The resuscitation of the Greek theatre, four years after the parliamentary decree, completed the ruin of the medieval spectacles. They still played the miracles in the provinces, they even composed new ones. But the pious representations went out, changing more and more; and the [{595}] next century, which was that of Boileau, merely amused itself with ridiculing them. However, in the very simplicity of the miracles there was something too popular to be completely forgotten, in countries where the faith and the innocent manners of our good ancestors survived. On May 18, 1835, M. Guizot, then minister, recommended to the attention of his historical correspondents the still surviving traditions of the moralities and mysteries of the middle ages. "There are yet preserved on festal days, in certain districts of France," said he, "certain popular dramatic performances. It will not be a useless labor to examine and note down these relics of the past, before modern civilization and the usages of the common language cause their disappearance."
The author of "Researches into the Mysteries which have been represented in Maine," Dom Piolin, has traced these performances from the end of the sixteenth century up to the present time. He finds the last one at Laval, during the procession of Corpus Christi. "At its origin," he says, "one of the principal features of this fete, the one, at least, which peculiarly attracted the attention of the mob, consisted in scenes from the Old and New Testament which were represented on theatres erected along the route of the procession, but chiefly at the main court of the Convent des Cordeliers, they belonged, unquestionably, to the miracles' proper, having retained that characteristic simplicity and brevity which is found in the most ancient pieces. We know that King René established a similar custom in the city of Aix. Afterward, when the marionettes were introduced into France by Catharine de Medicis, puppets were substituted for the players. This theatre—a remnant of the ancient manners—continued until the end of the restoration, the last performance being in ??37."
M. Douhaire closes his "Course upon the History of Christian Poetry" by account of a foreign performance, extending from the creation of the world to the resurrection of the dead, of which he was an eye-witness. It was in 1830, at a small town on the banks of the Loire. "What I came to see," he adds, "was the 'Mystery of the Passion' played by puppets. I did not suppose, before this curious adventure, that there could be any existing trace of the scenic plays of the middle ages; but I have since learnt that there still remain many considerable vestiges in our western and southern provinces—where not only professional actors and puppets represent the principal scenes of both Testaments, but even families amuse themselves with this holy recreation on days of solemn feasts."
Permit us to mention, in our turn, the performance of a mystery witnessed by men still alive, and whose simplicity carries one quite back to the middle ages. We get the fact from the president of the modern Bollandists. At the commencement of our century a good priest of French Hainaut took upon himself to bring out the "Mystery of the Passion," for the welfare of his flock. An appeal was made to all well-disposed people, and, as at Paris in 1437, for the "Mystery of the Acts of the Apostles," the parts were distributed to the burgesses and artisans of every description, according to the measure of their talent in such case required. A Judas was wanting. The priest at once hit upon the apothecary of the place, whose modesty kept him in his laboratory, and he went in search of him. "My friend," said he, "we are going, as you know, to represent a fine 'mystery,' and it is necessary, for the common good, that you should do something. I have found your place. Your rôle is Judas." "But M. le curé, my memory is not worth a sou, and you would never be able to stuff so many words into my head." "Exactly so, my friend. I have selected for you the shortest part, and I pledge myself to teach you it in no time." Straightway our man is enrolled in the [{596}] company. The solemn day arrives. The parish and all the country round are there. The spectacle commences, and the actors, duly costumed and seated on benches along each side of the stage, rise in turn to go through with what they have to say. The moment of the kiss of Judas is at hand. The poor apothecary remains glued to his chair, pale with terror. The priest, who is all eyes, hastens to him, and forces him to get up. Arrived before the person who represents Jesus Christ, he falls on his knees, trembling in every limb, and crying with joined hands, "Oh Lord! thou well knowest it was not my fault! It is monsieur the curé who forces me."
