Chapter V: Front Matter (5)

In these dull days of latter winter few of our readers will quarrel with us for transporting them to the gayest capital in Europe, the city of pleasure, the Capua of the age. In London, at least, there is just now little to regret; it wears its dreariest, dirtiest, and most disconsolate garb. The streets are slippery with black mud and blacker ice, a yellow halo surrounds the gas lamps, even the Bude lights look quenched and uncomfortable; cabmen, peevish at the paucity of fares, curse with triple intensity the wood pavement and the luckless garrons that slide and stumble over it; the blue and benumbed fingers of Italian grinders can scarcely turn the organ handles; tattered children and half-starved women, pale, shivering, and tearful, pester the pedestrian with offers of knitted wares, and of winter nosegays, meagre and miserable as themselves. The popular cheerfulness and merry-making of Christmas time are over, and have not yet been succeeded by the bustle and gaiety of the fashionable world. London is abandoned to its million of nobodies; the few thousands whose presence gives it life are still on the list of absentees.

Mark the contrast. But a minute ago we were in London--dull, empty London--and behold! we are in Paris--gay, crowded, lively Paris--now at the height of its season, and in full swing of carnival dissipation. By a process of which, since the days of Scheherazade, we alone possess the secret, we have flown over Kent, skimmed the Channel, sped across the uninteresting plains of Picardy, and are seated at dinner--where? In the spacious saloon of the _Hotel des Princes_, at the succulent table of the _Café de Paris_, or in the gaudy and dazzling apartments of the _Maison Dorée_? No matter. Or let us choose the last, the _Maison Dédorée_ as it has been called, its external gilding having ill resisted the assaults of winter's snows and summer's parching heat. But although, as Mr. Moore of Ireland has informed us, all that's bright must fade, it follows not that the substantial deteriorates with the superficial. And the cookery of the _Maison Dorée_ has improved as its gilding has rubbed off, until even the _Café de Paris_ and the far-famed _Trois Frères_ must veil their inferior charms before the manifold perfections of this Apician sanctuary. Here, then, we establish ourselves, in this snug embrasure, whence we have a full view of the throng of diners, whilst plate glass and a muslin curtain alone intervene between us and the broad asphalt of the Boulevard. A morocco book, a sheet of vellum, and a pencil, are before us. We write a dozen lines, and hand them to our companion; he reads, nods approval, and transfers the precious document to the smug and expectant waiter. The sharp eye of that Ganymede of the Gilt House had at once detected our Britannic origin, conspicuous in our sober garb and shaven chins; and doubtless he anticipated one of those uncouth bills of fare, infamous by their gastronomical solecisms, which Englishmen are apt to perpetrate, for he smiles with an air of agreeable disappointment as he glances at our judicious _menu_. No cause for wonder, most dapper of _garçons_! 'Tis not the first time, by many, that we have tabled our Napoleons on your damask napery. Schooled by indigestion, like Dido by misfortune, we have learned to order our dinner, even at Paris; and are no more to be led astray in the labyrinth of your interminable _carte_, than you, versed in the currency of Albion, are to be deluded by a Brummagem sovereign, or a note of the Bank of Elegance. So, _presto_, to work! our blessing and a double _pourboire_ your promised reward. And, verily, he earns them well. The _potage à la bisque_ is irreproachable; the truffles, those black diamonds of the epicure, are the pick of Perigueux; the chambertin is of the old green seal, the sparkling _ai frappé_ to a turn, and, whilst we tranquilly degustate and deliberately imbibe, the influence of that greatest achievement of human genius, a good dinner, percolates through our system, telling upon our moral as upon our physical man. We feel ineffably benevolent: doubtless we look so; for yonder old gentleman with the white hair, red ribbon, and ditto face, dining, _tête-à-tête_ with himself, and who is now at his eleventh dish--a tempting but inexplicable compound, which Ortila himself would be puzzled to analyse--contemplates us, in the intervals of his forkings-in, with a benign and admiring look. Our trusty friend and _vis-à-vis_ turns his head, and we behold ourselves reflected in the opposite mirror. 'Tis as we thought: our physiognomy is philanthropical in the extreme. Quite the "mild, angelic air," that Byron talks of, when describing a gentleman in very different circumstances.

But we have no time to dwell upon our personal fascinations, or to speculate upon the cause of their increase within the last half hour; no eyes have we save for that Lucullian _salmi_ steaming before us; and, like ourselves, all around us are absorbed in absorbing. Though every table is full, there is little noise in the crowded apartment. Men go to the _Maison Dorée_ to eat, not to chatter. Without, too, there is a lull, after the bustle and racket of the afternoon. The day has been splendid--crisp, bright, and invigorating, and all the dandies and beauties of Paris have been abroad, driving in the Champs Elysées, galloping through the leafless avenues of the Bois de Boulogne, basking in the winter sun upon the cheerful Boulevards. The morning's amusements are over; those of the night have not yet begun. It is the moment of the interlude, the hour of dine, and Paris is busied in the most important of its diurnal acts. But, alas for the briefness of earthly joys, and the limited capacity of mortal stomachs! Sad is it that not even in this Golden Mansion can a feeble child of clay dine twice. We long for the appetite of a Dando, for the digestion of the bird of the desert, to recommence our meal, from the soup to the _fondu_. Vain are our aspirations. The soft languor of repletion steals over us, as we dally with our final olive, and _buzz_ the Lafitte. Waiter! the coffee. At the word, the essence of Mocha, black as Erebus, and fragrant as a breeze, from the Spice Islands, smokes beneath our nostrils, the sparkling glasses receive the golden _liqueur_, and--WE HAVE DINED.

