IX FRENCH LIFE AND THE FRENCH STAGE

1. M. Paul Bourget, the Reactionary Playwright, and M. Pataud, who put out the Lights of Paris

In a boulevard café, over his favourite, strange mixture of strawberry syrup and champagne, a well-known Paris journalist recently called my attention to the profusion of playwrights of high, indisputable ability now writing for the French stage.

“There are not enough theatres to accommodate them all,” he said. “The papers inform us that X—— has just finished a new chef-d’œuvre, but often four, six, even ten months will elapse ere the masterpiece can be produced. Why? Because there is no room for X——. He must wait his turn; and in his leisure—O admirable fertility—he writes yet another play.”

“Nevertheless you have three important répétitions générales this week,” I remarked. “Capus to-morrow, Donnay at the Français on Wednesday, and de Flers and Caillavet, the Inexhaustible, on Friday.”

“Charming Capus, delightful Donnay, amazing de Flers and Caillavet,” exclaimed my companion. “Listen; we are free for an hour. Let us run over the names of our leading playwrights—a formidable list. Garçon, another glass”—and away went the waiter in quest of more syrup and champagne.

Of course, no mere “running over” of the great name of Rostand. Both of us soon found ourselves reciting passages from Cyrano, Chantecler, La Princesse Lointaine—my friend eloquently and emotionally, myself alas! with the natural embarrassment and self-consciousness of the foreigner. “Au trot, au galop,” said my companion, glancing at the clock. And rapidly we proceeded to review the “formidable list” of France’s leading dramatists:—Paul Hervieu, the cultured, polished author of Le Dédale and La Course au Flambeau. Violent, destructive Henri Bernstein—La Griffe, La Rafale, Samson. Henri Lavedan, brilliantly audacious in Le Nouveau Jeu, delightfully ironical in the Marquis de Priola, but serious, profound (a veritable tour de force) in Le Duel. Then Capus, the tolerant, the sympathetic: Nôtre Jeunesse, Les Passagères, Monsieur Piégois. Émile Fabre, wonderful manipulator of stage “crowds,” Les Ventres Dorés. Lively, brilliant de Flers and Caillavet, Le Roi, L’Ane de Buridan, L’Amour Veille. Worldly, cynical Abel Hermant, Les Transatlantiques, Monsieur de Courpière. Jules Lemaître, tender in La Massière, tragical in Bertrad. Brieux: the amusing Hannetons, sombre, harrowing Maternité. Georges Porto-Riche, L’Amoureuse, perhaps the finest modern comedy in the repertoire of the French National Theatre. Sound admirable Donnay, Amants, Le Retour de Jérusalem. Anatole France, the incomparable Crainquebille. MM. Arquillière and Bernède, with their masterly pictures of military life, La Grande Famille, Sous l’Epaulette. Romantic, vigorous Jean Richepin, Le Chemineau. Sardonic, anarchical Octave Mirbeau, Les Affaires sont les Affaires, Le Foyer. Humane, chivalrous Pierre Wolff, L’Age d’Aimer and Le Ruisseau. Georges Ancey, earnest investigator into the hidden crafty practices of the Catholic Church, Ces Messieurs. Gentle, elegant Romain Coolus, L’Enfant chérie and Une Femme Passa. Grim, lurid André de Lorde of the Grand Guignol. Ardent, passionate Henri Bataille, Un Scandale, La Vierge Folle, La Femme Nue.

“Formidable, formidable!” exclaimed our Paris journalist, wiping his brow.

“There remains M. Paul Bourget,” I said.

“M. Paul Bourget is ponderous, prejudiced, pedantic,” objected my companion. “I have just seen his latest photograph, which shows him seated at his writing-desk in a frock coat. Novels of life in the Faubourg St Germain, such as M. Bourget has produced, may possibly be written in a frock coat—not plays.”

“No doubt the coat was only put on for the visit of the photographer,” I charitably suggested.

“M. Paul Bourget’s plays convey the impression—no, the conviction—that they were written in the conventional, cramped armour of a frock coat,” was the solemn, categorical retort.

