In his seventy-eighth year, at the time when he received the news of the success of his last play, L’Affaire des Poisons, Sardou, who had been convalescing from an illness of pulmonary congestion, became suddenly worse and died in Paris on November 8, 1908. His funeral was held on November 11 in the Church of St. François de Sales. The obsequies were national in character. Like all those who had received the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor, Sardou was given a military burial. Previous to the removal of the body from the house to the church, eulogies were delivered before Sardou’s intimate friends and members of the Academy. Those present were Frenchmen distinguished in art, literature, science and politics. Thousands of persons representing every class of Parisian life—for Sardou’s name was known alike in mansion and tenement—stood with lifted hats as the funeral procession passed on its way to Marley, and thousands followed the hearse to the family burial place. From all parts of the world telegrams of condolence were received by M. Sardou’s family. From Cairo Madame Sarah Bernhardt, whose fame resulted from her interpretations of the characters in Sardou’s plays, cabled: “France loses one of its glories, Paris a friend, all the unhappy a protector, and we artists our beloved master, Victorien Sardou.”
II
Among those who discuss the drama there is a tendency to depreciate Sardou’s work. Such an attitude is probably only natural during a time when homage is so universally directed to such realists and dissectors of modern social life as Ibsen, Pinero, Brieux, Hervieu and Shaw. The principal complaint brought against Sardou is the charge that he made mechanical plays in which all material was subordinated to the plot, that his characters are like marionettes made vocal and that he “manufactured” theatrical pieces to portray the talents of certain histrionic “stars.” If these qualities alone are the basis for condemnation of Sardou’s plays, something more must be offered to convince the public that he is not fit to stand among the modern master dramatists. If they are requirements necessary for a playwright to attain a world-wide reputation, to become a member of the celebrated Academy and of numerous other societies in which high scholarship is demanded for admission, one questions the consistency of the statements of the critics; if plays containing these qualities, presented by actors and actresses of international fame in the world’s principal centers of culture—where a play by Sardou was an important public event—realized for their creator during several decades the goal of every playrwright: success, fame and the accompanying financial reward, then one not only questions the consistency of the critics but also their qualifications for posing as “authorities” on the drama.
It is popular to depreciate Sardou, but much of this depreciation would become admiration were it not for the fact that for those who do not read French only a few of his plays are available in translations. Students of the drama, therefore, are compelled to accept the opinions of others instead of basing their knowledge upon a first-hand acquaintance with Sardou’s work. His high position among the dramatists of France alone would demand an explanation of the reasons why his productions appealed to cultured and cosmopolitan audiences, which included scholars, diplomats, royalty—persons not likely to waste time in flocking to see the work of a mediocrist.
No one in the world ever understood better the technique of playwriting than did Sardou. Both he and Ibsen recognized Scribe’s genius for technique: Sardou acquired Scribe’s craftsmanship, developed it and improved upon it; Ibsen used of it what he could in his clinical excursions into the whys and wherefores of Life—the one reflected the French spirit, the heritage of the epic and romantic past, the social life preceding the fall of the Second Empire and the national life since then; the other, grimly Teutonic in temperament, mined to the roots of human life and ironically upheld the mirror to all classes revealing the secrets of their souls. Into lighted streets, into halls and mansions, into courts and capitols, into palaces and into throne-rooms, Sardou passed studying minutely the movements of his personages; Ibsen, with the attentive scrutiny of a hospital aide seeking the wounded, turned his flash-light—a flash-light with microscopic power—into dark corners, into alleys, into humanity’s every haunt. The great Frenchman and the great Norwegian both studied medicine and gave it up before becoming playwrights. Their selections of working materials were truly characteristic of their national temperaments. Both have had an inestimable influence upon the drama of all nations.