Good dinners and amusing theatricals enter largely into the pleasurable anticipations of English visiters to Paris. The fame of French cooks and actors is universal; all are eager to taste their productions, and witness their performances. Let a tyrannical royal ordinance or sumptuary law close the playhouses and cut down the bills of fare from a volume to a page, and a sensible diminution will ensue in the influx of foreigners into France. However great the desire to visit Versailles, stare at the Vendôme column, and ramble round the Palais Royal, those attractions, if put into the scale, will frequently be found less weighty than a vaudeville, a dinner at Véry's, and a breakfast at the renowned Rocher. In their expectations, both gastronomical and theatrical, strangers in Paris are often disappointed. We refer, of course, to tyros; not to the regular birds of passage who consider a month or two in the French metropolis as essential a part of their annual recreations as Ascot or the moors. These, of course, are well versed in Parisian mysteries, both of the drama and the dining room. But to the novice, a guide is necessary, whether through the crowded columns of a _restaurateur's_ complicated _carte_, or amidst the fair promises held out by the two dozen playbills posted each morning at eleven o'clock upon the walls and pillars of Paris. For want of it, many a Johnny Newcome finds himself, after much bewilderment and painful deliberation, masticating an unsatisfactory dinner or witnessing a stupid play. We have often wondered that, amongst the multitude of Paris guide books, not one was to be found containing minute instructions to the stranger as to the dinners he should order, and the plays and actors he should see; giving, in short, a series of bills of fare, culinary and histrionic. This deficit has at last been supplied, at least as regards things theatrical. A book has been published which should find a place in the portmanteau of every Englishman starting for the French capital. Partly a compilation from French works, and partly the result of the author's own experience, it contains the general history of each of the Paris theatres, biographical and critical sketches of the actors, lists and anecdotes of the principal musicians and authors who compose and write for the stage, and, finally, an enumeration of the best performers at each theatre, and of the pieces in which they are seen to the greatest advantage. We need say no more to demonstrate the utility of the work to those going abroad. And by those remaining at home, its lively pages will be found a mine of amusing anecdote and curious information. Abounding in racy and pungent details, sometimes valuable from their connexion with historical characters, and as illustrations of the manners and morals of the times, the history of the French stage might almost be indefinitely prolonged; and, amidst the multitude of materials, it required some ingenuity to select, as Mr. Hervey has done, those most suitable to the taste of the day, and to pack them into a single volume.

Less than a century ago Paris contained but four theatres. These were, the French Comedy, the Royal Academy of Music or Grand Opera, the Italian Comedy, where vaudevilles and comic operas were performed, and the Theatre de la Foire. The two last named were the ancestors of the present Opera Comique. "Up to 1593," says Mr. Hervey, "the actors of the Théatres de la Foire St. Germain and St. Laurent consisted of dogs, cats, monkeys, and even rats, some of the latter animals being so admirably trained as to dance a grand ballet on a table, whilst one in particular, a white rat from Lapland, executed a saraband with surpassing grace." In 1716 the manager of one of these theatres obtained leave to give musical performances. This was the origin of the Opera Comique, which, forty years later, was amalgamated with the Italian comedy at the Hôtel de Bourgogne, whence, in 1783, the united companies transferred themselves to the Salle Favart. To the four theatres above enumerated, a few others were added during the reigns of Louis XV. and his successor, but they were of little note, and the increase in the number of theatrical establishments was unimportant until the revolution. Then license was universal, and no special one was required to open theatres. In 1791 a prodigious number were established, and, for some years afterwards, nearly fifty, large and small, existed in Paris. In the time of the empire twenty-eight of these remained, until Napoleon issued an edict reducing them to ten. At the present day the French capital contains twenty-two theatres, including the new Théatre Montpensier, the privilege for which was conceded to Alexandre Dumas at the request of the prince whose name it bears. Besides these there are a number of petty playhouses outside the barriers, at Batignolles, Belleville, and similar places, and Mr. Hervey informs us that a license has just been granted for a third French opera-house. Play-loving as the population of Paris undoubtedly is, it must be admitted that ample provision is made for its gratification.

The natural classification of the more important of the Parisian theatres, about fifteen in number, is under four heads: opera--tragedy, comedy, and drama--vaudeville--melodrama. The first division includes the French opera, the Italians, the Opera Comique; the second, the Français and the Odeon; at the Porte St. Martin and Ambigu Comique, melodrama is the staple commodity, varied, however, with performances of a lighter kind; whilst vaudevilles, broad farces, and short comedies constitute the chief stock in trade of the remainder. At many of the theatres an entire change in the style of the performances is of no unfrequent occurrence. We have known the Gaité in the dolefuls, and the Porte St. Martin abandoning its scaffolds, trap-doors, and other melodramatic horrors, for fun, farce, and ballet. As a regular thing, dancing is only to be seen at the Grand Opera. The license of each theatre specifies the nature of the performances allowed it, but this is a matter difficult exactly to define, and the rule is easy of evasion. A better check, perhaps, is the jealousy with which one theatre beholds another infringing on its attributes. Thus, some years ago, at the Français, where the performances should be confined to tragedy, high comedy, and drama, a play interspersed with songs was brought out. The Vaudeville viewed this as a usurpation of its privileges, and forthwith produced a piece called "La Tragédie au Vaudeville," saying that if the Français sang vaudevilles, the Vaudeville was justified in singing tragedy.

