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

by H. Sutherland Edwards

It has been the destiny of the Comédie Française during the past hundred years to salute a number of different governments and dynasties. That they conscientiously kicked against the Republic in its most aggravated form has already been shown. They had no reason for being dissatisfied with Napoleon; and after the destruction of the Imperial power it was perfectly natural that they should do homage to that house of Bourbon under which they had first been established, and which for so long a period had kept them beneath its peculiar patronage. They now resumed their ancient title of “Comédiens Ordinaires du Roi,” and the direction of the establishment was handed over to the Intendant of the Royal Theatres.

The Comédie Française has often been charged with too strict an adherence to classical ideas. Yet it was at this theatre that a dramatic work by Victor Hugo, round which rallied the whole of the so-called romantic school, was first placed before the public.

The two most interesting events in the history of the Comédie Française are the first production of The Marriage of Figaro in 1784, of which {179} an account has already been given in connection with Beaumarchais and his residence on the boulevard bearing his name, and the first production of Hernani forty-six years afterwards.

Hernani was the third play that Victor Hugo had written, but the first that was represented. There seems never to have been any intention of bringing out Cromwell, published in 1827, and known to this day chiefly by its preface. Marion Delorme, Victor Hugo’s second dramatic work, was submitted to the Théâtre Français, but rejected, not by the management, but by the Censorship, and, indeed, by Charles X. himself, with whom Victor Hugo had a personal interview on the subject. “The picture of Louis XIII.’s reign,” says a writer on this subject, “was not agreeable to his descendant; and the last of the Bourbon kings is said to have been particularly annoyed at the omnipotent part assigned in Victor Hugo’s drama to the great Cardinal de Richelieu.”

But Victor Hugo had the persistency of genius, and though both his first efforts had miscarried, he was ready soon after the rejection of Marion Delorme with another piece—that spirited, poetical work Hernani, which is usually regarded as his finest dramatic effort. Hernani, like Marion Delorme, was condemned by the Censorship; being objected to not on political, but on literary, moral, and general grounds. The report of the Committee of Censorship, scarcely less ironical than severe, concluded in these remarkable terms: “However much we might extend our analysis, it could only give an imperfect idea of Hernani, of the eccentricity of its conception, and the faults of its execution. It seems to us a tissue of extravagances to which the author has vainly endeavoured to give a character of elevation, but which are always trivial and often vulgar. The piece abounds in unbecoming thoughts of every kind. The king expresses himself like a bandit; the bandit treats the king like a brigand. The daughter of a grandee of Spain is a shameless woman without dignity or modesty. Nevertheless, in spite of so many capital faults, we are of opinion that not only would there be nothing injudicious in authorising the representation of the piece, but that it would be wise policy not to cut out a single word. It is well that the public should see what point of wildness the human mind may reach when it is freed from all rules of propriety.”

When at last the play was produced there was such a scene in the Comédie Française as has never been witnessed before or since. At two o’clock, when the doors were opened, a band of romanticists entered the theatre and forthwith searched it in view of any hostile classicists who might be lying hid in dark corners, ready to rise and hiss as soon as the curtain should go up. No classicists, however, were discovered; the band of romanticists was under the direction of Gérard de Nerval, author of the delightful “Voyage en Orient,” translator of “Faust” in the early days when he called himself simply Gérard, and Heine’s collaborator in the French prose translation of the “Buch der Lieder.” On the eve of the battle, Gérard de Nerval, as Théophile Gautier has told us in one of many accounts he wrote of the famous representation, visited the officers who were to act under him; their number, according to one account, including Balzac, first of French novelists, if not first novelist of the world; that Wagner of the past, Hector Berlioz; Auguste Maquet, the dramatist; and Joseph Bouchardy, the melodramatist, together with Alexander Dumas, historian (in his “Memoirs”) of the rehearsals of Hernani, and Théophile Gautier, chronicler in more than one place of its first representation.

Victor Hugo had originally intended to call his play Three to One; which to the modern mind would have suggested a sporting drama. Castilian Honour—excellent title!—had also been suggested; but the general opinion of Victor Hugo’s friends was in favour of Hernani, the musical and sonorous name of the hero; and under that title the piece was produced.

It has been said that the supporters of Victor Hugo took possession of a certain portion of the theatre as early as two in the afternoon. They had brought with them hams, tongues, and bottles of wine; and they had what the Americans call a “good time” during the interval that passed before the public was admitted—eating, drinking, singing songs, and discussing the beauties of the piece they had come to applaud. “As soon as the doors of the theatre were opened the band of romanticists,” says Théophile Gautier, “turned their eyes towards the incomers, and if among them a pretty woman appeared her arrival was greeted with a burst of applause. These marks of approbation were not bestowed on rich toilettes and dazzling jewellery, they were reserved for beauty in its simplest manifestations. Thus no one was received with so much enthusiasm as Mdlle. Delphine Gay, afterwards Mme. de Girardin, who, in a white muslin dress relieved by a blue scarf, wore no ornaments whatever. Mdlle. Gay {180} assured the Duke de Montmorency the morning after the representation, that she had not spent on her dress more than twenty-eight francs.”

The Hugoites did not form a compact body, but occupied different parts of the pit and stalls in groups. They are said to have been easily recognisable by their sometimes picturesque, sometimes grotesque costumes, and by their defiant air. The combatants on either side applauded and counter-applauded, cried “Bravo!” and hissed without much reference to the merits of the piece, and often in attack or defence of supposed words which the piece did not contain. Thus (to quote once more from Théophile Gautier) in the scene where Ruy Gomez, on the point of marrying Doña Sol, entrusts her to Don Carlos, Hernani exclaims to the former, “Vieillard stupide! il l’aime.” M. Parseval de Grandmaison, a rigid classicist, but rather hard of hearing, thought Hernani had said, “Vieil as de pique! il l’aime.” “This is too much,” groaned M. {181} Parseval de Grandmaison. “What do you say?” replied Lassailly, who was sitting next him in the stalls, and who had only heard his neighbour’s interruption. “I say, sir, that it is not permissible to call a venerable old man like Ruy Gomez de Silva ‘old ace of spades.’” “He has a perfect right to do so,” replied Lassailly. “Cards were invented under Charles VI. Bravo for ‘Vieil as de pique!’ Bravo, Hugo!”