In their treatment of his dread Satanic Majesty the French display delightful grace and delicacy.
Indeed, Le Diable Boiteux of Le Sage is very much of a gentleman; Mephistopheles in Gounod’s opera is a far more interesting personality than his pupil Faust; whilst in “Orphée aux Enfers” Offenbach certainly contrived to enlist our sympathies on behalf of Pluto.
Many a French shop is dedicated to the Evil One, but in every case the inscription is respectful, as, for instance, Au Bon Diable. It is almost a term of endearment, the expression “un mauvais petit Diable,” whilst no proper English word can convey the sense of rollicking fun contained in Diablerie.
As in literature, so in art, the Devil of the French, may be grotesque, bizarre, comic, terrible, yet in all he is a superior being, in short a Gentleman in Black, never the hideous, repulsive individual we are accustomed to see portrayed (with two horns and a tail) in English comic art.
Nothing could more eloquently convey the French conception of the character than Sir Henry Irving’s inimitable representation of Mephistopheles at the Lyceum a short time since. Does not this book-plate recall his appearance in the part?