There are in Paris four Theatres Royal, subsidised by the French government to the extent of about twelve hundred thousand francs, or nearly £50,000. Rather more than the half of this sum goes to the Grand Opera, nor is it too much, if we consider the enormous salaries paid to the singers and dancers at that theatre, and the low prices of admission; the best place in the house costing less than a pit-ticket at the Italian opera in London. The Opera Comique receives nearly ten thousand pounds a-year, the Français eight, the Odeon four. The other theatres do as well as they can without subsidies, and, as in this country, are losing or profitable concerns according to the skill of the manager, to the merits of the actors and plays produced; and, oftener still, according to the caprice and good pleasure of the public. Their prices of admission are generally higher in proportion than those of the larger theatres. It must be admitted that their performances are often more amusing.

Although one or two attempts were made at earlier periods, the permanent establishment of the opera in France cannot be traced further back than the reign of Louis XIV., when Cardinal Mazarine had the happy idea of introducing it, in hopes of amusing that most unamuseable of monarchs. The novelty found great favour, both with sovereign and courtiers. Performances took place in the king's private apartments; the Marquis of Sourdeac, a man of immense wealth and considerable mechanical skill, constructed a theatre in his Norman castle, and brought out the "Toison d'Or," with words by Corneille. At last an opera company was regularly installed in a building in the Rue Vaugirard, and here, upon one occasion, when the King was present, the Prince of Condé, and other great nobles, danced upon the stage amongst the actors. "The first opera in which female dancers were introduced was the Triumph of Love, played at St. Germains before Louis XIV. On the occasion of this brilliant _fête_, several ladies of the court were amongst the performers, and it was resolved that they should in future be replaced by professional _danseuses_, the female characters in the ballet having previously been sustained by men." Lully, the celebrated composer, was manager of the opera house, where he amassed a very large fortune. He made himself greatly dreaded by his orchestra, whom he used to belabour over the head with his fiddle. In this manner he is said to have broken scores of violins, and one unlucky clarionet-player, in particular, who was never either in time or tune, cost him a vast number of instruments. They shivered like glass upon the obdurate noddle of the faulty Orpheus, and Lully swore he had never met with so vile a musician, or so hard a head. After a time it was discovered that the offender wore a leaden lining to his periwig. Louis XIV. never ceased to take a most paternal interest in his opera company. He went so far as to regulate and write out with his own hand, the salaries allowed to the performers. Those were not days when a singer was better paid than the general of an army, or a minister of state; when each note of a tenor's voice was worth a corresponding one, and of no small figure, issued from the Bank of France. The salary of a first rate tenor or barytone, was then less than is now given to a chorister or walking gentleman. Sixty pounds were the highest yearly sum granted by Louis XIV. to the best opera singer. The first female dancer received thirty-six pounds! We are quite sure, that the waiting maid of an Elssler or a Taglioni, would turn up her nose at such a pittance. Louis XIV. was gathered to his fathers, and soon after his death matters improved a little. Still the pay was poor enough. But what of that? Those were the palmy days of the heroes and heroines of the foot lamps. For the disciples of Thespis, Paris was a paradise. True, when dead they were refused Christian burial, but they cared little about that, sinners that they were, for, whilst living, courted, flattered, and cherished, they amassed, or more often spent, princely fortunes. During the dissolute half century preceding the revolution, they were at the summit of their prosperity. High born dames, even princesses of blood royal, culled their favourites from amongst the knights of the buskin; actresses, dancers, mere figurantes, saw the wealthiest and proudest languishing at their feet, and contending for their smiles. That was the time when Vestris, the God of Dance, as he called himself, said publicly, and with the most perfect conviction, that there were only three great men in Europe, the King of Prussia, M. de Voltaire, and himself! "There are roses as well as thorns in my profession," said he to a friend who expatiated on the happiness of being a public favourite. "I assure you, sometimes I think I would rather be a mere captain of cavalry than what I am." "Old chronicles," says Albert Cler, in a spirited sketch of the French opera, "tell us of the extraordinary luxury, in carriages, liveries, furniture, and jewels, displayed by the goddesses of the opera. The Prince d'Henin passed a contract with Sophie Arnould, by a clause of which he engaged to supply her with a new equipage every month. A nymph who flourished in the time of the Directory, the celebrated Clotilde, enjoyed, thanks to the munificence of an Italian prince and of a Spanish admiral, an income of two millions, and managed, notwithstanding this royal revenue, to get into debt to the tune of some five hundred thousand francs yearly." Earlier than this, by fifty years, the Camargo and the Sallé were all the rage. The latter, Mr. Hervey tells us, paid a visit to London, and there, at one of her performances, gold and bank-notes were showered upon the stage, to the amount of £800. Her annual salary at the French opera was less than £150. The suppers of Mademoiselle Guimard, another of the fairy-footed sisterhood, whose bust, bequeathed by her to the opera, is still the principal ornament of the dancers' green-room, were renowned throughout Europe. They occurred thrice in the week; the first was attended by the most distinguished courtiers and nobles, the second by artists and by men of letters and learning, the third, which deserved the name of an orgie, by the prettiest women she could collect.

