[1] See end of volume.
[CHAPTER VII]
Victor Escousse and Auguste Lebras
Meanwhile, the drama of Pierre III. by the unfortunate Escousse was played at the Théâtre-Français. I did not see Pierre III.; I tried to get hold of it to read it, but it seems that the drama has not been printed.
This is what Lesur said about it in his Annuaire for 1831—
"THÉÂTRE-FRANÇAIS (28 December.)—First performance of Pierre III., a drama in five acts; in verse, by M. Escousse.
"The failure of this work dealt a fatal blow to its author; carried away, as he probably was, with the success of Farruck le Maure. In Pierre III., neither history, nor probability, nor reason, was respected. It was a deplorable specimen of the fanatical and uncouth style of literature (these two epithets are my own), made fashionable by men possessed of too real a talent for their example not to cause many lamentable imitations. But who could suspect that the author's life was bound up in his work? Yet one more trial, one more failure and the unhappy young man was to die!..."
And, indeed, Victor Escousse and Auguste Lebras in collaboration soon put on at the Gaieté the drama of Raymond, which also failed. Criticism must have been cruelly incensed against this drama, since we find, after the last words of the play, a postscript containing these few lines, signed by one of the authors—