In 1836 the French Academy elected Scribe to membership.
His productivity was enormous. Either alone or in collaboration, he produced over four hundred plays. At least three hundred and fifty of these have been printed separately in various collections of dramas, as Le théâtre de madame, La France dramatique, Le magazin théâtral, and Le théâtre illustré. A complete edition of his works has now been published by Calmann-Lévy, Paris.
His many successful plays gave him large financial returns and his wealth increased rapidly. He left the most considerable fortune ever accumulated by any author of France.
He died at Paris on the 20th of February, 1861.
Scribe was not great in a purely literary way. His style is not all that could be desired. Neither was he a profound thinker or psychologist, nor a herald of new ideas. His ideas of morality were those current in his time. His world is that of the materialistic and self-satisfied bourgeoisie of the reign of Louis-Philippe. His shortcomings are manifest and have been severely handled by more than one eminent critic.
It is, nevertheless, undeniable that Scribe was a master at handling the plot and action of a drama. He possessed a most intimate knowledge of the technique of plays and the requirements of the stage. He excelled in the art of maintaining the interest of the spectator by skillful and rapid changes in the situation, by an abundance of action, and by a vivacious and lifelike conversation. He possessed in a very high degree the power to please and entertain an audience and to produce the desired theatrical effect.
When M. Octave Feuillet (1821-1890) succeeded Eugène Scribe as a member of the French Academy, on March 26th, 1863, he said in his address of reception: “Un des arts les plus difficiles dans le domaine de l’invention littéraire, c’est celui de charmer l’imagination sans l’ébranler, de toucher le cœur sans le troubler, d’amuser les hommes sans les corrompre: ce fut l’art suprême de Scribe.”
And in his response to this discourse, M. Vitet (1802-1873) thus eulogized the remarkable inventive genius of Scribe.—“Il y avait chez Scribe une faculté puissante et vraiment supérieure qui lui assurait et qui m’explique cette suprématie sur le théâtre de son temps. C’était un don d’invention dramatique que personne avant lui peut-être n’avait ainsi possédé: le don de découvrir à chaque pas, presque à propos de rien, des combinaisons théâtrales d’un effet neuf et saisissant; et de les découvrir, non pas en germe seulement ou à peine ébauchées, mais en relief, en action, et déjà sur la scène. Pendant le temps qu’il faut à ses confrères pour préparer un plan, il en achève plus de quatre; et jamais il n’achète aux dépens de l’originalité cette fécondité prodigieuse. Ce n’est pas dans un moule banal que ses fictions sont jetées. S’il a ses secrets, ses méthodes, jamais il n’en sert de la même façon. Pas un de ses ouvrages qui n’ait au moins son grain de nouveauté.... Scribe avait le génie de l’invention dramatique.”
Finally, though Scribe is not generally accorded the rank of a great author, it must be acknowledged that he was one of the world’s greatest dramatic entertainers.