Few of the amateurs, who, armed with double-barrelled telescopes, contemplate from box or stall the agile bounds and graceful evolutions of the houris of the ballet, have any conception of the amount of labour and torture gone through, before even an approach to perfection in the Terpsichorean art is accomplished. Alberic Second, the very witty author of a very amusing book (albeit in thorough French taste) "Les Petits Mysteres de l'Opera," to whose pages Mr. Hervey confesses himself largely indebted, gives many curious details on this subject. An immense amount of courage, patience, resignation, and toil, is necessary, to become even a middling dancer. The poor children--for dancing, above all things, must be learnt young--commence with the stocks, heel to heel and knees outwards. Half an hour of this, and another species of martyrdom begins. One foot is placed upon a bar which is grasped by the contrary hand. This is called _se casser_, to break one's self. After this agreeable process come the thousand and one steps, essential to an opera dancer. "Such," says an imaginary _danseuse_ from whom M. Second professes to receive his information, "are the agreeable elements of the art of dancing. And do not suppose that these rude fatigues are of short duration. They are perpetual, and on that condition only does a dancer retain her activity and suppleness. A week's idleness must be atoned for by two months' double labour. The opera-dancer realises the fable of Sisyphus and his rock. She resembles the horse, who pays with his repose, his flesh and his liberty, the rapid victories of the racecourse. I have seen Mademoiselle Taglioni, after receiving a two hours' lesson from her father, fall helpless upon the floor, and allow herself to be undressed, spunged, and again attired, without the least consciousness of what passed. The agility and wonderful bounds with which she, that same evening, delighted the public, were at this price." Besides these terrible fatigues, dancers often run serious personal risks. So, at least, says the author of the "Petits Mysteres" who, as a journalist and frequenter of the _coulisses_, is excellent authority. He cannot resist a joke, but it is easy to sift the facts from their admixture of burlesque exaggerations. "By dint of incurring simulated dangers, the dancer accustoms herself to real peril, as a soldier in war time becomes habituated to murder and pillage. She suspends herself from wires, sits upon pasteboard clouds, disappears through trap doors, comes in by the chimney and goes out by the window. In the first act of the Peri there is so dangerous a leap, that I consider Carlotta Grisi risks her life every time she takes it. Let M. Petipa be once awkward, or even absent, and Carlotta will break her head upon the boards. I know an Englishman who attends every performance of this ballet. He is persuaded it will be fatal to Carlotta, and would not for the world miss the catastrophe. It is the same man who, for three years, followed Carter and Van Amburgh, always hoping that a day would come when the animals would sup with their masters, and upon their masters." Considering the preparatory ordeal and frequent perils of their profession, dancers fairly earn the money and honours paid to them. Crowned heads have condescended to treat them as equals. At Stuttgart, we are told, Taglioni, towards the commencement of her career, won the affections of the Queen of Wurtemberg, who shed tears at her departure. At Munich, the King of Bavaria introduced her to his Queen, with the words, "_Mademoiselle, je vous présente ma femme_." "At Vienna she was once called before the curtain twenty-two times in one evening, and was drawn to her hotel, in her own carriage, by forty young men of the first Austrian families." Every one remembers the enthusiasm excited by Fanny Elssler amongst the matter-of-fact Yankees. During her last engagement at the French opera her salary was eighty thousand francs a-year. Taglioni and Elssler personify the two styles into which the present school of dancing is divided, the _ballonné_ and the _tacqueté_. The former is lightness combined with grace, when the dancer seems to float upon air. The _tacqueté_ is vivacity and rapidity; little quick steps on the points of the feet.

The principal singers now engaged at the French opera are Duprez and Gardoni, tenors; Baroilhet, the barytone; Brémond and Serda, who have succeeded, if they could not replace, the celebrated bass, Levasseur; and Madame Stoltz. Duprez is well known in England as a singer of great energy and admirable method, but whose powers have grievously suffered from over-exertion. Halevy and Meyerbeer should be indicted as the assassins of his once beautiful voice. The five tremendous acts of Robert le Diable, and the stunning accompaniments of the author of the Juive, are destructive to any tenor. In Paris, Duprez is still a favourite, especially in Guillaume Tell, considered his crack part. Gardoni, who has now been two years on the opera boards, has replaced him in some of his characters. This young singer has a very fresh and melodious voice, great taste and feeling, but lacks power, and, it is to be feared, will share the fate of most of his predecessors, and soon succumb to the thundering orchestra of the Academie Royale.[14] As Mr. Hervey very justly observes, there is no medium for a tenor at the French opera. He must either scream, in order to be heard above the music, or be wholly inaudible. Baroilhet is unquestionably the best of the present opera company. His acting and singing are alike good, and his voice, of a less delicate texture than a tenor, has preserved its vigour and freshness. It would be unfair to estimate his abilities by his performance, some two years ago, at the London Opera-house. He was then in ill health, and was heard to great disadvantage. He has been fifteen years on the stage, but only the last five of them have been passed at Paris. He previously sang at various Italian theatres, chiefly at the San Carlo. Donizetti's Roberto Devereux and Belisario were composed expressly for him. Madame Rosine Stoltz, whose portrait, a very fair resemblance, is prefixed to Mr. Hervey's sketch of her operatic career, is a highly dramatic singer and an excellent actress, but her voice, of unusually extensive range, has a metallic sharpness which to our ear is not pleasant. She possesses a good stage face and figure, and her performance is most effective both in tragic and comic parts, although she is usually preferred in the former. We believe she has never sung in England, perhaps on account of the short respite allowed her by the French opera--but one month in the year. She is said to be a god-daughter of the Duchess of Berri. Various notices of her life have been published, but there is little agreement between them. It is generally understood that her early years were unprosperous, and that she endured much suffering and misfortune. If so, she learned mercy from persecution, for she is now noted for her benevolence, and for the generous assistance she affords to the needy amongst her comrades.

