Old and New Paris: Its History, Its People, and Its Places, v. 2

by H. Sutherland Edwards

There are other petty trades at Paris, such as that of the bird-catcher and the pigeon-fancier.

Nor must the sellers of violets at one sou the bunch be forgotten; though they are not to be confounded with the bouquetière in a far more fashionable walk of life. The dealers in groundsel, too, have a trade of their own.

There are many institutions, professions, and classes which, after being originated on the left bank, have crossed the water to flourish on the right. Among these must be included the claque; though, from whatever quarter it may have sprung, there is now no theatrical district in Paris where it does not thrive.

It originated at the Comédie Française, when[{262}] that institution had its abode at the theatre now known as the Odéon, where, among other masterpieces, Beaumarchais’s Marriage of Figaro was produced in 1784. Mercier pointed out, about this time, that the masterpiece in question had no need of organised applause. This preconcerted clapping of hands, varied by the stamping of feet and by walking-sticks, had a very bad effect on the taste and temper of the public, and even, at times, on the fortune of a piece. “They clap when the actor appears on the stage; they clap for the author at the end of the play; they clap for the composer, and make more noise than all the instruments of Gluck’s orchestra, which can no longer be heard. This perpetual noise, this artificial excitement, degrades the public taste. An author who was constantly hissed was once advised to construct a machine which would imitate the sound of three or four hundred persons clapping their hands, and to place it in a corner of the theatre under the guidance of some intelligent and devoted friend.”

Another writer on the same subject, M. Prudhomme, tells us in his “Historical and Critical Mirror of Old and New Paris” (1807) that he had once been acquainted with a man who had no means of living but by assisting at first representations. Placed in the middle of the pit, he called attention to the beauties of the piece and led the applause. The name of “Monsieur Claque” had been given to him, and he had hands as hard as the piece of wood with which washerwomen beat their linen. His terms were thirty-six francs if the piece succeeded, and twelve francs if it failed.

The claque, however, did not acquire its greatest importance until the time of the Restoration. At an earlier period Dorat, a popular drawing-room poet, or writer of vers de société, was in the habit of sending persons to the theatre with a free-admission on the understanding that they were to applaud his piece. By this stratagem he managed to secure a run of several nights for more than one of his works; but at each success he might have applied to himself the exclamation of Pyrrhus after the Battle of Asculum: “One more such victory and I am ruined.”

Dorat did, indeed, ruin himself at the game he is said to have invented; but his invention was not lost to posterity. The claque, however, did not work, in these comparatively primitive days, as an organised body. There was a certain Chevalier de la Morlière, a retired musketeer, who undertook the criticism of all new pieces, and offered to dramatic authors his support or his condemnation. His terms were moderate. A few dinners, a few louis, lent without any fixed term of repayment, a little commission on the pit tickets that passed through his hands: that was all he asked. He had volunteers and paid agents equally at his disposal, the former acting under his advice, the latter at his command. The Chevalier de la Morlière placed himself, moreover, at the service of débutants and débutantes, or rather he imposed his services upon them. One day he took it into his head to become a dramatic author, arguing with himself that after ensuring the success of so many works by others he could do the same for a work of his own. But though he now surpassed himself in the ingenuity of his manœuvres, the work he produced did not succeed. Thereupon he lost all credit. The authors and actors resolved to do without him. His sceptre fell, but only to be taken from time to time by others. Up to this time the claque, as before said, was the work of enterprising individuals who organised it on certain occasions, but not continuously as a permanent institution. Figaro, in Beaumarchais’s comedy, speaks of the play he had written, and goes on to say: “I really cannot understand how it was that I did not obtain the greatest success; for I had filled the pit with excellent workmen, whose hands were like wood.”

The organisation of the claque, as a permanent institution, dates from the time of Napoleon I., and seems to have had for its starting-point the famous rivalry between Mlle. Duchénois and Mlle. Georges. When the struggle between the two tragic actresses came to an end, the forces organised in their service declined to be disbanded. They elected their chiefs, and the leaders treated with managers and authors for regular support. People were still found who would applaud a favourite actor or actress from enthusiasm, duly stimulated by a gratuitous ticket. Thus at one time the whole atelier of David served as claque to an actress much admired by the painter and his pupils, who without support and encouragement might have been crushed, it was thought, by the growing talent and popularity of Mlle. Mars. The claque of David’s atelier was a formidable one, for the great artist had from sixty to eighty students attached to him. This was in 1810, a year or two after the publication of the “Historical and Critical Mirror of Old and New Paris” previously referred to.[{263}]

Under the Restoration the claque was a regular institution. The quarrels of the Romanticists and Classicists lent it a considerable importance. Impartial in its tastes, it served, turn by turn, and with the same zeal, the “Antony” of the modern drama and the Greek heroines of ancient tragedy. Since 1830 its authority has been universally accepted. Several directors, after trying to dispense with it, have been obliged to conciliate it and accept its conditions—for when the directors have driven it from their house, it has always been brought back by the vanity of the comedians. One alone of the Paris theatres preserved itself from the claque. This was the now defunct Théâtre Italien; though people say of this house that if it had not a claque it had a clique.

With the exception of the last-named, all the theatres of Paris have for years past had organised claques, that of the Opéra being the best disciplined. The chiefs of the claques give themselves the title of “undertakers of dramatic successes.” They do not receive a subvention from the “directors,” but a certain number of places each night, which they sell for their own benefit. It is not from the tickets, however, that they derive the bulk of their gains. Some of them make twenty or thirty thousand francs a year; but they derive this from the vanity of the actors, who pay them proportionately to the degree of applause required.