Old and New Paris: Its History, Its People, and Its Places, v. 1

by H. Sutherland Edwards

The rest of Chateaubriand’s narrative, especially as regards the Duke of Berri’s two daughters, corresponds closely enough with the one left by Dupuytren, whose style, somewhat expressive, somewhat emphatic for a man of science, is less copious, and also less magniloquent than that of the marvellous author of Le Gênie du Christianisme and of the Mémoires d’outre-Tombe.

What the prince chiefly thought of in his last moments was his murderer, Louvel. “Twenty times in the course of the fatal night,” says Dupuytren, the famous physician, whose account of the scene was published not many years ago, “he cried out, ‘Have I not injured this man? had he not some personal vengeance to exercise against me?’ In vain did Monsieur repeat to him, with tears in his eyes: ‘No, my son, you never injured, you never saw this man; he had no personal animosity against you.’ The prince returned incessantly to this groundless idea, and, without being conscious of it, furnished by his public and repeated inquiries the best proof that he had not provoked the frightful calamity which had befallen him. With this first idea he constantly associated another—that of obtaining pardon for his assassin. During his long and painful agony the prince begged for it at least a hundred times, and did so more earnestly in proportion as he felt his end approaching. Thus, when the increasing gravity of the symptoms made him fear that he would not live long enough to see the king, he called out piteously, ‘Ah! the king will not arrive. I shall not be able to ask him to forgive the man.’ Soon afterwards he appealed turn by turn to Monsieur and to the Duke of Augoulême, saying to them, ‘Promise me, father, promise me, brother, that you will ask the king to spare the man’s life.’ But when at last the king arrived, he no sooner saw his Majesty than, summoning all his strength, he cried out, ‘Spare his life, sir! spare the man’s life!’ ‘My nephew,’ the king replied, ‘you are not so ill as you think, and we shall have time to think of your request when you have recovered.’ Yet the prince continued as before, the king being still on his guard not to grant a pardon which was equally repugnant to the laws of nature and to those of society. Then this generous prince exclaimed in a tone of deep regret: ‘Ah, sir! you do not say “yes,”’ adding shortly afterwards: ‘If the man’s life were spared, the bitterness of my last moments would be softened.’ As his end drew near, pursuing the same idea, he expressed in a low voice, broken by grief, and with long intervals between each word, the following thought: ‘Ah!... if only ... I could carry away ... the idea ... that the blood of a man ... would not flow on my account ... after my death....’ This noble prayer was the last he uttered. His constantly increasing and now atrocious pain absorbed from this moment all his faculties.”

The heroism of the Duke of Berri and his dying prayer for the pardon of his murderer may be contrasted with the cowardice of his grandfather, Louis XV., taking the last sacrament twice over when he had only been scratched; and the cruelty with which he caused his assailant, who, murderously disposed, no doubt, had nevertheless scarcely injured him, to be subjected to the most frightful tortures, and finally torn to pieces by four horses.{92}

Let us now return to the Porte Saint-Martin Theatre, which, abandoned by the Opera, remained deserted for eight years, from 1794 to 1802. On September 30th of this year it was re-opened under the direction of the author and actor Du Maniaut, who brought out operas, melodramas, comedies, and pantomimes until the publication, in 1806, of the decree which put an end to the liberty of the stage. He afterwards, however, obtained permission to represent pantomimes and prologues, or vaudevilles, on condition that in each of these little pieces not more than two actors were employed. In September, 1810, Du Maniaut produced “The Man of Destiny”—a title indicating the Emperor Napoleon, whose victories were represented in a series of historical and allegorical pictures in honour of his marriage with Marie Louise. The music was by the celebrated Piccini, attached to the private staff of his Majesty the Emperor. The Man of Destiny was impersonated by a dancer and mimic named Chevalier, and his career, begun in Egypt, was continued up to the triumphal entry of the French troops into Berlin. After remaining closed for several years, the Porte Saint-Martin Theatre was re-opened in 1814, and thenceforward played a very important part in connection with the dramatic literature of the country. Here Mlle. Georges, Mme. Dorval, Frédéric Lemaître, and many other famous artistes, appeared. Here, too, were produced with enormous success “Marion Delorme,” “Lucrèce Borgia,” and “Marie Tudor,” from Victor Hugo’s pen; all the dramas of Alexandre Dumas, including “Antoine,” “Angèle,” “Richard Darlington,” and “La Tour de Nesle”: “The Mysteries of Paris” and “Mathilde” of Eugène Sue, “The Two Locksmiths” of Félix Pyat, the “Dame de Saint-Tropez” and “Don César de Bazan” of Adolphe d’Ennery. Here, too, the “Vautrin” of Balzac was brought out—to be stopped, after sixteen representations, by Government order, on the ground that Frédéric Lemaître’s make-up in the part of the hero was intended to throw ridicule on the person of King Louis Philippe. The house built by Le Noir, which the Committee of Public Safety had looked upon as of doubtful solidity, enjoyed a life of ninety years, and might have been in existence still; but on the 24th of May, 1871, without any apparent motive for so useless and stupid an act, {93} the Communists set fire to it. The old theatre was burnt to the ground, together with an adjoining building, which, in the days of the Republic of Vienna, had belonged to the Venetian Ambassador.

Rebuilt on the same site, but after a different plan, the Porte St.-Martin Theatre was re-opened in the autumn of 1873, when Victor Hugo’s “Marie Tudor” was revived. To this succeeded a couple of great successes—“The Two Orphans” and “Round the World,” the former written by that fertile inventor of new plots, M. Adolphe d’Ennery, and the latter adapted by him from Jules Verne’s famous novel.

Close to this famous playhouse is the new Renaissance Theatre, which first opened its doors on the 8th of March, 1873. The Porte Saint-Martin contains 1,800 seats, the Renaissance only 1,200. Started as a dramatic theatre, with Belot’s “Femme de Feu” and Zola’s “Thérèse Raquin” in the bill, it was destined to obtain its chief success as an operetta theatre with the charming works of Charles Lecoq, including ”La petite Mariée,” “Le petit Duc,” etc. In these works Mesdames Théo, Jeanne Granier, and Zulma Bouffar first appeared.

At the point where the Boulevards St.-Martin and St.-Denis meet stands the Triumphal Arch known as the Porte St.-Martin, which Louis XIV. erected in 1674 on the site of the previous Gate, which dated from the minority of Louis XIII. The Porte St.-Martin faces on the one side the Rue St.-Martin, and on the other the Faubourg St.-Martin: that is to say, south and north. The low reliefs decorating the arch on all sides represent the taking of Besançon, the taking of Limburg, and the defeat of the Germans, in the form of an eagle repulsed by Mars. The pedestal bears a Latin inscription, which in English would run thus:—“To Louis the Great, for having twice taken Besançon and Franche-Comté, and for having crushed the German, Spanish, and Dutch armies. The Provost of the Merchants and the Citizens of Paris, 1674.”

At the end of the Rue St.-Martin, leading out of the boulevard of that name, stands the Church of St. Méry, near which a most determined struggle took place in that insurrection of the 6th of June, 1832, which was one of the numerous Republican movements directed against Louis Philippe by the disappointed revolutionists of 1830, who, aiming at a Republic, had brought about the re-establishment of a Monarchy. The Republicans received powerful aid from the Bonapartists: these two parties being at this, as on so many other occasions, ready to unite against royalty, while reserving to themselves the ultimate decision of {94} the question whether the Empire or the Republic should be re-established.