Est le jour de pénitence;
Et lorsqu’un Anglais se pend
Se pend, se pend,
C’est un dimanche qu’il prend;
A Paris, le dimanche on danse.
Vive la France!”
Our poet’s range of subject was remarkable—high philosophy, discussed with smiling raillery; curious life-contrasts, like that of his wife being a popular dancer and his sister a nun; charades, dialogues, charming and pathetic little word-pictures like “La Neige,” a “Bacchic” song on “The End of the World,” and so forth, nothing seemed to come amiss that could be turned into song. Throughout his varied work there runs a consistent strain of Gallic gaiety—itself a form of bravery; and if his Muse has not the hard, biting intensity of a Villon, nor the lofty rhetoric of a Victor Hugo, it manages to keep a middle course of sanity and pleasantry with invariable success and an infallible though limited appeal.
Among his many ingenious poems are two of special interest to stage-folk of all time, one “Le Langage des Mains,” Chanson Pantomime, the other “Le Langage des Yeux”; both of which require to be illustrated by the actor who sings them and emphasise the need of facial and manual expression. As he truly says:
“Le comédien ou l’orateur,
Sans mains, serait un corps sans âme.”