Now for M. Bourget, on his side it would be permissible to object that a gentleman who takes thick strawberry syrup in his champagne commits no less of an enormity than the dramatist who writes his plays in a frock coat; and that therefore, he, M. Bourget, considers himself untouched by the allegations directed against him from that hostile and eccentric quarter. Nevertheless, an examination of M. Bourget’s dramatic work—Un Divorce, L’Emigré, La Barricade—compels the comparison that whereas his fellow-playwrights adopt the theatre exclusively as a sphere in which to hold up a vivid, faithful, scrupulously impartial picture of scenes from actual life—la vie vivante—M. Bourget uses the stage, ponderously, as a platform or a pulpit. His views on social questions—the dominant ideas, the passions of the hour—are well known. They are autocratic, severe: in the French sense of the word, “correct.” But it unfortunately happens that l’homme correct possesses none of those indispensable attributes required of the playwright—an open mind, imagination, a sense of humour. A firm clerical and the irreconcilable antagonist of divorce, M. Bourget naturally maintains that in a spiritual emergency, women, as well as men, are more efficaciously helped to right conduct by priestly government than by habits of self-reliance. Then his sympathies have ever rested undisguisedly with the classes he has portrayed in his novels—the languid worldling of the Faubourg St Germain, the haute bourgeoisie, the despotic châtelain.

“M. Bourget is not interested in humble people. The vicissitudes, the amours, the miseries of the lower classes, he deems beneath his notice. He concerns himself only with the emotions of the elegant and the rich,” bitter, sardonic M. Octave Mirbeau makes one of his characters remark. And, truly enough, it has to be affirmed that however hard he may have tried to repress his aristocratic proclivities and prejudices when writing for the stage, the author of Un Divorce and La Barricade has remained, despite his endeavours, l’homme autoritaire, l’homme correct.

“Je ne connais pas des idées généreuses,” he has announced. “Je ne connais que des idées vraies ou fausses, et il ne vaudrait pas la peine d’écrire si ce n’était pas pour énoncer les idées que l’on croit et que l’on sait vraies.” And in the press, in conferences, in prefaces, the “eminent Academician” (as the clerical Gaulois monotonously designates M. Bourget) has furthermore declared that Un Divorce and La Barricade were written in a rigorously impartial spirit. But other critics maintain that the controversies that have raged around M. Bourget’s dramatic efforts (started with no little pretentiousness by the author himself) establish nothing. The plays speak for themselves.

M. Bourget’s observations have persuaded him that the rebellious spirit prevailing amongst the working classes is a menace to his country:

“C’est cette sensation du danger présent que j’aurais voulu donner dans La Barricade sûr, si j’avais pu y réussir, d’avoir servi utilement ma classe, et par conséquent mon pays.”

But according to M. Pataud, the notorious ex-Secretary of the Syndicate of Electricians, M. Bourget carried away with him a totally false impression of the men and places he professes so closely, and also so impartially, to have studied.

A word about M. Pataud. It was shortly after he had ordered the Electricians’ strike that plunged Paris almost into darkness for two hours,[2] and at the zenith of his fame, that the “Roi de la Lumière” attended a performance of La Barricade at the Vaudeville Theatre. It had been reported that he had served M. Bourget as a model for the character of Thubeuf, the professional agitator in the play. This, M. Bourget emphatically denied. “Let me see for myself,” said M. Pataud. And he requested M. Bourget to send him a ticket of admission to the theatre, and humorously offered to return the compliment by placing a seat in the Bourse du Travail at the dramatist’s disposal.

Well, M. Bourget granted the request: but ignored the invitation to the Labour Exchange. And one night “King Pataud” seated himself, amidst le Tout Paris in the most fashionable of the boulevard theatres. He himself, in spite of his pink shirt, red tie, and “bowler” hat, belonged in a sense to le Tout Paris. Was he not “Le Roi de la Lumière”? There were columns about him in the newspapers; he was “impersonated” in every music-hall revue, and his picture post cards sold by the thousand. Then, pressing (and sentimental) requests for his autograph; invitations out to dinner and gifts of cigarettes and cigars; and what a stir, what excited cries of “There goes Pataud,” when the great man swaggered down the boulevards with a fine Havana stuck in a corner of his mouth, and the “bowler” hat tilted rakishly over the right eye!

Nor in the Vaudeville Theatre was his triumph less complete. The interest of the brilliant audience was centred on “Fauteuil No. 159”; not on the stage. There sat the man who had but to give the signal and—out would go the lights! So was every opera-glass levelled at him, and so—at the end of the performance—were all the reporters in Paris eager to obtain “King” Pataud’s impressions of the play. “Not bad,” he was reported to have said. “But M. Bourget’s conception of how strikes are conducted is ridiculous. And his strikers are equally absurd.”