[14] Doubtless Gardoni was apprehensive of some such deterioration
of his voice, for he has just left the _Académie_, after much
opposition on the part of the manager, and has made a highly
successful appearance at the Italian opera.

Notwithstanding the efforts and merits of these three or four singers, the French opera is in a declining state. A numerous company is not always synonymous with a strong one. The present manager, M. Léon Pillet, has been accused of disgusting, dismissing, or omitting to engage, some of the best singers of the day. Poultier, the Rouen cooper, a tenor of the Duprez school, is cited as an instance. He was engaged by a former management at a thousand francs a-month for eight months in the year, but, although much liked by the public, he was kept in the background, owing partly, it was reported, to his own unassuming character, and partly to certain green-room intrigues and jealousies. During his vacation he starred in the provinces, earning four or five times the amount of his Paris salary. In his native town he was carried in triumph, and treated to an interminable serenade, whose performers, according to the deposition of our friend, M. Second, relieved each other every two hours, and kept up their harmony for a whole day and night. Roger, of the Opera Comique, is another singer whose proper place is at the Grand Opera, he is young, handsome, a good actor, and since Duprez' decline, the best French tenor extant.

At Paris theatres, and especially at the opera, the next best thing to having a good company is to have a good _claque_. Such, at least, is the theory of the actors and managers of the present day. The more rusty the tenor, the more wrinkled the prima donna, the greater the need of an army of iron-fisted, brazen-visaged hirelings to get artificial applause, and inoculate the public with their factitious enthusiasm. In this latter respect they now rarely succeed. The device is stale, the trick detected, and yet the practice is maintained. It takes in no one. Even raw provincials and newly imported foreigners are up to the stratagem before they have been a week in Paris. The press inveighs against it; audiences, far from being duped, often remain silent when most pleased, lest they should be confounded with the _claqueurs_. But no manager dares to strike the first blow at this troublesome abuse. There is a regular contractor for the opera _claque_, receiving so much a month from each actor. Duprez has always refused to submit to this extortion, but he is, or was, the only exception to the rule. The contractor has an organised regiment under his orders, mustering sixty strong. Every opera night, before the opening of the doors, they assemble at a low coffee-house in the Rue Favart, to receive his orders for the evening, and thence follow him to the theatre, into which they are admitted through a private entrance. Some of them are paid for applauding--these are the chiefs, the veteran clappers; others applaud for a free admission, whilst a third class are content to do their best for the good of the house, and to pay half-price for their tickets. The distribution of these _bravo_-battalions, these knights of the chandelier, as they are called, from the post of their main body being in the centre of the pit, requires much skill and judgment. The captain of the _claque_ is an important personage, respected by his subordinates, courted by the actors, and skilled in the strategy of his profession, which yields him a handsome income. A tap of his cane on the ground is the signal for applause. The _chatouilleur_, or tickler, a variety of the genus _claqueur_, is in vogue chiefly at the smaller theatres. His duty is to laugh, and, if possible, infect his neighbours with his mirth. He stands upon a lower grade of the social step-ladder than the _claqueur_; very unjustly, as it appears to us, his scope for the display of original genius being decidedly larger. How delicately may he modulate his merriment, and control his cachinnations, establishing a regular gamut, rising from the titter to the guffaw, abating from the irrepressible horse-laugh to the gratified snigger. He may himself be a better actor than those for whose benefit his mirth is feigned. And when, with aching ribs and a moist pocket-handkerchief--for an accomplished _chatouilleur_ must be able to laugh till he cries--he retires from the scene enlivened by his efforts, it is with the proud consciousness that his contagious chuckle, as much as author's _jokes_ or _buffo's_ comicalities, has contributed to set the theatre in a roar.

Boileau said that

Le Français, né malin, créa le vaudeville,

and Boileau was right, although, when he wrote the line, he referred to a particular style of satirical song, and not to the farces and comedies, intermixed with couplets and snatches of music, that have since borne the name. The Frenchman not only created the vaudeville, but he reserved to himself its monopoly. Essentially French, it is inimitable on any other stage. Of the many attempts made, none have succeeded in catching its peculiar spirit. The Englishman has his farce, the German his _possenspiel_, the Spaniard his _saynete_, but the vaudeville will only flourish on French soil, or, at least, in the hands of French authors and actors. Piron and Lesage were its fathers; their mantle has been handed down through succeeding generations, worn alternately by a Piis and a Barré, by a Panard, whom Marmontel called the La Fontaine of the vaudeville, and a Desaugiers, until, in the present day, it rests upon the shoulders of Scribe, and his legion of rivals and imitators. With the exception of the four theatres royal and the Italian opera, there is not a playhouse in Paris where it is not performed, although in each it takes a different tone, to which the actors, as they change from one stage to another, insensibly adapt themselves. Thus the four principal vaudeville theatres have each their own style. There is an immeasurable distance between the vaudeville _grivois_, the laxity, not to say the positive indecency, of the Palais Royal--supported by the _double-entendres_ of Ravel and Madame Lemenil, and the buffoonery of Alcide Tousez--and the neat and correct little comedies of the Gymnase, so admirably enacted by a Ferville, a Numa, and a Rose Chéri. To the latter theatre, the Parisian matrons conduct their daughters; the former they themselves hesitate to visit. The substance is not invariably more praiseworthy at the one than at the other, but the form is always more decorous.

