"'Really! What epicures! Nothing but the best will serve you, it seems. Well, my boys, you shall be satisfied.'
"At the same time he arranged a couple of napkins in the fashion of a flag, draping himself with them picturesquely; then, rolling his eyes in their orbits, he threw himself on his knees, and assumed the airs of a Pythoness who has diligently studied posture before her mirror."
The parodies, rich in thieves' slang, at an end, and the bottles empty, the grateful pensioners of the national workshops resumed their march, cutting practical jokes, and cudgel-playing with the acacias, which were considerably deteriorated by the proceeding. "Such," says Jérome Paturot, "was the end of this memorable day, during which Oscar and myself were enabled to appreciate a national workshop and the services it rendered. The account was easily made up. Two hundred and fifty men had carried two hundred and fifty saplings. Two francs for each man's day's work, and three francs for each acacia, made five hundred francs on the one hand, and seven hundred and fifty on the other. Total cost, twelve hundred and fifty francs. Not one of the plants survived the consequences of the breakfast, notwithstanding which there was the expense of planting them, and afterwards that of digging them up. Double work, double charges. Such were the national workshops; such the profits of the institution."
The allusion in the tavern-scene to Mademoiselle Rachel is not the only cut administered by M. Reybaud to the tragedy-queen of the French republican stage.
Jérome and Oscar, strolling one evening down the Rue Richelieu, found a crowd at the theatre doors. The Provisional Government treated the people to the play. The whole mass of tickets was divided amongst the twelve mayors of Paris, who distributed them in their arrondissements. But somehow or other a considerable number had got into the hands of the ticket merchants, and for twenty francs Paturot and his companion obtained a couple of stalls. The play over, the hour of the Marseillaise arrived.
"The tragedian approached the foot-lamps, a tricoloured flag in her hand. Her manner of singing the republican hymn at once carried away and revolted the hearer. It was like the roar of the lioness urging her male to the combat. The tone was not of our period; its energy and ferocity had no sufficient motive. It breathed vengeance—where was the injury to revenge? conquest—and where the territory to conquer? Even as an artistical study, the effect should have been more measured, more restrained. That effect was nevertheless great, and was felt by every one in the theatre. Under the flash of that glance and the power of that voice, a sort of low shuddering ran along the benches, and was broken only by a universal acclamation. The enthusiasm sustained itself thus to the last couplet, which was of itself a scene and a tableau."
The song over, a workman in a blouse leaped upon the stage, bent his knee before the actress, and presented her with a bouquet of choice flowers and a paper. The manager, at the demand of the audience, read the latter aloud. It was the following acrostic in honour of Rachel:—
R eine de l'empire magique,
A vous ce don de l'ouvrier;
C harmez-nous par votre art magique,
H éroïne au royal cimier,
E t chantez d'un accent guerrier
L' hymne ardent de la république.
This apropos piece of gallantry drew down thunders of applause, to which the members of the Provisional Government there present contributed their share. But Paturot had recognised, to his great surprise, in the bouquet-bearer, the smart young scamp of whom he had purchased his admission, and whom he had noticed as being evidently a leading character amongst the not very reputable fraternity of ticket-mongers. Curious to penetrate the secret of his sudden metamorphosis, he followed him, and overheard his conversation with his colleagues. The bouquet had cost fifty francs, the acrostic five, flowers of literature being cheaper under the republic than those of the hothouse. Mitouflet's comrades are bewildered by his extravagance, until he divulges the secret that—government pays. "Happy nation!" exclaims Jérome, "whom a benevolent government finds in bread and tragedies! What more can it desire?"