I fancy M. Bourget must have regretted that gift of “Fauteuil No. 159” at the time. But to-day he has his revenge—for it was the free seat in the Vaudeville Theatre that led to “King” Pataud’s downfall! After the agitator’s visit to La Barricade it became the fashion amongst the managers to invite the “Roi de la Lumière” to their theatres. Behold him, actually, at the first performance of Chantecler—and at the Gymnase, the Variétés, the Palais Royal. But if the public rejoiced over “King” Pataud’s presence at the theatre, his colleagues in the labour world were to be heard grumbling. Pataud (and it was true) was “getting his head turned.” Pataud was neglecting the Bourse du Travail for theatres and brilliant restaurants. But the “Roi de la Lumière” paid no heed to these reproofs, nor to complaints and warnings vigorously expressed. And the crisis came, the storm burst, when “King” Pataud and an electrician came to blows on the boulevards, and were marched off to the police station on a charge of breaking the peace. At the station, the “Roi de la Lumière” was searched. “Ah, you do yourself well, you enjoy life, you have a gay time of it,” grinned the police commissaire, after examining the agitator’s pocket-book. It contained bank-notes for a large sum, receipted bills from luxurious restaurants and hotels, and (what of course, particularly delighted the Parisian) the autographed photograph of a certain very blonde and very lively actress. So, indignation and disgust of the Syndicate of Electricians, who had contributed to their secretary’s support. He was called upon to resign. And to-day M. Pataud is an agent for a champagne firm; and the street gamins who once cheered him, now—O supreme insult—apostrophise him as “sale bourgeois.”

Two questions remain for those whose opinion in the Amazing City counts. The first is: Does an Eminent Academician, who, whether he writes in a frock coat or no, professes the conviction that it would not be worth while to produce plays only to reveal the influence and power of men’s emotions, passions and ideals in the shaping of life, unless one had some ulterior clerical, social or political object to serve, stand in the hopeful ways of thought that distinguish the first order of Dramatists? The answer to the question is delivered with an emphatic decision. “Mais—Non”—“Mais,”—a pause and a gesture by an emphatic falling hand—“Non.” Second question: Is a social agitator, who displays himself in a pink shirt and bowler hat in the best seats of fashionable theatres, and who enjoys himself at fashionable restaurants with worldlings—whom he affects to terrorise—a satisfactory Democrat? Same answer, but the “Non” and the confirmatory gesture is more emphatic. “Mais—Non.”

2. M. Alfred Capus. “Nôtre Jeunesse” at the Française

Through a novel published some years ago, under the title of Qui Perd Gagne, I made the acquaintance of a number of Parisians who committed all manner of faults and follies, got into all kinds of dilemmas; and yet compelled a certain sympathy by reason of their good-heartedness and good humour. Never a dull moment in this novel; never, indeed, a moment when there was not some anxious situation to face, some formidable difficulty to overcome. The leading personages were a retired blanchisseuse and her husband. Their names I cannot recall—let them be christened the Belons; and let it be admitted that the atmosphere in which they lived would most assuredly be condemned by the orthodox English critic as “unsavoury.” Laid bare before us in all its tawdriness, all its feverishness, all its swift delirious ups and downs, was the life of the adventurer. A good round dozen of these gentlemen, but the most “enterprising,” the most audacious, the most entertaining amongst them was our friend Belon, who, before becoming the husband of the blanchisseuse, and the master of the money realised by the sale of the blanchisserie, had been a seedy figure in shady newspaper offices and suspicious gambling clubs. In his unmarried days Belon rejoiced when a bet at baccarat, or a successful operation in the line of canvassing for advertisements, yielded him a louis. He was always “hard up”—always (as he described it) in a “crisis”—but adversity neither disheartened him nor turned his temper.

“Times will change,” predicted Belon, when he surveyed his shabby form in the mirror of a café.

“One of these days you will dine magnificently at Paillard’s,” Belon murmured, when he issued forth (his hunger still unsatisfied) from a greasy restaurant.

“Paris,” he soliloquised, as he swaggered along the boulevards, with a shocking little black cigar in the corner of his mouth, and his hat tilted rakishly on one side, “Paris, I know you well—know your weaknesses, your failings, your vanities. And with this precious knowledge to assist me, I shall undoubtedly succeed.”

Certainly, Belon knew Paris thoroughly—or part of it. He was full of anecdote and scandal. He had amazing stories to tell of personages high up in the grande monde, the monde d’affaires, and the demi-monde, and he told them well. He could be gallant—in a way. Also, when it served his purpose, he could feign a seriousness that inspired confidence. And it was his gaiety, his gallantry, his flashy worldliness, that fascinated the blanchisseuse—not a foolish woman by any means, but a practical, amiable soul, still in her thirties, still attractive, still (as the French novelist has it) “appétissante,” who saw in her marriage to Belon not only a means of escape from the steamy, stifling atmosphere of her laundry, but a position of importance, even of luxury and brilliancy. Belon she believed capable of great things; Belon, with his enterprise, his audacity, his knowledge of the world, needed only a small capital, such as the sale of the laundry would provide, to become a master of affaires, and a leader of men. And then—was not Belon fascinating, and ardent, and tender? Thus, half prosaically, half sentimentally, did the blanchisseuse consider Belon’s eloquently worded proposal; and the result of her deliberations was good-bye to the blanchisserie. Affectionately she embraced, liberally she rewarded, Charlotte and Amélie, her assistants. Charlotte and Amélie wept. The future Madame Belon wept. Belon himself was moved to tears by the scene.