In discussing the vaudeville, the theatre bearing that name naturally claims the precedence, to which the excellence of its present company also gives it some title. Until the year 1792, there existed at Paris no theatre specially appropriated to this style of performance, which was given at the Comédie Italienne. It attracted crowds; and Sedaine, the composer, vexed to see it preferred to his comic operas, wrote a couplet against it, exhibiting more spleen than poetical merit. The attack, however, together with the refusal of a small pension which he had claimed from the Italian Comedy, to whose treasury he had brought millions of francs, irritated Piis, the vaudevilliste then in vogue, the Scribe of his day. In conjunction with Barré and a few actors, he opened a theatre in the Rue de Chartres. The enterprise was crowned with complete success, and an able company was soon assembled. Mr. Hervey has collected some droll anecdotes of the actors who flourished under this management, although they lose part of their point by translation. Chapelle, a short stout man, "with eyes that were continually opening and shutting, thick black eyebrows, a mouth always half open, and a pair of legs resembling in shape the feet of an elephant," was remarkable for his credulity, and his comrades took particular delight in mystifying him. "Seveste, who had just returned from fulfilling an engagement at Rouen, told the unfortunate dupe that, during his stay in that town, he had succeeded in taming a carp so perfectly, that it followed him about like a dog; adding, that he was much grieved at having lost it. 'How did that happen?' said Chapelle, greatly interested. 'Why,' replied Seveste, 'one evening I took it to my dressing-room at the theatre; as I was going home after the performance, a terrible storm came on, and my poor carp, in trying to leap a gutter, fell in and was drowned.'--'How very unlucky!' cried Chapelle; 'I always thought a carp could swim like a fish!' As he grew older, however, Chapelle, weary of being continually hoaxed, made up his mind to believe nothing, and carried his scepticism so far as to reply to a friend's anxious inquiries after his health, 'Ask somebody else that question, my fine fellow; you can't take _me_ in now.'" Another of the company, Carpentier, drank away his memory, forgot his old parts, and could learn no new ones. For a long time he did not act, but at last ventured to appear in a procession, as a barber who had nothing to say. The audience immediately recognised their old favourite, and applauded him for several minutes after he left the stage. Once more behind the scenes, he exclaimed, "Ils m'ont reconnu! Ils m'ont reconnu!" and burst into tears. "In one of his parts, Carpentier had some couplets to sing, of which the first ran as follows:--

Un acteur,
Qui veut de l'auteur
Suivre en tout
L'esprit et le gout,
Doit d'abord,
De savoir son rôle,
Faire au moins le petit effort.

Here he stopped short, and repeated the verse thrice, but could get no further; from that day a settled gloom came over him, and he soon committed suicide, by throwing himself out of a window."

The great guns of the present Vaudeville company are, Arnal, Bardou, and Felix; Madame Albert, lately become Madame Bignon, by a second marriage; and Madame Doche, sister of Miss Plunkett the dancer. It would be difficult to find five better actors in their respective styles. All of them, with the exception, we believe, of Bardou, have performed in London, and been received with enthusiasm as great as the chilly audience of the St. James's theatre ever thinks fit to manifest. Arnal, although he has formidable rivals at his own and other theatres, is unquestionably the first French comic actor of the day. Farce is his _forte_--we ask his pardon, and would say, comedy, vaudeville, _charge_, extravaganza, or any other names by which it may be fitting to designate the very farcical pieces in which he usually performs. There are no farces now upon the French stage; the term is voted low. Moliere, it is true, wrote and acted farces, until he glided into a higher style; but the more genteel authors and actors of the present time, will not so far condescend. They willingly produce and perform the most pitiful buffooneries, but then it is under a better sounding title. They look to the letter and not the spirit; admit the thing, but repudiate the name. _Les farceurs!_ Arnal, of course, follows the fashion of the times, although too sensible a fellow, we suspect, to care a rush about the matter. For the last twenty years he has been the chief prop of the Vaudeville, where he performs for ten months out of the twelve, at a salary of fourteen hundred pounds, with _feux_ or allowances of twenty francs for every act he plays in. His first appearance was in the tragic character of Mithridates, in which he convulsed his audience with laughter. Convinced by this experiment that tragedy was not his line, he turned his attention to low comedy, and enacted Jocrisse. "In this part," he says, in a very clever poetical epistle to his friend Bouffé, "I was allowed to be tolerably amusing, but all declared that I was much more comic in Mithridates." Off the stage there is nothing particularly funny in Arnal's appearance. The expression of his face, which is much marked with the small pox, is quiet and serious, and it is by this same seriousness that he makes his hearers laugh. When acting, nothing will extort a smile from him. Gifted with extreme self-possession and a ready wit, he now and then embroiders his parts, always with the happiest effect. The excessive dryness with which he gives out his jokes often constitutes their chief merit. To enumerate his crack characters, those which he may be said to have created, would be too long a task. The _Poltron_ is one of his best, and the story goes that his valet, who had been a soldier, having seen him perform it, gave him warning the next morning, declaring that he could not possibly remain in the service of so inveterate a coward. Some of his happiest efforts have been made in little one-act drolleries for two performers; such as _Passé Minuit_, where he is ably seconded by Bardou. "In private life, Arnal is grave, taciturn, and fond of study; he is said to be a regular frequenter of the _Bibliothèque Royale_, and has published, besides his epistle to Bouffé, a collection of prettily versified tales and fables." The letter to Bouffé is an amusing, and witty sketch of his own career.