This grand trilogy of the "Mystery of the Passion"—which history exhibits as closely connected with puppet shows and village performances, naïve even to the grotesque—has quite another importance and quite another destiny in the eyes of philosophy, which discerns therein the principal features of the modern dramatic art. Let us not quit this subject before presenting a confirmation of the thesis which the readers of these essays have already seen maintained in an article where Corneille, Racine, and even Voltaire himself were shown to be unconsciously the lineal successors of our old dramatists far more than of AEschylus, of Sophocles, and of Euripides. The father of French tragedy, who discoursed upon his art with so much philosophy and toiled night and day to make our poetry Aristotle's—Pierre Corneille, after having for half a century attempted himself, and seen attempted around him, every possible denouement, was led to recognize the necessity in this particular of going contrary to the tragic art of the Greeks. "The ancients," he wrote at the close of his career, "very often content themselves in their tragedies with depicting vices in such a manner as to cause us to hate them, and virtues so as to cause us to love them, without troubling themselves with recompensing good actions or punishing bad ones. Clytemnestra and her paramour slay Agamemnon, and go free. Medea does the same with her children, and Atreus with those of her brother. It is true that by carefully studying the actions which were selected for the catastrophe of their tragedies, there were some criminals whom they punished, but by crimes greater than their own. … Our drama hardly tolerates such subjects. … It is the interest which we love to extend to the virtuous that has obliged us to resort to this other mode of finishing the dramatic poem by punishing the bad actions and by recompensing the good. It is not a precept of art, but a custom, which we have observed."
Whence originated this custom Corneille gave his own century the credit of it; but it is from the middle ages that it dates. What tragic drama was it which was the most important—the most popular—the longest played—of that first epoch of the modern theatre? Was it not the "Mystery of the Passion," which we have seen commencing with a simple dramatizing of the gospel—growing century by century—and ending with an immense trilogy, extending from the fall of man to the birth of our Saviour, from the passion and the death of the Saviour to his resurrection, from the establishment of the Church to the last judgment—that solution of human doctrines which regulates all things retribution for the wicked and recompense for the good, and by making virtue rise victorious from its battle with the passions? What the middle ages show us in the "mystery" which was its masterpiece, appears without exception in all those dramatic compositions which have come down to us. We have already remarked, and it is moreover a fact recognized by all scholars, that there is not a tragic drama of this epoch, whatever may be its subject, which does not close with the Te Deum or with some other chant of joy, of triumph, or of forgiveness. Its denouement is always homage rendered by the justice [{597}] heaven avenging innocence, or by mercy bestowing on the guilty repentance and pardon.
In speaking three years ago upon the liturgic origin of the modern tragedy, and the influence of Christianity on the dramatic passions, we ended by saying that we need no longer seek, as has been too often done, in Corneille or Racine for the restorers of the ancient tragedy; that those great dramatists, it is true, received from Greece the science of the pageant and the mise en scene; but that as much as they approach the Greek art in their literary form, so much they depart from it not only by their denouement but also by the moral character of their intrigue. It was impossible, in fact, to change the nature of the tragic denouement without changing that of the passions and of the events which led to them. Let us develop this conclusion of our essay by showing what it is that prevents our comprehending French tragedy and defining it.
Voltaire has said, "To compress an illustrious and interesting event into the space of two or three hours, to introduce the personae only when they ought to appear, to never leave the stage empty, to construct an intrigue which shall be probable as well as striking, to say nothing useless, to instruct the mind and to move the heart, to be always eloquent in verse, and with an eloquence appropriate to each character represented, to make the dialogue as pure as the choicest prose, without the constraint of the rhyme appearing to fetter the thoughts, and never to admit an obscure or harsh or declamatory verse—these are the conditions which are exacted from a tragedy of our day, before it can pass to posterity with the approbation of critics, without which it can never have a true reputation."
This definition, or rather this exposition, otherwise so clear and so elegant, of the demands of our Melpomene, are far from being complete. In the time of Euripides, a Greek could have said almost as much. It is because Voltaire has only taken into account the style and the mise en scène, the laws of which were at Athens what they are at Paris. The difference between the ancient tragedies and the modern tragic art consists essentially in their moral character and in that alone. Christianity, by modifying the passions of the human heart, has been able to modify them on the stage likewise. It is, then, from the philosophy of the drama that we ought to set out with Aristotle to study its nature.
The French tragedy, such as our own great century has made it, is the representation of an action more probable than real, more ideal than historic, wholly noble, serious, and becoming, restricted to one place, accomplished in a few hours, without any interruption, except the interval of the acts, constructed with the majestic simplicity of the epic, drawing its startling changes from the play of passions rather from that of events, and leading forward the mind by admiration and enthusiasm to emotions of pity and of terror.