“Adieu, mes filles,” sobbed the future Madame Belon.

“Adieu, Madame,” sobbed back Charlotte and Amélie.

“Allons-nous-en, allons-nous-en,” said Belon huskily. And so—in this touching fashion—farewell to the blanchisserie.

What changes, when next we beheld the Belons! Madame dressed attractively; and Monsieur, when he went a-gambling, was an ornament of brilliant, if not exclusive, clubs, and a power in busy, handsome newspaper offices. There were, as Belon prophesied, “magnificent dinners” at Paillard’s. There were constant visits to race-courses, theatres and music-halls, and he played high, and he conceived colossal “business” schemes, and he mixed familiarly with personages high up in the monde d’affaires, and in the demi-monde; one even had des relations with certain personages in the veritable monde. But the reader, as he followed Belon et Cie here, there and everywhere, still found himself in a whirl of adventurers, and the adventurers (despite their display) were still surrounded by difficulties. For Belon was too audacious, too “enterprising.” Wonderfully ingenious were his schemes, but their fate was disastrous.

In a word, Belon, with all his knowledge of Paris, overestimated the credulity of the Parisians, and was brought face to face with that unimaginative, relentless personage, the Commissaire de Police. Happier had been Madame Belon in the steamy days of the blanchisserie; happier had been Belon when he surveyed his shabby form in the café mirror, saying: “Times will change.” In the Belon ménage, not only a constant dread of M. le Commissaire de Police, but bitter, domestic quarrels, even infidelities. But the quarrels were “made up,” the infidelities were pardoned—for, as the troubles thickened, as the situation grew increasingly alarming, so did the Belons become drawn closely together; so did they display many, yes, admirable, yes—even heroic qualities. And when at last the “crisis” arrived, and when the practical, amiable, retired blanchisseuse saved her husband from a disgraceful fate, it was the good heart and good humour that had lived through, and survived, these difficulties which made the point—the very un-English moral—of the story! Thus, after discussing their short, stormy married career in every detail, and with the utmost candour, the Belons agreed that no great harm had been done, since they were better friends than ever! But Paris had become distasteful to them; what a blithe, refreshing change, then, to take up their abode in a quiet villa on the outskirts of the city! A little villa with a porch! A little villa with a garden! A little villa where one would be entirely chez soi. “We will plant cabbages,” cried Madame Belon enthusiastically. “We will be happy,” responded Belon, with emotion. So, another and a final change of scene. Behold—as a last tableau—the Belons installed tranquilly, comfortably and affectionately on the outskirts of Paris in a neat, innocent little villa.

Thus, very briefly, the story of Qui Perd Gagne. The author, I need scarcely say, was M. Alfred Capus; for who but that inimitable dramatist would have discovered good-heartedness and good humour as underlying qualities in such shady people as the Belons; and who but that genius at clearing up awkward, anxious situations could have got the retired blanchisseuse and her husband so generously and unexpectedly out of their moral, as well as their practical, scrapes?

Thus, a good many years ago, M. Capus, then a comparatively unknown journalist, already possessed those qualities which have made him by far the most popular playwright of to-day: a wonderful tolerance, a wonderful bonhomie, and a wonderful and incomparable talent at finding a way of carrying the treasure of faith in human goodness safely through perilous circumstances! As a consequence of these qualities M. Capus has been called an “optimist.” We are always and always hearing of the “optimism” of M. Capus; but if I may be permitted to differ from the vast majority of his admirers, I would suggest that, so far from being an optimist, M. Capus is, from the ideal point of view, a cynic. True, an amiable cynic. He regards mankind with a smile—not of mockery, because there is nothing unkind in it; a smile of raillery at the idealist’s effort to take the mote out of his brother’s eye and to afflict himself too seriously in his endeavour to get rid of the beam out of his own eye. From the point of view of M. Capus, motes and beams, big faults as well as little ones, belong to human nature. It is a pity, but it cannot be helped. “C’est la vie”—and so let us make the best of it.

