Whilst M. Thiers's police were arresting Madame la duchesse de Berry at Nantes, the censorship was stopping the drama of Le Roi s'amuse at Paris. The performance had taken place on 22 November. I cannot give an account of it, for I was not present; a slight coolness had crept into my relations with Hugo; friends in common had nearly set us at variance. The day after the performance the play was cruelly forbidden, and the author had to appeal from that decision before the Tribunal de Commerce. Under any other circumstances, the Opposition newspapers would have sided with Victor Hugo; they would have cried out against this oppression and tyranny. But not here! the hatred they bore towards the romantic school was so great, that they vied with one another, not so much to put the Government in the right, as to who should put the author most in the wrong.
Listen to what criticism said of the work of one of the most eminent poets who had ever lived. We will follow it in its own words and treat it fairly. We do not know who wrote the article we have in our hands: it is unsigned; only, it is a specimen of what was done then, has been done since and will probably always be perpetrated in criticism. A shameful specimen! But let us judge for ourselves.
"THÉÂTRE-FRANÇAIS
Le Roi s'amuse.'
A poetical drama in five acts by M. VICTOR HUGO.
"Criticism attempted after Hernani and specially after Marion Delorme, to make M. Victor Hugo listen to two pieces of wholesome truth politely expressed, as is due to a man of great and genuine talent; the first is that the efforts of M. Victor Hugo revealed absolute impotence and sterility of conception; the second, that M. Victor Hugo adopted a pernicious system which, instead of conducing to originality, drove him to the trivial and absurd. ..."
Certainly it is impossible to be more polite. The natural consequence of this advice ought to have been to make Hugo return to his odes and romances. Luckily, M. Hugo believed himself to be as strong as those who told him these wholesome truths, and he has continued in spite of criticism. To this disastrous pig-headedness of the poet we owe Lucrèce Borgia, Marie Tudor, Ruy Blas, Angelo and Les Burgraves.
"M. Hugo has taken no notice of these truths: he has persisted in writing dramas, and, far from modifying his system, he has exceeded it in a monstrous fashion. In his first dramas, he still preserved some principle of truth and of beauty, some feeling of morality and decency, even amidst his eccentricities. In Le Roi s'amuse, he rids himself of everything and tramples history, right, morality, the dignity of art, delicacy, under his feet. There is progress ..."
Still under cover of the same virtue of politeness, let us follow the critic—
"In the first place, the subject of the drama is not historic, although historical characters figure in it. We will pass that over, for, as time flies, it is a peccadillo. But at least a conscientious author in assigning a rôle to his historical personages in a fictitious case or rather action should so apply it as not to calumniate them; the realistic school is bolder and has few scruples. You shall see how M. Hugo treats King François I., the court of that prince, and the poet Clément Marot on the stage of the Comédie-Française...."
Ah! monsieur critic, it well becomes you to defend ill-treated poets! You who have treated M. Hugo so finely! It is true that, in your eyes, M. Hugo is not a poet of the same calibre as Clément Marot. Turn your glasses back, monsieur critic, and take the measure of the author of the Odes et Ballades Orientales, Feuilles d'automne, Notre-Dame de Paris, Hernani and Marion Delorme, even if you have to stand on tip-toe or, if necessary, climb on a chair to do so.
"In the first act, we are at the court of François i.: sounds of distant music are heard; there is a ball. A ball was a novelty some years ago! There is one in every play ..."
Where on earth do you find one in Henri III., monsieur critic? Or in Christine or Richard Darlington or in La Tour de Nesle?... Where can you discover a ball in Hernani or in Marion Delorme? There is, it is true, a kind of musical entertainment in Hernani, a sort of ball in Antony, but you see it has not been overdone.