Happening, some seven years ago, to enter the ill-lighted, low-roofed theatre of a third-rate French town, full five hundred miles from Paris, we were struck and fascinated by the exquisite grace and feeling with which an actress of the name of Albert enacted the part of a blind girl in Frederick Soulié's painful drama of _Diane de Chivry_. The place of so accomplished a performer was evidently on the Parisian boards, and we learned with surprise, that she was on no mere starring expedition, but had quitted the capital, where she was idolised, with a view to a long stay in the provinces. It is rare that French actors who can obtain a decent engagement at Paris, consent to waste their sweetness upon provincials for more than a few nights in the year; and at the time, the motives of Madame Albert's self-banishment, which has only recently terminated, was to us a mystery. The explanation we subsequently heard of it, agrees with that given by Mr. Hervey, and is most creditable to the delicacy and good feeling of the actress who thus abandoned the scene of her early triumphs to submit herself to the caprices and clumsy criticisms of country audiences. She wished "to spare her husband--then engaged in a subordinate capacity at the Théatre Français, and who was seldom spoken of otherwise than as 'the husband of Madame Albert of the Vaudeville'--the mortification of seeing his own efforts completely cast into the shade by those of his wife; and it was with the view of associating him in future with her own successes that she determined on refusing every proposal made to her by the different managers of the capital, a task she persevered in until his death enabled her to return without compunction to Paris, where her place had long been empty." Eclipsed and unnoticed in the metropolis, M. Albert, whose real name was Rodrigues, passed muster very well in country towns. Of his widow, who has been seen and appreciated in London, we need say nothing. All who have witnessed her delightful performances, will admit her to be one of the most charming actresses of the day. Voice, face, figure, every thing is in her favour; her popularity is as well established as her talent is versatile and perfect. "She is cited," says Mr. Hervey, "as one of those who, not more by their brilliant natural gifts than by their private worth, have become ornaments of the profession to which they belong, and who, whilst they can fairly claim universal admiration, are not less entitled to universal respect." There are few actresses upon any stage deserving of so high an encomium; there is perhaps not one of whom, as of Madame Albert, it may with truth be said, that in the several styles of comedy, vaudeville, and domestic drama, she is unsurpassed, if not unequalled.

Another pretty woman and excellent actress is the Belgian beauty, Madame Doche, to whose personal attractions the lithograph prefixed to her memoir does less than justice. She made her first appearance at the early age of fourteen, at the Versailles theatre, under the assumed name of Fleury. She is now only three-and-twenty, but her reputation as a first-rate actress has been established for the last half-dozen years. Of her it was said, when she acted at Brussels, her native city, that she was pretty enough to succeed without talent, and had enough talent to dispense with beauty. She was one of the first who, with Felix for her partner, danced the Polka upon the Paris stage, in the piece called _La Polka en Province_. The dance was then new, and her graceful performance of it excited enthusiastic applause.

From the _Vaudeville_ to its neighbour and rival, the _Variétés_, the distance is short; to choose between them, in respect of excellence of acting, and amount of amusement, is very difficult. The founder of the _Variétés_ was the witty Mlle. Montansier, who, previously to the first French Revolution, had the management of the Versailles theatre, as well as of several of the principal provincial ones. In 1790, she opened the house now known as the _Palais Royal_, for mixed performances, tragedy, comedy, and opera. There Mlle. Mars commenced her career. The prosperity of the company dates from 1798, when the celebrated Brunet joined it. Brunet was the theatrical joker of his time; and all stray puns and witticisms, good, bad, and indifferent, were attributed to him as regularly as, at a later day, and in another country, they have, been fathered upon a Jekyll and a Rogers. Many of his jests had a political character, and got him into serious scrapes. This, Mr. Hervey appears to doubt, but without reason. In various memoirs and reminiscences of the early years of the present century, we find recorded Brunet's stinging sarcasms, and the consequent reprimands and even imprisonments be incurred. "_L'Empereur n'aime que Joséphine et la chasse!_" was his exclamation when Napoleon's project of divorce was first bruited about; and for days Paris rang with the sharp jest. "_Le char l'attend!_" he cried, pausing before the triumphal arch on which stood the horses and empty chariot, the spoils of Venice. But the license of Monsieur Brunet's tongue was little relished by the imperial _charlatan,--le claqueur de la Grand Armée_, as he has been called. Corsican though he was, he had a thorough French susceptibility of ridicule, and well knew that, with his laughter-loving subjects, wit carried weight. The actor was summoned before the prefect of police, severely lectured, and admonished to abjure puns, if he would escape punishment. "_Mais que voulez vous que je fasse_," replied poor Brunet, in piteous accents, "_c'est mon metier de faire des calembourgs, j'y gagne ma vie. Voulez vous donc que je scie du bois?_"[15] And, in spite of menaces and imprisonment, he continued each evening to delight the audience of the Variétés with his highly spiced allusions to the men and events of the day. His reputation was European. "Brazier, in his _Histoire des Petits Théatres de Paris_, relates that, being one day, (March 31st, 1814) on guard at the Barrière St. Martin, a young Calmuck officer, who could hardly speak a word of French, asked him the way to Brunet's theatre." Aided by Tiercelin, the popular actor of the time, who took his types from the lowest classes of the people, Brunet ensured the prosperity of the theatre, until at last the actors at the Français, who had long complained of the preference accorded by the public to Brunet's performances, addressed repeated remonstrances to government, and declared that the taste of the nation was becoming corrupted, and the classic drama of Corneille and Racine despised. They were supported by Fouché and a section of the press, until at last Napoleon, who meddled greatly in theatrical matters, and one of whose sayings was, that if Corneille had lived in his time, he would have made him a prince, thought proper to interfere. Brunet's company was ejected from the Palais Royal, and took refuge, whilst the present theatre on the Boulevard Montmartre was building, in the Théatre de la Cité, on the left bank of the Seine. On the last night at the Palais Royal, (31st December, 1806,) the actors and actresses took their leave of the public on that side the river, in a series of appropriate couplets. One of these ran as follows:--