And it might be worse! Mankind might be cruel, whereas the average man, the average woman, is kind—the hearts of average men and women are in the right place. Thus, let mankind not be judged too harshly. Since we are what we are, it is inevitable we should commit follies. But let us see to it that our hearts are in the right place, and when the moment arrives we shall know how to make atonement for those follies and pass on undisgraced. “Amusez-vous bien, soyez gais; mais soyez bons.” Such might be M. Capus’ message to mankind; and that message, indeed, he has delivered from the stage. For amongst French playwrights who bring home to us vividly, by means of illustration, French ways of feeling and methods of judgment that are not English methods, M. Alfred Capus stands out as the efficient interpreter of the typical personage recognised by general consent in France as “l’homme qui est foncièrement bon.”

Do not, however, let us suppose that we are in any way helped to a correct understanding of this personage by makers of dictionaries, who tell us that “l’homme qui est foncièrement bon” is a “thoroughly good man.” No. If we leave the thoroughly bad man out of account, no two more opposite types of human character can be compared with one another—no two worthy men can be brought together more certain to quarrel, and mutually to dislike and condemn each other than the “thoroughly good man,” approved by the English standard, and “l’homme qui est foncièrement bon,” recognised as such by general consent in France. Nor is this all. Not only have we here two worthy human beings who, by reason of the different directions wherein the special worthiness of each of them displays itself, cannot agree as friends, but for the services of friendship also their qualifications are so different that upon the occasions when one can help us the other will get us into trouble; and in the moods when we should cleave to the one, we should indubitably avoid the other. The cause of this essential difference is not entirely explained when the fact is stated that righteousness constitutes the predominant characteristic of goodness in England, and kindliness the predominant characteristic in France, because the Englishman is kind also—in his own way. In other words, his righteousness does exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, and the Frenchman who is foncièrement bon has virtues also of his own; he has not merely the good nature of the easy-going publican. What these special virtues really are, and how, whilst they do not make “l’homme qui est foncièrement bon” a “thoroughly good man,” in the English sense of the term, they do make him a lovable and sympathetic human character, one can discover by passing an evening in the society of Chartier, Lucien Briant, Hélène and Laure of Nôtre Jeunesse, Monsieur Piégois of the delightful comedy of that name, and Montferrand—the amazing Deputy Montferrand—of L’Attentat.

The bonhomie of M. Capus represents a life philosophy as well as a dramatic method, that might not be applied with equal success to British institutions. But used among French social conditions, it demonstrates how neglect of logic, and force of good feeling, may help an intelligent and a humane people to render faulty systems habitable, and make good nature serve as a substitute for, and even as a corrective of, a rigid, an unheroic, an unchristian worship of “respectability” at the expense of human kindness—that is to say, a form of respectability which does not necessarily mean a very ardent love of virtue.

The characters of Nôtre Jeunesse are essentially French. Take Chartier, for instance, the bonhomme philosophe par excellence. Chartier, at forty years of age, amused by his own past; tranquil as to the future; well satisfied, in the present, to make the best of his life upon a moderate income—the quarter of a once handsome fortune, considerately left him by a former mistress, the then famous “Pervenche,” who, after she had cost him a million and a half, herself broke off their liaison, in the amiable and reasonable fashion related by the Forsaken One himself thus:

Chartier. One evening she said to me: “Mon chéri, I have been looking into things. You have spent upon me three-fourths of your fortune. It is as much as any woman should expect from any gallant man. I am contented; and grateful to you. I have come across a man who is in love with me; and I am going to be married to him.”... She married an employé at the Louvre. It is an excellent ménage.

Take Laure de Roine, Chartier’s sister, the good genius of the play—bonhomie, not only personified, but idealised, invested with all the liveliness and fascination that belong to delightful French womanhood. Laure, some years older than her brother, left a widow, also with a quarter of her handsome wedding portion, remaining through the opportune decease, in the very hour when he seemed bent upon ruining her, after himself, of a husband given to gambling on the Stock Exchange.

Take Madame Hélène Briant, the very charming, vivacious wife of M. Lucien Briant, a lady approaching the perilous age—i.e. nearly thirty—reasonably attached to, but not passionately in love with, an amiable but despondent husband, who has become despondent under the authoritative rule of M. Briant père, a superior man, and master of the “correct,” frock-coated attitude towards life. Briant père is the tyrant of the Briant household. Hear the charming Hélène in active revolt against this insupportable father-in-law, and her husband’s despondency, as a result of his filial docility, exposing her own case, half playfully, half seriously, to Laure de Roine, everyone’s good genius:

Hélène. When I try to react against this general depression; when, in spite of them both, I make it my task to find something cheerful, and worth taking pleasure in, I find myself treated by both Father and Son as a frivolous worldling. Add on to that that I have no children, and live in this deadly provincial atmosphere, full of spiteful gossip, scandal, and vanity. And then try, if you can, to imagine my condition of mind—not forgetting that I am an “honest” woman—and that I am beginning to realise it.

