News of France—First performance of Le Fils de l'Émigré—What Le Constitutionnel thought of it—Effect produced by that play on the Parisian population in general and on M. Véron in particular—Death of Walter Scott—Périnet Leclerc—Sic vos non vobis
As I have said, I stayed three days at Arenenberg.[1] I had found French newspapers there, which I had missed since my departure from Aix, and I posted myself up in the news of France. M. Jay had replaced M. de Montesquieu at the Academy. Faithful to its traditions, the Academy, having a choice between M. Jay, a mediocre political writer, and M. Thiers, an eminent historian, had chosen M. Jay. The Institute had done pretty much the same thing: M. Lethière, that dear good friend of my father, author of Brutus condamnant ses fils, having died, MM. Paul Delaroche, Schnetz and Blondel were put on the lists to succeed him. You would have betted, would you not, dear readers, on Schnetz or on Delaroche? Well, you would have lost: MM. Schnetz and Delaroche each had three votes, and M. Blondel had eighteen.
Mademoiselle Falcon had come out in the rôle of Alice in Robert le Diable. A pupil of Nourrit, she had had a splendid success. Poor Cornélie! her success was to be as short as it had been great: two years after her début an accident took away her voice!
Then, political lawsuits had followed, one after another: the Seine Court of Assizes had delivered two death sentences, one against a man named Cuny, and the other against one called Lepage. These two sentences had moved the Parisian public profoundly: since the death of Louis XVIII., it had become unaccustomed to capital punishments for political offences. Next had come the less serious sentence against the Saint-Simonians; then, the affair of the man with the red flag. I have tried to paint the effect the appearance of this man produced at the funeral of General Lamarque. He was condemned to a month's imprisonment! Solicitor-General Delapalme, who had nearly given up the prosecution, to the great surprise of everybody, only extricated himself by arguing that the accused man was out of his mind. The Republicans interpreted the thing differently, the man with the red flag was looked upon by them as an agent to provoke an insurrection: hence the indulgence of the public government. The last news that I read was less interesting to others, but brought a feeling of remorse to my mind: the performance of Le Fils de l'Émigré was announced to come on next at the Porte-Saint-Martin. I did not fail, therefore, to ask at each inn where I stopped, "Have you a French paper?" On arriving at Koenigsfelden, the place where the Emperor Albert was assassinated by Jean de Souabe, his nephew, I renewed the question. "Yes, monsieur," mine host replied; "I have Le Constitutionnel."
Le Constitutionnel, it will be recollected, was my old enemy. It had declared war upon me over Henri III. and I had replied to its cannonading by Antony; it was I who had invented the famous announcement of the discontinuing of subscriptions; so I could not have received news of my natural son through a more evil-inclined channel; but, as I had left it in the hands of Anicet without acknowledging it in any way, and it was a condition sine qua non, that I should not be named, I thought the news would be indirect.
I opened Le Constitutionnel, then, with quite a steady hand. Great was my surprise to read at the head of the article—
"THÉÂTRE DE LA PORTE-SAINT-MARTIN
Le Fils de l'Émigré
Drama by MM. ANICET BOURGEOIS and ALEXANDRE DUMAS ..."
I realised at once that, from the moment my name appeared, the play had been a failure. I was not mistaken. If, however, you wish to see how Le Constitutionnel deals with the performance, read the following lines, which will give an idea of the urbanity with which the cricitism was inserted in MM. Jay and Étienne's journal. It is true, the article was not signed. Moreover, as I register my successes with a naïveté which, at times, is looked upon as conceit, I am not sorry to register an out-and-out failure. I have had two such in my life: Le Fils de l'Émigré at the Porte-Saint-Martin and Le Laird de Dumbicky at the Odéon; but, as I was present at the latter, I will myself undertake to give an account of it when the suitable moment comes. I shall be more polite to myself than is the anonymous critic in the Constitutionnel; but I shall not take further trouble about it; my readers may rest perfectly easy on that point.
So I summoned to my aid all the philosophy I possessed, and I read—