The Captain.—“No, he is bathed in blood. The monk has killed him. Let us pillage the monastery.”
The curtain falls; the show is really over this time.
I went behind the scenes to ask the impresario Bermont for the name of the author of this fine historical drama.
“I wrote it myself,” he modestly replied. “I have a book [p085] of plays. I write them in the evenings, when they occur to me—recollections, ideas, anything. We also play The Passion, The Temptation of Saint Anthony, Hell, and Geneviève de Brabant. The book is very old, and has never been printed. We repeat it through over and over again. I also perform Camilla Underground; or, the Dangerous Forest. But once in that piece the ‘author’s rights’ found a pretext for coming in, but they did not recognize the piece; I had changed it all.”
His wife stood near him whilst he spoke, leaning on his shoulder, tenderly proud of belonging to a man gifted with so much imagination.
If you should ever have an opportunity of examining the large volumes in which the Brothers Parfaict, the Des Beulmiers, de [p086] Monnet, and some other authors have scientifically discussed the origin of fair theatres, you will find that they have been always forced to contend against that hereditary enemy which the impresario Bermont now calls the “author’s rights,” and which has borne different names in different ages.
At the epoch when the fair theatres first attracted notice, that is to say about 1595, it might have been justly styled the “comedians’ rights.” The brotherhood of the Passion and the actors of the Hôtel de Bourgogne would not allow any extension of theatrical performances by their side, and as they held the power they easily obtained a rule which restricted the comedies in a fair to wooden actors, marionettes of Brioché, learned animals, acrobats, and juggling tricks.
But the banquistes are a tenacious race, and towards 1678, in spite of the opposition from the comedians, the fair theatres commenced to mount a few well-seasoned farces with actors of flesh and blood. The head of the police protested, and the managers once more pretended to restrict themselves within the limits of the law, resorting to some ingenious infraction of the spirit of it, which provoked laughter and put the comedians in the wrong; for instance, the artifice used by La Grille, who opened, in the fair of Saint Germaine, an Opera de Bamboche, in which the sole actor was a huge marionette, that gesticulated to the melodies of an invisible musician concealed in the prompter’s box.
