The actor coloured, picked up the gloves, and went away, murmuring some revolutionary threat.
I played the part of Hortense in Le testament de César, by Girodot, and of Anna Danby in Alexandre Dumas’s Kean.
On the evening of the first performance of the latter piece[[1]] the audience was most aggravating. Dumas père was quite out of favour on account of a private matter that had nothing to do with art. Politics for some time past had been exciting every one, and the return of Victor Hugo from exile was very much desired. When Dumas entered his box he was greeted by yells. The students were there in full force, and they began shouting for Ruy Blas. Dumas rose and asked to be allowed to speak. “My young friends,” he began, as soon as there was silence. “We are quite willing to listen,” called out some one, “but you must be alone in your box.”
[1]. February 18, 1868.
Dumas protested vehemently. Several persons in the orchestra took his side, for he had invited a lady into his box, and whoever that lady might be, no one had any right to insult her in so outrageous a manner. I had never yet witnessed a scene of this kind. I looked through the hole in the curtain, and was very much interested and excited. I saw our great Dumas, pale with anger, clenching his fists, shouting, swearing, and storming. Then suddenly there was a burst of applause. The woman had disappeared from the box. She had taken advantage of the moment when Dumas, leaning well over the front of the box, was answering, “No, no, this lady shall not leave the box!”
Just at this moment she slipped away, and the whole house, delighted, shouted, “Bravo!” Dumas was then allowed to continue, but only for a few seconds. Cries of “Ruy Blas! Ruy Blas! Victor Hugo! Hugo!” could then be heard again in the midst of an infernal uproar. We had been ready to commence the play for an hour, and I was greatly excited. Chilly and Duquesnel then came to us on the stage.
“Courage, mes enfants, for the house has gone mad,” they said. “We will commence anyhow, let what will happen.”
“I’m afraid I shall faint,” I said to Duquesnel. My hands were as cold as ice, and my heart was beating wildly. “What am I to do,” I asked him, “if I get too frightened?”
“There’s nothing to be done,” he replied. “Be frightened, but go on playing, and don’t faint upon any account!”
The curtain was drawn up in the midst of a veritable tempest, bird cries, cat-calls, and a heavy rhythmical refrain of “Ruy Blas! Ruy Blas! Victor Hugo! Victor Hugo!”