Laure. And when a woman begins to realise that she is “honest”——

Hélène. Yes; the case is grave.

All these personages explain themselves to us, and claim us, by reason of their vivid humanity, as intimate acquaintances, in the play. Yet not one of them has his or her exact counterpart in English society, for the simple reason that their choice qualities, and entertaining defects, not only belong to the French temperament but are the result of manners, conventions, prejudices and sentiments that do not enter into our actual experiences, although we are in a position to judge, or at any rate correctly to appreciate them, when we have studied them in this dramatic picture....

And now for the situation of the play. It is also essentially French; what the orthodox English critic would probably describe as “disagreeable” and “painful.” But with that neither M. Capus nor ourselves are concerned. Our playwright, true to the canons of his art, has aimed at no more than selecting an episode from la vie vivante, and revealing it in its most vital and human moments, and the episode he has chosen is one that has its counterpart, year in, year out, in the gay, irresponsible land peopled by the jeunesse of Paris and the provinces. “Nôtre Jeunesse”—that period, in France particularly, of extravagances and follies; “Nôtre Jeunesse”—those years in the Latin Quarter when irregularity of conduct does not appear reprehensible even to the parental eye.

“C’est de leur âge,” says the bourgeois indulgently, thinking, no doubt, of his own jeunesse, when he meets a band of students rejoicing riotously in their corduroy clothes, long, flowing capes and amazing hats. And such wild figures were Chartier and Lucien Briant some twenty years before we meet them. And it is of those days that they are speaking, when M. Capus introduces them to his audience in the Chartier Villa at Trouville. Chartier, of course, is in excellent spirits. But Lucien is nervous and despondent, and becomes still more troubled when his friend reminds him of his liaison with Léontine Gilard, a charming and light-hearted girl, whose pet name Chartier forgets.

Lucien helps his memory; the name was “Loulou.” Let me quote the passage:

Lucien [with emotion]. Loulou.

Chartier. That’s it! I can see Loulou now: fair hair, blue eyes, very pretty hands. You made a charming couple, the two of you! Well—there you have a memory which shouldn’t be disagreeable, surely.

Lucien. Ah, mon ami, one never knows the end of adventures of that sort!

Chartier. The end? Why didn’t the thing end naturally?

Lucien. What do you mean by ending naturally?

Chartier. When you left the Latin Quarter, you made Loulou a handsome present? She took another lover? or, perhaps, she got married? To-day, if you met each other in the street, you wouldn’t recognise each other? That is what I call a natural ending.

Lucien. Yes; that is the way things happen with you, and with almost everybody. But not with me. I ask myself, What may not still come of it?

Lucien’s forebodings are prophetic. Soon after, Chartier is told by his sister Laure that a young girl (très jolie, très convenable) has called to see him. It turns out that the young girl visitor (très jolie, très convenable) is Lucienne. In other words, she is the visible and terrifying proof of the unlucky Lucien Briant’s conviction that he is not to be permitted, like other men, to bury under the flowers of sentimental memories the irregularities of his Latin Quarter days.

Still, Lucienne had no intention of troubling her father. She was trained to believe that she had no legitimate, no righteous claim on him. Poor Loulou was true to the rule of the game that, for her, had had lifelong seriousness. Even on her death-bed she has kept faithfully to the terms of the unequal bargain. She had told Lucienne that her father had behaved “generously,” that she has no further legitimate claim on him. But she remembers Chartier’s kindness of heart and recommends her daughter to apply to him for advice and recommendations helpful in the way of finding her honest employment. So that this is the reason why Lucienne has sought out Monsieur Chartier. She is now alone in the world—poor “Loulou’s” savings nearly exhausted. Can Monsieur Chartier, perhaps, amongst his friends, find her a situation as secretary or companion, where she may earn an honest livelihood?

Touched to the heart by Loulou’s good remembrance and confidence in him is Chartier, and at once interested in Lucienne’s case.

Chartier. Yes, yes, certainly—you did well, mademoiselle, to come to me! I shall at once make inquiries amongst all my acquaintances. We shall find you a charming post; I give you my promise, to set about it at once.

Although the good Chartier is perfectly sincere in his desire and resolution to find Lucienne a “charming post,” he does not feel that there is any need to distress and upset the nervous and despondent Lucien by telling him about the appearance upon the scene of Loulou’s daughter (and his own) and of her need of assistance. But he has no secrets from Laure, and he at once consults his resourceful sister and confides to her his charming and discreet plan of finding Lucienne a pleasant situation as the companion of a lady who travels a great deal; thus Lucienne will see different countries, have a good salary and be as happy as the day is long—also, she will be kept out of the way of upsetting the nerves of the timorous Lucien.

