Part 6 (2/2)

Vivent, vivent les Bourbons!

A number of beautiful women elegantly attired paraded up and down the public promenades, which are exceedingly well and tastefully laid out. This city is built with great regularity, and the streets are broad, neat, and clean. It is by far the handsomest city I have ever seen either in France or Belgium. The _Hotel de Ville_ and the theatre both are on the _Grande Place_ and are well worth seeing. Lille is renowned for its fortifications; I much wished to visit the citadel but I was not permitted. At dinner at the table d'hote at the _Hotel du Commerce_, I remarked a French officer declaiming violently against Napoleon; but I heard afterwards that he was the son of an Emigrant; the rest of the company did not seem to approve his discourse and shewed visible impatience at it.

Lille may be easily recognised at its approach from the immense quant.i.ty of wind-mills that are in the vicinity of this city, some of which are used for grinding of wheat and others for the expression of oil. A great deal of flax from whence the oil is made, grows in the country.

I left Lille on the morning of the 24th inst., with the courier for Amiens.

From Amiens I took the diligence to Beauvais and on arrival there I put up under the hospitable roof of my friend Major G., of the 18th Light Dragoons, lately made Lt.-Colonel for his gallantry at Waterloo.[42] I did not want for amus.e.m.e.nt here, for the next day a _fete champetre_ was given just outside the walls of the town, and I admired the grace and tournure of the female peasantry and their good dancing. How much more creditable are these innocent and agreeable _fetes_ to the fairs and meetings in England, which are generally signalized in drunkenness! The next afternoon presented a novel sight to the inhabitants of Beauvais, it being a grand cricket match played between the officers of the 10th and 18th Dragoons. It was won by the latter, mainly owing to the superior play of Colonel G. of the 18th, who never touched a bat since he was at Burney's school. The Officers afterwards dined _al fresco_ and many toasts accompanied by the huzzas were given, to the astonishment of the bystanders, who seemed to consider us as little better than barbarians. One of the officers wis.h.i.+ng to pay a compliment to the inhabitants of Beauvais proposed the health of Louis XVIII, but they seemed to take it coldly and not at all to be flattered by the compliment.

After five days very agreeable residence at Beauvais, I put myself in the diligence to return to Paris. During the journey an ardent political altercation arose between a young lady, who appeared to be a warm partisan of Napoleon, on the one side, and a Garde du Corps on the other. The lady was seconded by a young gentleman, of whom it was difficult to say, whether he sustained her argument from a dislike to the present order of things, or from a wish to ingratiate himself in her favour. The argument of the Garde du Corps was espoused, but soberly, by one of the pa.s.sengers who was a mathematical professor at one of the Lyceums; he was not by any means an Ultra, but he supported the Bourbons, with moderate, gentlemanly and I therefore believe sincere attachment. This professor seemed a well informed sort of man; he told me that he was acquainted with Sir James M., formerly recorder at Bombay. On our arrival at the _Bureau des Messageries_, the whole company forgot their disputes and parted good friends; and the young man who was partisan of the young lady in the political dispute took care to inform himself of her abode in Paris.

Remarks on the various dramatic performances which I witnessed at Paris, with opinions on the French theatre in general.

In my ideas of dramatic works I am neither rigidly cla.s.sic nor romantic, and I think both styles may be good if properly managed and the interest well kept up; in a word I am pleased with all genres _hors le genre ennuyux_,[43] and tho' a great admirer of Shakespeare and Schiller, I am equally so of Voltaire, Racine and Corneille; I take equal delight in the pathos of the sentimental dramas of Kotzebue as in the admirable satire and _vis comica_ of the unrivalled Moliere, so that on my arrival at Paris I was not violently prejudiced either for or against the French stage, but rather pre-occupied, to use a gentler term, in its favour; and I have not been at all disappointed, for I think I can p.r.o.nounce it with safety the first, perhaps the only stage in Europe.

I now mean to speak not of Operas, nor of Operas-comiques, nor of melodrames, nor of vaudevilles; all these have their respective merits; but when I speak of the French stage, I confine myself to the regular theatre of tragedy and comedy, of their cla.s.sical pieces; in a word, to the dramatic performances usually given at the _Theatre Francais_.

The first piece I saw performed was _Manlius_;[44] but I was too far off from the stage to judge of the acting, and could do little more than catch the sounds. The parterre and the whole house was full. I was in the fourth tier of boxes, yet I could distinguish at intervals the finest and most prominent traits, of Talma's acting, particularly in that scene where he upbraids his friend with having betrayed him. This he gave with uncommon energy and effect. The plot of this piece is very similar to that of _Venice preserved_.[45]

The next piece I saw represented was the _Avare_ of Moliere, which to me was one of the greatest dramatic treats I had ever witnessed. Every part was well supported. The next was _Athalie_ of Racine. Here too I was highly gratified. Mlle Georges performed the part of Athalie and gave me the perfect ideal of the haughty Queen. Her narration of the dream was given with the happiest effect, and in her attempt to conceal her uneasiness and her affected contempt of the dream in these lines:

Un songe, me devrois--je inquieter d'un songe?

she seemed in reality to labour under all the anxiety and fatigue arising from it. That fine scene between Joad and Joas was well given, and the little girl who did the part of Joas performed with a good deal of spirit.

