Well, reader, what is your opinion?
"Why! the same as Victor Hugo. But why, then, does the critic look upon it and understand it so wrongly? Is he blind and deaf?"
Oh, dear reader, that would be too great a happiness for you and us! No, you know the proverb—"None so blind as those who wont see, or so deaf as those who do not wish to hear."
What the author says of the curse of Saint-Vallier is so true that the second act opens with these words of Triboulet—
"Ce vieillard m'a maudit!"
But, as we have said, the critic does not perceive this. He continues his analysis—
"At the second act Triboulet wanders through the night near a modest house next to the hôtel de Cossé. A man with a hideous expression comes and offers him his services. His trade is killing; his charges are not dear, and he works at home and in the town. Triboulet replies that he has no need of him at present. Saltabadil (the bandit's name) goes off and Triboulet enters the house. He then utters a long monologue expressing all the suffering his trade of king's jester causes him. Here, M. Hugo again breaks into an eloquent and brilliant tirade in beautiful lines ..."
Why not quote them, monsieur critic? Ah! yes, but the fine verses would scorch his lips.[2]
"Triboulet enters his daughter's house and expresses all his parental affection for her," continues the critic. "Here again," he adds, "are several beautiful verses ..."
And he passes them over; but are beautiful lines so common that you scorn them thus? Can you write them? or can your wife or your friends? Can M. Planche or M. Janin or M. Lireux compose in the same style as this?