Vous que l'tambour et tambourin
A la gloir', au plaisir entraine;
Quand vous avez passé le Rhin,
Craindrez vous de passer la Seine?

[15] Innumerable jests and lampoons circulated at the time of
Napoleon's separation from Josephine, and second marriage. Conscious
of the unworthy part he acted, the Emperor was greatly galled by
them. "The keenest and most remarkable of these," says a German
author who was in Paris at the time, "is unquestionably a _Chanson
Poissarde_, of which hundreds of copies have been distributed, and
which thousands have got by heart. Its author, in spite of
Napoleon's fury, and of the zealous exertions of the police, has not
been discovered. Several hundred persons have been arrested for
copying or repeating it; but its original source remains unknown."
It consists of nine verses, in the vulgar and mutilated French of
the Paris _halles_. A couple of them will give a notion of the sly
wit of the whole. They refer, of course, to the Emperor and to his
future bride, Maria Louisa of Austria:--

Pour ell' il s'est fait l'aut' jour
Pemd'en bel habit d'dimanche,
Et des diamants tout autour,
Près d' sa figur comm' ça tranche!
La p'tite luronne, j'en somm' sûr,
Aim' mieux l'présent que l'futur.

Ah! comm' ell' va s'amuser,
C' te princess' qui nous arrive!
Nous, j'allons boir' et danser,
N's enrouer á crier: Vive!
Ell, s' ra l'idol' d' la nation,
J' l'ons lu dans l'proclamation.

This reference to the martial prowess of the "_grande nation_," of course nearly brought down the house, but it did not carry the audience over the water, at least for some time. At last a new and successful play proved a magnet of irresistible attraction, and produced a receipt of twelve thousand pounds in three months.

In June, 1807, the new Théatre des Variétés opened. Its situation, on a crowded central boulevard, is excellent, and its vogue, with a few brief intervals, has been constant. A large proportion of the best French comic actors of the present century have acted there during the thirty-nine years that have elapsed since its inauguration. Amongst these are reckoned Bosquier Gavaudan, the best couplet singer of his day,--remarkable for his distinct articulation, and who, "from constantly personating officers of rank, grew so accustomed to wear a red ribbon in his coat, that, even when sitting in his dressing-gown at home, he did not feel comfortable without one in his button-hole;" Mme. Barroyer, a flame of Charles X. before the Revolution, the protectress and one of the teachers of Mlle. Mars; Potier, pronounced by Talma to be the most consummate actor he ever knew; Vernet, the admirable comedian; and Odry, who has been called the French Liston, but who is preferred, by most of those whom a thorough knowledge of both languages renders capable of equally appreciating French and English farce, even to the great Paul Pry himself. Then came Frederick Lemaitre, the hero of the melodrama, and sometimes of the more elevated class of drama. He was ill supported at the Variétés, and consequently proved less attractive than he has since been at the Porte St. Martin. He is remarkable for the care with which he studies every detail of his characters, even to the most trifling points of dress and accessories. His love of consistency betrays him, at times, into what may be termed the pedantry of costume. "When playing Buridan, in the Tour de Nesle, he appeared as prime minister in the fourth act, clad in velvet, but with a plain woollen shirt, whereas the courtiers around him wore fine linen garnished with lace. On his being asked the reason of this apparent inconsistency, he replied, that he did not wear a linen shirt because at the epoch referred to in the piece, they were not in common use; 'Nay, more,' added he, 'a century afterward, Isabel of Bavaria was reproached with extravagance for having too much of linen in her _trousseau_." He was once hissed at Orleans, when performing the part of a starving and destitute man, for taking snuff out of a bit of paper. He had thought it improbable that the needy wretch he represented would carry a snuff-box. Guessing the cause of the public disapprobation, he produced a gold one, which was vehemently applauded.

Jenny Vertpré the miniature Mars, as she has been called, in compliment to her talent, and with reference to her diminutive stature, held more than one engagement at the Variétés. She has been a great rambler, having acted in Germany, Holland, and Belgium, and visited England as manager of a French company. She married Carmouche, a writer of vaudevilles, has left the stage, and teaches young actresses.