Laure, however, the “good genius,” takes another view of the case. It is Lucienne’s homelessness, not Lucien’s nerves, that appears to her the chief question. She remembers, too, the “grave” state of mind of Hélène Briant, the result of her ineffectual efforts to react against her depressing environment—most repugnant to a charming woman still young but arrived at an age when she is forced to realise that one is not always going to be young and charming, and who has no children, and no congenial companionship, and who, nevertheless, is “honest”—so far, Laure then forms her own plan. And the first step is to make known the facts of Lucienne’s identity, situation and presence at Trouville to Lucien, and to Hélène also. This is how she announces what, to him, at first appears a desperately indiscreet proceeding, to Chartier, who, ultimately, becomes a convert to her scheme.

Laure begins by assuring her brother that an excess of discretion condemns those who make it their rule to fail in friendly services.

Laure [to Chartier]. Let me tell you what you should have done, what you ought to have done. You should have taken Lucien on one side, and, without worrying about the consequences, have simply made him acquainted with the facts. He had to be confronted with his duty. And since at heart he is, in spite of everything, an honest man, and that the very worst actions of his sort—and of your sort—don’t keep you from being thoroughly kind-hearted, he would certainly have found a happier and more consoling solution than to leave his daughter in distress. That is what you ought to have done. And as I saw you were not going to do it, that is what I have done.

Chartier. What do you say? Good God! You have seen Lucien?

Laure. Half an hour ago; after déjeuner.

Chartier. It is simply insane, what you have done! He must have been utterly prostrated by such a blow, poor devil?

Laure. Yes. He turned very pale. Then he rushed off to consult his father. Now what can happen to him, at the worst? He will have to endure some hours of worry, of anxiety, perhaps of remorse. What then? He deserves it. Lucienne is seventeen—she has in front of her the promise of a long existence, an existence conferred upon her by a light-hearted gentleman in an hour of distraction. Well, it is Lucienne who interests me. You will tell me that it is not my concern—that I am interfering in a delicate matter which is no business of mine?

Chartier. Precisely. That was just what I was going to say.

Laure. And my answer is, that if one only occupied oneself with one’s own concerns one would only accomplish selfish and mediocre things.

How does Lucien act after he has received the fateful news? All lamentations is he when he bursts into the room after his interview with his father. Chartier, Laure and Hélène wait to learn what, by the counsel, no doubt, of Briant père, Lucien proposes to do.

Lucien. Ah, mon ami [addressing Chartier], who would have believed it? What a fatality! What a drama for my conscience! Well, well—what one has to do is to occupy oneself with the present and possible. You will tell Lucienne from me that she has no longer any need to fear for the future: that shall be my charge.

Chartier. Well done. Well done.

Lucien. Yes; but upon one condition—oh, a condition of stringent importance. The condition is that she must return immediately to this village, near Limoges. She has lived there up to the present hour—she can quite easily go on living there. I will send her every month, and I will guarantee to her in the event of my death, a yearly pension, that will be sufficient for her support. There. Do you find that I am acting very badly? And you, madame [to Laure], do you think I am behaving badly?

Laure. Well, not exactly bad.

Lucien. Well, that comforts me a little. But what a catastrophe! Ah, if ever I have a son of my own, I shall try that he may profit by my example.

But Lucien has not a son of his own. The only child he has is the daughter he is going to bury alive in the village near Limoges, without even seeing her—this, of course, by the counsel of l’homme correct, Briant père.

But here Hélène intervenes. She has walked innocently into the trap prepared for her by Laure. In other words, she has seen Lucienne, and her heart has gone out to the motherless girl. Thus she has come by her own path into Laure’s plot and plan; she is resolved to adopt Lucienne. She urges her case, which has the independent advantage of upsetting the counsels of Briant père, with warm generosity, but, at the same time, with her usual vivacity.

Hélène. Lucien, you are my closest friend; and the object of my dutiful affection, of course—but you can’t be my constant companion and the confidante, whom I want, in sometimes empty and tiresome hours. Understand that; and consent to what I beg of you. Well, the companion I want is here; she is your daughter. You have not given me a child; make me the present of Lucienne. I am not a mother; but let me have the illusion of maternity.

Firm in the belief that happiness lies before her and her husband in the adoption of Lucienne, Hélène will hear of no other solution to the situation. And in this she has the good genius, Laure, with her; and next the bonhomme philosophe, Chartier; and finally the timid, despondent Lucien himself, who, in the last scene, comes face to face with his daughter.