Sardou was structural in his craftsmanship in the sense that he created his plays with the skill of an artisan working with steel and stone, and eliminated everything unnecessary in making his production symmetrical. He was a realist in the sense that he never hesitated to portray what he thought would convey his idea complete to the audience. If a thrill of horror would effectively drive home a point, he used it. In his satirical plays he was merciless in handling the vanities and vagaries of society. While Sardou aspired to become a playwright, he studied Shakespeare and regarded verse as the best medium for presenting lofty themes, but after he studied the stage he changed this view and wrote his principal plays in prose, though the material is often admirably adapted for metrical expression. Sardou’s historical dramas are lofty in theme. They are true to their times, and appeal universally to those interested in life outcropping from mighty changes of conditions in the past. His deep knowledge of history, art and archæology is evident in historical dramas in which costumes, decorations, interior details, furniture and other properties used for the setting compositely reproduce the atmosphere of the period depicted by the action. None knew better than Sardou the life about him. He studied personalities in their intricate relationship in society. He never preached. He never sacrificed plot in order to prove a thesis, thereby escaping the prolixity of which some of the “realists” are often guilty. His plays have morals, but they are skillfully hidden behind his technique, which supplements a natural gift of analysis and an intuitive power for recognizing and selecting subject matter pleasing to cosmopolitan Parisian audiences. His comedies portraying contemporary life were, with a few exceptions, enthusiastically received, and were the stepping stones by which actors and actresses rose to world-wide celebrity. For impressive compositions Verdi and Offenbach found inspiration in Sardou’s creations.
The result of Sardou’s long years of hard work was a prolific production of comedies and dramas. The principal ones and the dates of their production were as follows:
La Taverne des Étudiants, 1854; Les Premières Armes de Figaro, 1859; Les Pattes de Mouche, 1860; Nos Intimes, 1861; La Papillonne, 1862; Les Vieux Garçons, 1865; Patrie!, 1869; Fernande, 1870; Andréa, 1873; La Haine, 1874; Daniel Rochat, 1880; Divorçons, 1880; Theodora, 1884; La Tosca, 1887; Cléopâtre, 1890; Thermidor, 1891; Madame Sans-Gene, 1893; Gismonda, 1894; Paméla, 1898; Robespierre, 1899; Dante, 1903; La Sorcière, 1903; L’Affaire des Poisons, 1907.
III
Sardou’s marvelous theatrical technique is nowhere better exemplified than in La Sorcière, one of his last tragedies. Bigotry, love, superstition and persecution are the predominating elements of the action, which is laid in Granada immediately after the conquest by the Spaniards. What better material for romance? The principal figures are a Castilian officer and a cultured Moorish woman, who, ignoring an edict of the Inquisition inflicting the death penalty upon alliances between Christians and unconverted Moslems, have the strength to assert their rights as normal human beings—and to suffer the inevitable consequences. It is the depiction of a struggle for individual freedom in which the common truths of the human heart beat hopelessly for expression against the bigotry of the masses and the bigotry of those who not only know better but who also use it as an agency in strengthening their own power. The result is the old struggle between knowledge and ignorance, between love for one’s religion and country and for the satisfaction of the soul’s desire regardless of traditions discarded and of idols knocked down in the accomplishment of that desire. In this process of emerging, of transition, in this sudden seizure by unknown forces upon new combinations of circumstances, in this bidding farewell to the old while hailing with allegiance that of which we are unaware until the clarifying moment arrives, lies the essence of tragedy. “It is possible,” said the late William James, “that Being may be a great sea of consciousness, some of the fag ends of which are human minds.” It is in the interplay, in the constant weaving and raveling of that cosmic pattern which we call life that the dramatist finds the few wisps of experience suitable for interpreting his own understanding of a certain phase of existence. “The representation of a great misfortune alone is essential to tragedy,” declared Schopenhauer. “Characters of ordinary morality, under circumstances such as often occur, are so situated with regard to each other that their position compels them, knowingly and with their eyes open, to do each other the greatest injury without any of them being entirely in the wrong.” Under this definition, La Socrière qualifies exactly as a tragedy.