of applauding. Had I put Adèle into a dress of the time of Isabella of Bavaria and Antony into a doublet of the time of Louis d'Orléans, and if I had even made the adultery between brother-in-law and sister-in-law, nobody would have objected. What critic dreams of calling Œdipus immoral, who kills his father and marries his mother, whose children are his sons, grandson and brothers all at the same time, and ends, by putting out his own eyes to punish himself, a futile action, since the whole thing was looked upon as the work of fate? Not a single one! But would any poor devil be so silly as to recognise a likeness of himself under either a Grecian cloak or a Theban tunic? I would, indeed, like to have the opinion of some of the moralists of the Press who condemned Antony; that, for instance of M. —— who, at that time, was living openly with Madame —— (I nearly said who). If I put it before my readers, the revelation would not fail to interest them. I can only lay my hands on one article; true, I am at Brussels and write these lines after two in the morning. I exhume that article from a very honest and innocent book—the Annuaire historique et universel by M. Charles Louis-Lesur. Here it is—it is one of the least bitter of the criticisms.

"Théâtre de la Porte-Saint-Martin (3 May).

"First performance of Antony, a drama in five acts by M. Alexandre Dumas.

"In an age and in a country where bastardy would be a stain bearing the stamp of the law, sanctioned by custom and a real social curse, against which a man, however rich in talent, honours and fortune would struggle in vain, the moral aim of the drama of Antony could easily be explained; but, nowadays when, as in France, all special privileges of birth are done away with, those of plebeian as well as of illegitimate origin, why this passionate pleading, to which, necessarily, there cannot be any contradiction and reply? Moral aim being altogether non-existent in Antony, what else is there in the work? Only the frenzied portrayal of an adulterous passion, which stops at nothing to satisfy itself, which plays with dangers and murder and death."

Then follows an unamiable analysis of the piece and the criticism continues—

"Such a conception no more bears the scrutiny of good common sense than a crime brought before the Assize-courts can sustain the scrutiny of a jury. The author, by placing himself in an unusual situation of ungovernable and cruel passions, which spare neither tears nor blood, removes himself outside the pale of literature; his work is a monstrosity, although we ought in fairness to say that some parts are depicted with an uncommon degree of strength, grace and beauty. Bocage and Madame Dorval distinguished themselves by the talent and energy with which they played the two leading parts of Antony and Adèle."

My dear Monsieur Lesur, I could answer your criticism from beginning to end; but I will only reply to the statements I have underlined, which refer to bastardy, with which you start your article. Well, dear sir, you are wrong; privileges of birth are by no means overcome, as you said. I myself know and you also knew,—I say you knew, because I believe you are dead,—you, a talented man—nay, even more, a man of genius, who had a hard struggle to make your fortune, and who, in spite of talent, genius, fortune, were constantly reproached with the fatal accident of your birth. People cavilled over your age, your name, your social status ... Where? Why, in that inner circle where laws are made, and where, consequently, they ought not to have forgotten that the law proclaims the equality of the French people one with another. Well! that man, with the marvellous persistence which characterises him, will gain his object: he will be a Minister one day. Well, at that day what will they attack in him?—His opinions, schemes, Utopian ideas? Not at all, only his birth!—And who will attack it?—Some mean rascal who has the good luck to possess a father and a mother, who, unfortunately, have reason to blush for him!