Phœbus, declaring his love for Esmeralda, makes use of a pun somewhat above the Byronic average:—
Alonzo Cora loved with all his might,
And Petrarch was forlorn for Laura quite:
You're worth to me, dear maid, a score o' Coras;
Yes, to this bachelor, a batch o' Lauras.
In 1879, at the Gaiety, Byron returned to the topic, and produced the piece which he called "Pretty Esmeralda." At the same theatre, in 1887, one saw the same subject treated in the "Miss Esmeralda" of Messrs. F. Leslie and H. Mills—a piece in which Miss Marion Hood, as the heroine, played prettily to the Frollo of Mr. E. J. Lonnen, and in which the late George Stone laid the foundation of his too brief success.
Boucicault's version of "Les Frères Corses" was produced in London by Charles Kean in 1852, and was quickly followed by a travestie. This was furnished by Gilbert Abbott a'Beckett and Mark Lemon at the Haymarket (April, 1852), under the title of "O Gemini! or the Brothers of Co(u)rse." Those who did not witness the production can nevertheless conceive how droll Buckstone must have been as the Brothers, and how well he was supported by Bland, also in a dual rôle—that of Meynard and Montgiron (or Montegridiron, as he was called)—and by Mrs. L. S. Buckingham as Chateau Renaud. The burlesque was not wholly of the punning sort; it relied chiefly upon its travestie of the incidents in the original play. Fabien was made to give (to the sound of "low music") the following account of the extraordinary sympathy existing between himself and his brother:—
Listen! this hour, five hundred years ago—
It may be more or less a second or so—
In the Dei Franchi family there died,
I think it was upon the female side,
The very greatest of our great-great-grandmothers,
Leaving ('tis often thus) two orphan brothers.
They took an oath, and signed it, as I think,
In blood—a horrid substitute for ink.
They swore if either was in any mess,
If either's landlord put in a distress,
Or of their goods came to effect a clearance,
They'd to each other enter an appearance.
Maynard. But you have never seen a ghost—
Fabien.That's true;
But I shall see one soon, by all that's blue:
For 't is a fact not easily explained,
The ghost has in the family remained,
We've tried all means—still he has stalked about,
And nobody could ever pay him out.
We let apartments, sir; but deuce a bit
Will the ghost take our notices to quit.
Later, just before Louis' apparition, Fabien says:—
I feel a pain about my ears and nose,
As if the latter had repeated blows.
I'm sure my brother's in a fearful row—
I shouldn't wonder if they're at it now.
I'll write to him. (Writes) "Dear brother, how's your eye?
Yours ever, Fabien. Send me a reply."
I'm sure he's subjected to fierce attacks,
For as I seal my note I feel the whacks!
H. J. Byron, who travestied nearly everything, of course did not let the "Corsican Brothers" escape him, and his "Corsican 'Bothers'" duly figured at the Globe in 1869. Messrs. Burnand and H. P. Stephens followed, at the Gaiety in 1880, with "The Corsican Brothers & Co.," and in 1881 (at the Royalty) Mr. G. R. Sims made his début as a writer of burlesque with "The Of Course-Akin-Brothers, Babes in the Wood." In this he began the action with Fabien and Louis as the Babes and Chateau Renaud as the Wicked Uncle, introducing a certain Rosie Posie, who is maid to Mme. dei Franchi and sweetheart of Alfred Meynard. At the end of the first scene Father Time came on, and summed up the situation in a song:—