Talma—Mademoiselle Mars—The Conservatoire—Macready—Young—Kean—Miss Smithson—Mrs. Siddons—Miss Faucit—Shakespeare—The limits to dramatic art in France
We have told what Talma's education had been. Brought early to Paris, taken to London at the age of eight or nine, his earliest enthusiasm had been for Shakespeare. When he returned to Paris he had made his first appearance about 1788 or '89, and had done his very utmost to get the theatre to embark on true lines. Not succeeding in moving them in the matter of works, he had turned to costumes. After he had played Charles IX., Chenier's classical piece, without being able to change a line of it, he had played Racine's Berenice and changed Titus's style of wig. That change of wig created a revolution. From 1791, the period during which the work was played, they wore their locks à la Titus. So Talma demanded something fresh, because he was a genius. Mlle. Mars, a fille de la halle in theatrical parlance, who had acted in comedy from her mother's knees, lisping Sedaine's Victorine when first learning to talk; a pupil of Monvel, whom they banished from the Comédie-Française with a shameful excuse, but really because, with his unstudied tones, without even raising his voice, he produced more effect than MM. Larive and Lafond with their loud cries and great strength; Mlle. Mars, who could modulate her flexible voice to the whole dramatic gamut, from the charming prattle of Madame de Bawr to the growling and savage roar of Clotilde; Mademoiselle Mars, who by means of her art could make up for genuine passion; she accepted the new school because she was clever. But as for the rest of them, they rejected it because they were merely mechanical. Firmin and Joanny very nearly came over to our side, yet, after all, the transition was not really sincere. Firmin shrank from Antony, and Joanny certainly preferred Orosmane to Othello. Who was to blame? I do not hesitate to say it was the fault of the dramatic education given by the professors of the Conservatoire to their pupils. It is true they were only appointed professors to the Conservatoire on condition they gave this education and no other. Why is not Frédérick, a powerful genius (in spite of what our collaborator Marteau said the other day in Le Mousquetaire), why is not Frédérick a professor at the Conservatoire? Why is not Bocage, who has created on a lofty plane seven or eight rôles which will remain as types? Why is not Lockroy a professor of the Conservatoire, who is the cleverest adviser I know? Why, finally, is not Dorval a professor there, a large-hearted woman, who had enthusiasm enough to inspire half a score of actresses if it could be done?
Because the Conservatoire must not teach anything but dead art and has to be hostile to living art. It appears to me that the Conservatoire is committing the same error as the École de Rome. All grand prix students are sent to Rome. Now suppose Rembrandt and Rubens were our contemporaries: Rembrandt who stands for light and Rubens for colour. Suppose God had bestowed the honour on France of making them our countrymen. Suppose, then, they are pupils, the one of Decamps, the other of Delacroix. Suppose they compete, and that Rembrandt painted for his theme La Ronde de Nuit, and that Rubens painted l'Adoration des Mages. Suppose they were accepted, and, which is absolutely unimaginable, the one gained the first and the other the second prize. Next, they pick out Rubens and Rembrandt, and dispatch them to M. Ingres, director of the School of Painting at Rome, and write to him to give a guiding hand to these two promising young men. M. Ingres has the two pictures sent to him to look at. He faints at the sight of l'Adoration des Mages, and has a fit when he sees La Ronde de Nuit, and he totally abandons the two pupils to their unhappy fate with the advice—Study Raphael, apart from Raphael there is no salvation possible. Do you imagine that Rembrandt and Rubens, if they should study, Rembrandt Les Fiançailles de la Vierge and Rubens La Dispute d'Athènes, could ever paint such pictures? Not only would they remain bad scholars instead of becoming masters, and very great masters; but, instead of painting La Descente de Croix and l'Ange du Jeune Tobie, they would do atrocious pasticcio far worse than these.
Ah, well! that is exactly what happens to the pupils of the Conservatoire. In France they are destined either for tragedy or comedy: if for tragedy, they study Corneille and Racine—if for comedy, Molière and Regnard. Hardly ever at the same time both Corneille, Molière, Regnard and Racine. It must be either comedy or tragedy—laughter or tears. In England they have no Conservatoire, and no author but Shakespeare. But Shakespeare contains the whole of humanity. A pupil who studies Shakespeare studies at the same time Corneille, Molière, Racine and Regnard. Then, too, Shakespeare is as full of comedy as Molière and Regnard; look at Falstaff and Mercutio. He is as dramatic as Corneille and Racine; witness Othello and Richard III. Furthermore, he is as mystical as Goethe, for instance Hamlet; as dramatic as Schiller, in Macbeth; as poetical ... as the whole realm of poetry combined. Think of Romeo. Accordingly, when an actor or actress has studied Shakespeare, they have studied everything. The actress has studied innocence in Juliet, ambition in Lady Macbeth, grace in Ariel, filial affection in Cordelia, maternal love in Valeria, terror in Hamlet's mother and devotion and love in Desdemona. The actor has studied artifice in Richard III., madness in King Lear, jealousy in Othello, dignity in Julius Cæsar, chivalry in Talbot and melancholy in, Hamlet—melancholy, the tenth muse, unknown to the ancients, which has been revealed to us by the sixteenth century. Shakespeare foresaw everything, even mesmerism, which did not appear till the close of the eighteenth century. Think of the sleep-walking scene of Lady Macbeth! The result is that in the hands of a well-developed student, Shakespeare can replace Molière, Corneille, Racine, Calderon, Goethe and Schiller. This it is which clouds Macready's brow in Hamlet, Kean's terrible glance in Othello, the ominous laughter of Richard in Young, Smithson's heartrending tears in Ophelia, and Siddons' appalling shrieks in Lady Macbeth and Miss Faucit's enchanting love-making in Juliet.
A moment ago we made a suggestion, we said let us suppose Rembrandt and Rubens lived in our days. Now let us also imagine that Shakespeare is our contemporary. Who, at the Théâtre-Français will play Romeo, Juliet, Desdemona, Ariel, Miranda, Richard III., Hamlet and Ophelia? Nobody. Mademoiselle Rachel's inflexible talent will not bend to all the feminine tenderness necessary for the swans of Shakespeare. Beauvallet, Geoffroy and Réginer, perhaps, might give us an idea of some of the masculine types. But the number of persons who could undertake the playing of Shakespeare, at the Théâtre-Français, would certainly not exceed two or three. Shakespeare, therefore, would be compelled to do what Hugo and I did in 1830, or as Casimir Delavigne had to do in 1833 with Les Enfants d'Édouard.
Oh, gentlemen! you who are engaged in matters of French dramatic art, ponder this seriously. France, with its powers of assimilation, ought not to restrict itself to National Art. She ought to seize upon European Art, cosmopolitan, universal art—bounded in the North by Shakespeare, in the East by Æschylus, in the South by Calderon and in the West by Corneille. It was thus that Augustus, Charlemagne and Napoleon conceived their Empires.
And now we ask our patient, faithful reader's permission to close provisionally this series of our Memoirs. The Souvenirs which we should now have to recall belong to the period at which we have arrived and frequently have too many points of contact with present-day politics and politicians to enable us always to speak freely. Later, when better conditions shall prevail in France, in the matter of the press—if the reception accorded to these Memoirs comes up to our expectation, and God sees fit to grant us life—we will resume our chronicler's pen in the hope of providing fresh and curious material for the veracious history of our times.