No class of society escapes M. Reybaud's satire. Under the title of "The Victims of Events," he devotes a chapter to the authors, artists, and actors whom the revolution has deprived of bread. They deserve their fate, he maintains; they have abandoned the true for the worship of false gods, they have dealt in maleficent philters instead of wholesome medicines; they have used their power to mislead and corrupt, not to guide and rightly direct, those who pinned their faith on their performances. They were mischievous quacks, not conscientious physicians. The literary sufferers are the first whom he exhibits. "Some employed history as a die, and struck with it a coin of very base metal." Take that, M. Dumas. "Others fomented violent instincts in the bosom of the masses, and invited them to sacrilegious revolts, exhibiting only the impurities of civilisation, and conducting the people to anger by the road of disgust." This, we need hardly say, is levelled at the Sue school. But the names of these men, one day so loud in the ears of the multitude, the next were drowned in the tumult of revolutions. "To fill the cup of bitterness to the brim, it was not honour alone that remained on this calamitous field of battle. The bank-notes shared the same fate. Who would have predicted this, in those opulent days, when a piece of gold was found at the end of every line, like the natural product of a seemingly inexhaustible mine? Who would have foretold it in those hours of success, amidst the intoxications of luxury, and in the indulgence of a thousand caprices worthy an Eastern prince? Every road was then strewed with emeralds, every path covered with rubies. There was no style of living that Imagination, with its fairy fingers, could not sustain. She gave her favourites every thing—coaches and lackeys, open house, and a prince's retinue. How remote is that happy time! What a falling off in that Asiatic existence! Where are the emeralds? where the rubies? The bank-note is a figment; gold a chimera. Money and glory have gone down into the same tomb.... But the man of style was not easy to vanquish. He braved neglect, and, deeming himself a necessary element in the world's economy, he set to work again—only, following the example of the modern divinities, he took care to transform himself. Hitherto, politics had appeared to him of secondary importance, and he had abandoned them to colourists of an inferior grade. Events had rendered them worthy of the great pens of the age. 'Aha!' said the man of style—'Aha! they force us to it: very well, they shall see. We lived quietly in the sanctuary of art, asking but sequins and perfumes of the external world. Provided the sherbet was cool and the amber bright, what cared we for the rest? But now they besiege us in our favourite asylum. Distress is at the door, pressing and menacing. To arms, then, to institute a new system of politics.' And the man of style entered the arena of politics, ferula in hand, and spur on heel." But only to encounter a lamentable break-down. It is pretty evident whom M. Reybaud had in view when making this sketch, here greatly abridged, but which is very exact and amusing in its details, and must be particularly gratifying to Alexander Dumas. He then takes up the painters, and exposes the system of mutual puffing and hired criticism. The comedian has his turn: "But lately he reigned and laid down the law. Each note of his voice was a priceless treasure; his gestures were current coin. For him the bank had not enough notes, nor fame enough trumpets. The mob crowded round him, when he walked abroad, as round a prince of the blood. Vienna and Petersburg disputed him; the two worlds were his domain. How believe that such an idol should one day be hurled from his pedestal? Nevertheless it came to pass. He beheld vacant benches and an empty treasury. He had been improvident, and misery sat down by his hearth. Perhaps he then remembered how he had defied fate, and squandered wealth; how he had abused every thing—his health and his talent, the public and himself. Had he not given into that vein of falsehood and monstrosity, which made the theatre a school of perversity, and art an instrument of disorder? Had he not degraded the stage by creakings of snuff-boxes and misplaced hiccups? Had he not ridiculed, in a celebrated type, instincts the most sacred and worthy of respect? Such excesses escape not punishment." There is much truth in this. But is it a fact, that Frederick Lemaitre (here evidently selected as the type of his profession) has thus suddenly lost his popularity and sunk into poverty? The last time we saw his name in a French theatrical feuilleton, his successful appearance in a new piece was recorded. Has he not also, since the revolution, drawn crowds to witness his performance of Robert Macaire, the piece to which M. Reybaud more particularly alludes, and which was prohibited under the monarchy, because Lemaitre, in acting the part of the swindler Robert, used to make himself up to resemble Louis Philippe, and introduced unpleasant hits at the King of the French? There is no question, however, that Lemaitre is an instance of the prostitution of great talents. With more respect for himself and for the public, he might have aspired to a high place in the profession, with one of whose lower walks he has all his life remained contented.