The actor who played Joad recited in a most impressive manner the advice to the young prince terminating in these lines:

Vous souvenant, mon fils, que cache sous ce lin, Comme eux vous futes pauvre et comme eux orphelin.

The interrogating scene between Athalie and Joad was given spiritedly, but the rather abrupt and uncourtierlike reply to the Queen's remark, ”Ils sont deux puissans dieux”--”Lui seul est dieu, Madame, et le votre n'est rien”-- excited a laugh and I fancy never fails to do so, every time the piece is performed.

Racine has several pa.s.sages in his tragedies which perhaps have rather too much _naivete_ for the dignity of the cothurnus; for instance in the answer of Agamemnon to Achille in the tragedy of _Iphigenie_:

Puisque vous le savez, pourquoi le demander?

A poet of to-day would be quizzed for a line like the above, but who dare venture to point out any defect in an author of whom Voltaire has said and with justice too, that the only criticism to be made of him (Racine) would be to write under every page: ”Admirable, harmonieux, sublime!”

The costume and the decorations at the _Theatre francais_ are so strictly cla.s.sical and appropriate in every respect, that it is to me a source of high delight to witness the representation of the favourite pieces of Racine, Corneille, Moliere and Voltaire, which I have so often read with so much pleasure in the closet and no small quant.i.ty of which I have by heart.

The next piece I saw was the _Cinnna_ of Corneille; and here it was that I beheld Talma for the second time. I was of course highly pleased, tho' I was rather far off to hear very distinctly; this was, however, no very great loss, as I was perfectly well acquainted with the tragedy. Talma's gestures, his pause's, his natural mode of acting gave a great relief to the long declamation with which this tragedy abounds. When this tragedy was given it was during the time that poor Labedoyere's trial was going on, and the allusions to Augustus' clemency were eagerly seized and applauded. It was hoped that Louis XVIII would imitate Augustus. Vain hope!

I have seen _Phedre_; the part of Phedre by that admirable actress Mlle d.u.c.h.esnois, who performs the part so naturally and with so much pa.s.sion that we entirely forget the extreme plainness of the person. She acts with far more feeling and pathos than Mlle Georges. I shall never be able to forget Mlle d.u.c.h.esnois in _Phedre_. She gave me a full idea of the impa.s.sioned Queen, nor were it possible to depict with greater fidelity the ”Venus toute entiere a sa proie attachee,” as in that beautiful speech of Phedre to Oenone wherein she reveals her pa.s.sion for Hippolyte and pourtrays the terrible struggle between duty and female delicacy on the one hand, and on the other a flame that could not be overcome, convinced as it were of the complete inutility of further efforts of resistance and invoking death as her only refuge. I was moved even to tears. I am so great an admirer of the whole of this speech beginning ”Mon mal vient de plus lorn” etc., and ending ”Un reste de chaleur tout pret a s'exhaler,” that I think in it Racine has not only united the excellencies of Euripides, Sappho and Theocritus in describing the pa.s.sion of love, but has far surpa.s.sed them all; that speech is certainly the masterpiece of French versification and scarcely inferior to it is that beautiful and ingenuous confession of love by Hippolyte to Aricie. What an admirable _pendant_ to the love of Phedre! In Hippolyte you behold the innocence, simplicity and ingenuousness of a first and pure attachment: in Phedre the _embras.e.m.e.nt_, the ungovernable delirium of a criminal pa.s.sion.

I have seen Mlle d.u.c.h.esnois again in the _Merope_ of Voltaire and admire her more and more. This is an admirable play. The dialogue is so spirited; the agitation of maternal tenderness, and the occasional bursts of feelings impossible to be restrained, render this play one of the most interesting perhaps on the French stage, and Mlle d.u.c.h.esnois gave with the happiest effect her part in those two scenes; the first wherein she supposes Egisthe to be the person who has killed her son; in the other where having discovered the reality of his person, she is obliged to dissemble the discovery, but on Egisthe being about to be sacrificed she exclaims ”Barbare, c'est mon fils!” The part of Egisthe was given by a young actor who made his appearance at this theatre for the first tune, and he executed his part with complete success (Firmin, I think, was his name). Lafond did the part of Polyphonte and did it well. At this tragedy many allusions were caught hold of by the audience according as they were Bourbonically or Napoleonically inclined; at that part of Polyphonte's speech wherein he says:

Le premier qui fut Roi fut un soldat heureux.

<script>