Thus in this drama, requiring forty days and five hundred and thirty persons [Footnote 119] for its performance, heaven, air, earth, hell, all participated in the movement and the spectacle. What kind of a theatre was required for such scenic action? In the sixteenth century men saw theatres with two stages for the miracles of Notre Dame. The Mysteries of the Acts of the Apostles and of the Passion required three. Heaven was on high, hell below, earth in mid-space. Let us attempt to build anew these theatres before the eyes of our readers.
[Footnote 119: This is the number of actors employed in the representation made at Bruges in 1536, according to the calculation of M. Chevalier de Saint-Amand. Cahier, "Monographie de la Cathédrale de Bourges," p. 153. We find only 484 persons in the "Repertoire, des noms contenus au jeu des actes des apôtres." See the edition of this "Mystery" published at Paris in 1541 by Arnoul and Charles les Angliers, under this title: "Les catholiques OEuvres et Actes des Apôtres.">[
Paradise was an amphitheatre in form. High above appeared the Deity, seated upon a golden throne and overlooking all—the stage and the audience. At the four corners of his throne sat four persons representing Peace, Mercy, Justice, Truth. At their feet were nine choirs of angels ranged by hierarchies upon the steps. There was space also for the blessed spirits and for the organ which accompanied the celestial chants. Everything flashed and glittered. The painter and the carver were prodigal of their wonders. Of this we can form a judgment from a description of the paradise displayed at Bruges on the representation of the "Triumphant Mystery of the Acts of the Apostles." According to a contemporary narrative, five hundred and odd actors, sallying forth from the abbey of St. Sulpice on Sunday afternoon, April 30, 1536, bore with them in great pomp the apparatus of a spectacle which they were about to give at the amphitheatre of the Arènes. [{584}] They had a paradise twelve feet long, and eight feet wide. "It had all around it open thrones painted to resemble passing clouds, and both without and within were little angels as cherubim and seraphim, powers and dominations, in bas-relief, their hands joined and always moving. In the middle was a seat fashioned like a rainbow, upon which was seated the Godhead—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; and behind were two gold suns revolving continuously in opposing orbits. At the four corners were seats on which reposed Justice, Peace, Truth, and Mercy, richly clothed; and beside the said Godhead were two small angels chanting hymns and canticles to the music of the players on the flute, the harp, the lute, the rebec, and the viol, who circled about the paradise."
The same account describes a hell fourteen feet in length and eight in width. "It was made in the fashion of a rock, upon which was raised a tower always burning and sending forth flames. At the four corners of the said rock were four small towers, within which appeared spirits undergoing diverse torments, and on the fore-edge of the rock writhed a great serpent, hissing and emitting fire from his mouth and ears and nostrils; and along the passages of the said rock twined and crawled all kinds of serpents and great toads."
"The form and dimensions of this fiery cavern varied according to the exigencies of the dramatic action; but its place was invariably in the lower part of the theatre. In this were assembled all the diablerie, usually comprising a dozen principal personages; and from thence issued a terrible storm of howls and shrieks. Lucifer was there, and Satan, Belial, Cerberus, Astaroth, Burgibus, Leviathan, Proserpine, and other devils great and small. The gate through which they passed when coming to earth to torment mankind, appeared in shape like the enormous jaws of a dragon, and was called hell's mouth." [Footnote 120]
[Footnote 120: At the representation of the "Mystery of the Passion" at Metz, in July, 1437. "The mouth of hell was exceedingly well made, for it opened and shut when the devils wished to enter or go forth, and it had a great steel under-work." Chronique de Metz, MS.; composed by a curé of St. Eustache, cited by Beauchamps, in the Recherches sur les theatres.'']
Limbo, when demanded by the peculiar features of the play, as in the Mystery of the Resurrection, was placed below hell, and was symbolized by a huge tower with slits and gratings on all sides, in order that the spectators might catch glimpses of the spirits confined there. As these spirits were only statuettes, there was stationed behind the tower a body of men who howled and shrieked in concert, and when anything was to be said to the audience, a strong and lusty voice spoke in the name of all. [Footnote 121] When a purgatory was needed, it was located and constructed after nearly the same manner.
[Footnote 121: "Mysteres inèdits du XVe siècle" published by Achille Jubinal, t.i., preface, p. xlii. (Paris, 1837). Let us remark here in passing, that M. Jubinal, who is better acquainted with the manuscripts of the middle ages than with his catechism, has confounded limbo with purgatory. ]
The stage, properly so called, which was on a level with the audience, represented earth—that is, the different countries to which the dramatic action was successively transferred. It therefore required a vastly greater space than hell or paradise; the one symbolized by a cavern, and the other by an amphitheatre. It was divided into compartments, and inscriptions indicated the countries and the cities. This division was effected by scaffolds entirely separate, when there was room enough. Thus at the "Mystery of the Passion," represented at Paris in 1437, at the entrance of King Charles VII., the scaffolds occupied the whole of the Rue St. Denis for a distance of a stone's throw on either side, and the more remote stage, on which the last judgment was exhibited, was before Le Chatelet. The spectators were obliged to travel from one part to the other with the actors. But they remained seated, and could see the whole without change of place, at the performance of the same mystery, given the same year at Metz, in the [{585}] plain of Veximiel. For the vast semicircle destined for the assembly had nine rows of seats, and behind were the grand chairs for the lords and dames assembled from all parts of the province, and even from Germany. It was the same at Bruges on the preceding year at the representation of the "Acts of the Apostles." The enclosure occupied the whole space of the ancient amphitheatre, commonly called the Ditch of the Arènes. It had two stages, and vast pavilions protected the spectators from the inclemency of the weather and the heat of the sun.
But three years after, in 1541, when the burgesses of Paris played that immense drama in the hall of l'Hotel de Flandre, or when the Fraternity of the Passion gave their representations for a century and a half, at their theatre of the Trinity, in a hall one hundred and twenty-nine feet long and thirty-six feet deep, how were local distinctions indicated? Then the stage, in default of space, was divided by simple partitions, and inscriptions, indicating beyond mistake the houses, cities, and diverse countries, were more indispensable than ever. We may remark, finally, that in the great mysteries, divided by days, it was easy during the temporary suspension of the play to give a new aspect to the stage by a change of scenery. Sometimes, also, as in the preceding century, the actors were obliged to inform the audience that they were transported from one place to another by saying, "Here we come to Bethlehem—to Jerusalem. We are making sail for Rome—for Athens, etc." And the illusion was kept up, as far as could be, by the cessation of the music, in the interval during which, to use an expression of M. Sainte-Beuve, the mighty train swept on across space and time.