The newspapers of Berlin announced the arrival of a superior artist, the celebrated M. Delille of the Théâtre Français de Paris, where he had played first parts. Born and bred in the French metropolis, it was believed he would not only open new sources of amusement to the public, but add elegance to the French even of the highest regions. Everybody was talking of him. His acquisition, rendered possible only by a différend with the Paris manager, was a triumph for Berlin. I was quite curious to see him.
One day I stepped into Rey's perfumery shop to buy some cologne water. The rooms were crowded with fashionable ladies looking over the glittering and fragrant assortment of savons de toilette, pâtes d'amandes, huiles essentielles, eaux de vie aromatisées, etc. While making my purchase, a very handsome fellow came in who excited unusual attention. His toilette recherchée, his noble but modest air made one look at him again and again. He spoke with Rey in a voice so harmonious and in such French as one does not hear every day even in Paris. I heard a lady whisper to another: "Ah, voilà qui est parlez Français (that is the way to speak French)." The stranger was certainly somebody, or so many furtive glances would not have been cast at him. I might, by inquiry, easily have ascertained who he was, but I found a kind of pleasure in prolonging my curiosity. The Emperor Nicholas of Russia was daily expected. He was supposed to be the handsomest man in the world. But he was six feet two, taller than this person. The Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin had arrived the previous afternoon; but, it seemed to me, no German could speak French with just that modulation. The Prince de Joinville was expected. Perhaps it was he.
"Will you kindly give yourself the trouble to send the box to M. Delille, Friedrich strasse 30?"
Ah ha! Le voilà! There was my man. Strange I had not thought of him.
I had a season ticket at the French theatre for the purpose of learning French, and I had been as much entertained as instructed (I mean instructed in the language). Every one knows a Frenchman can infuse airy elegance into a button, bestow a marketable value upon a straw, breathe esprit into a feather, and make ten dishes out of a nettle-top. So the poet can transform any incident into an attractive vaudeville. The tender situation dramatique, the humorous coup de théâtre, the jeu d'esprit sparkling up into music, the elevated sentiment, the merciless exposure of vice and folly, the purest and noblest morality, largely mixed with an ostentatious ridicule of every sacred truth, and an absolute disregard of every principle of decency and duty, give strange glimpses into French social life.
As a school for the French student, however, the theatre is a useful institution. For French has got to be learned somehow or other. A dancing master of my acquaintance used always to commence his course by a short address to his class in which he remarked: "Mesdemoiselles! La chose la plus importante du monde c'est la danse!" (the most important thing in the world is dancing.) Perhaps he was right. In that case I must add that the next most important thing in the world is the French language; at least to a foreigner on the continent of Europe. Without that you do not know anything. You are a straw man. You are a deaf and dumb creature. Ladies gaze at you with compassion, gentlemen with contempt, children with wonder, while waiters quiz you, cheat you, and make the imaginary mill behind your back.
Impressed with the inconvenience of this position, I had long ago commenced a siege of the French language. I studied it a fond. I looked into every y and en. I had attended the French theatre as a school, and profited by the performances. The company was excellent, particularly one young girl, Mlle. Fontaine. Her playing was unsurpassable. She knew always when to go on and when to stop. Perfect simplicity, a taste never at fault, delightful humor, a high tragic power; to these add a lovely face, a beautiful form, grace in every movement, a voice just as sweet as a voice could be, and you have a dim idea of Mlle. Fontaine. In her private life, moreover, she enjoyed the reputation of being without reproach. The whole world repeated of her the old saying: "Elle n'a qu'un défaut, celui de mettre de l'esprit partout!" (She has but one fault: she touches nothing without importing to it a charm of her own.)
When M. Delille came out, Mlle. Fontaine and he generally played together, amid thundering plaudits of overflowing audiences. Delille himself was a perfect artist. The French theatre was in its glory.
One morning, hard at work in my office, I was surprised by a card, "Monsieur Delille, du Théâtre Français." The gentleman wished to have the honor of a few moments' conversation.
The theatre and all the various personages of its imaginary world were so completely apart from my real life, that I could scarcely have been more surprised at receiving a card from Louis XIV., or hearing that the General Napoleon Bonaparte was waiting at the door, and desired the honor of my acquaintance.