Chapter IV

In August, 1886, a venture was made at Orange the like of which rarely has been made in France in modern times: a new French play demanding positive and strong recognition, the magnificent "Empereur d'Arles," by the Avignon poet Alexis Mouzin, was given its first presentation in the Orange theatre--in the provinces--instead of being first produced on the Paris stage. In direct defiance of the modern French canons of centralization, the great audience was brought together not to ratify opinions formulated by Parisian critics but to express its own opinion at first hand. Silvain, of the Comedie Francaise, was the _Maximien_; Madame Caristie-Martel, of the Odeon (a grand-daughter of Caristie the architect who saved the theatre from ruin), was the _Minervine_. The support was strong. The stately tragedy--vividly contrasting the tyranny and darkness of pagan Rome with the spirit of light and freedom arising in Christian Gaul--was in perfect keeping with its stately frame. The play went on in a whirl of enthusiastic approval to a triumphant end. There was no question of ratifying the opinion of Parisian critics: those Southerners formed and delivered an opinion of their own. In other words, the defiance of conventions was an artistic victory, a decentralizing success.

Then it was that the Felibres--the poets of Languedoc and of Provence who for forty years have been combating the Parisian attempt to focus in Paris the whole of France--perceived how the Orange theatre could be made to advance their anti-centralizing principles, and so took a hand in its fortunes: with the avowed intention of establishing outside of Paris a national theatre wherein should be given in summer dramatic festivals of the highest class. With the Felibres to attempt is to accomplish; and to their efforts was due the presentation at Orange in August 1888, of the "Oedipus" of Sophocles and Rossini's "Moses"--with Mounet-Sully and Boudouresque in the respective title-roles. The members of the two Felibrien societies of Paris, the Felibrige and the Cigaliers, were present in force at the performances--so timed as to be a part of their customary biennial summer festival in the Midi--and their command of the Paris newspapers (whereof the high places largely are filled by these brave writers of the South) enabled them to make all Paris and all France ring with their account of the beauty of the Orange spectacle.

Out of their enthusiasm came practical results. A national interest in the theatre was aroused; and so strong an interest that the deputy from the Department of the Drome--M. Maurice Faure, a man of letters who finds time to be also a statesman--brought to a successful issue his long-sustained effort to obtain from the government a grant of funds to be used not merely for the preservation of the building, but toward its restoration. Thanks to his strong presentation of the case, forty thousand francs was appropriated for the beginning of the work: a sum that has sufficed to pay for the rebuilding of twenty of the tiers. And thus, at last, a substantial beginning was made in the recreation of the majestic edifice; and more than a beginning was made in the realization of the Felibrien project for establishing a national theatre in provincial France.

The festival of last August--again promoted by the Felibres, and mainly organized by M. Jules Claretie, the Director of the Comedie Francaise--was held, therefore, in celebration of specific achievement; and in two other important particulars it differed from all other modern festivals at Orange. First, it was directly under government patronage--M. Leygues, minister of public instruction and the fine arts, bringing two other cabinet ministers with him, having come down from Paris expressly to preside over it; and, secondly, its brilliantly successful organization and accomplishment under such high auspices have gone far toward creating a positive national demand for a realization of the Felibrien dream: that the theatre, again perfect, shall become the home of the highest dramatic art, and a place of periodic pilgrimage, biennial or even annual, for the whole of the art-loving world.

I am disposed to regard myself as more than usually fortunate in that I was able to be a part of that most brilliant festival, and I am deeply grateful to my Felibrien brethren to whom I owe my share in it. With an excellent thoughtfulness they sent me early word of what was forward among them, and so enabled me to get from New York to Paris in time to go down with the Felibres and the Cigaliers by train to Lyons, and thence--as blithe a boat-load of poets as ever went light-heartedly afloat--on southward to Avignon on the galloping current of the Rhone.