All emotion is Lucien. And he breaks down completely when Lucienne shows him a photograph taken of him in the Latin Quarter, when he was the lover of Loulou, a wild figure in corduroy clothes, a long, flowing cape and an amazing hat.

Lucienne, who imagines she is going to be sent back to the village near Limoges, and may never possibly see her father again, does not wish to be separated from the souvenir that stood for the image of him, in his young days. She stretches out her hand, asking for the return of the photograph:

Lucienne. You will not take it away? You will leave it with me?

Lucien. No. I shall keep it. And that is not all, I shall keep—I should be mad to fight any longer against my own heart; against your youth and my own—I shall keep the picture, and you as well!

Chartier, Hélène and Laure enter and behold, with joy, Lucienne in her father’s embrace. But now arrives the apostle of correctness, Briant père. He is not so much astonished, not so much shocked as filled with contempt, and lifted above all contact with the irregular sentiments and ill-directed sympathies of this emotional group of people, whom he attempts to freeze, with his superior disdain. And it is at this moment that he utters the unforgettable sentence which is one of the master-strokes in the play:

Briant père. It is quite sufficient to-day—and believe me, when simply stating the fact, I do not allow myself to be the least bit in the world disturbed by it—it suffices that a child should be illegitimate in order to find itself the object of universal sympathy; in the same way, it suffices that a woman is not a lawful wife to render her immediately the object of universal respect. Let married women, and children born in wedlock, make no mistake about it: they are going to have a bad time.[3]

Lucien attempts to mollify his high displeasure. But Briant père (happily for his family’s welfare, perhaps) insists that he must separate himself henceforth from these offenders. He shakes hands with his son and with Hélène—salutes, stiffly, Laure and Chartier. Then, with a curt bow to Lucienne and the one word, “Mademoiselle,” he takes his departure.

Lucienne [to Hélène]. Qui est ce monsieur?

Hélène. C’est ton grand-père.

3. M. Brieux, “La Déserteuse,” at the Odéon

“Brieux at the Odéon? Brieux passing from the grim playhouse of M. Antoine, to the calm, placid, highly respectable Odéon?” Such must have been the startled exclamations of hundreds of playgoers when it was announced that the “Second Theatre of France” had “received,” and was actually rehearsing, a new drama by the author of Les Avariés and Maternité.

Amazing tidings, certainly. And especially amazing, even alarming, to the regular mature patrons of the Odéon, whose peaceful way of life, whose tranquil train of thought, could not but be upset by the ardent, revolutionary M. Brieux. They desire no disagreeable awakenings, and, above all, no “social problems.”

I fancy the neighbourhood has affected our mature ones! They live round about the Senate, whose members, we know, are renowned for a constant drowsiness. Is not the Upper Chamber popularly described as the “Palace of Sleep”? The alert, frisky Parisian cannot endure the Palais du Sommeil. He wants emotions, excitement—and he finds them in the Chamber of Deputies, which never sleeps.

“A restful sanctuary” is Mr Bodley’s idea of the Senate. “It does very little; it is not highly considered. The idea sometimes suggested is that of a retreat for elderly gentlemen.”

Well, the regular mature patron of the Odéon may be likened to the Senator: his intellect is impaired by the same constant drowsiness. And the “Second Theatre of France”—most Parisians dispute its right to that distinguished title—may be likened to the Senate. It is not highly considered; it renders but small services to the dramatic art; and, at times, it presents the appearance of a restful sanctuary.

But—arrives M. Brieux. Arrives, actually, upon this tranquil, drowsy scene, the ardent, revolutionary author of Maternité and Les Avariés. What—oh, what—is in store for the regular mature patrons? No doubt they were all anxiety, all indignation, until it was understood that M. Brieux had not arrived in their demure domain alone. With him, M. Jean Sigaux. With him, a collaborator who might be expected to exercise restraint. Has M. Sigaux fulfilled those expectations? Is M. Brieux of the Odéon the M. Brieux of the Théâtre Antoine? Or, has M. Brieux been intimidated by Odéon traditions?

Not unanimous on this point are the leading French dramatic critics. Three or four of them profess themselves disappointed with La Déserteuse, because unable to recognise M. Brieux’s change of attitude. They are still under the spell of Maternité, where the author so vigorously and so ruthlessly attacked the “established morality” and “dominant passions.” The change of attitude is undeniable. But La Déserteuse is a strong, generous, human play; and all the more interesting from our own special point of view, as students of the French stage in its relation to French life, because it does not represent a dramatic exposure of injustices and impostures, prevalent (if we believe the reformer) in all European societies, but a dramatic illustration of universal passions and emotions, as these manifest themselves under the influence of traditional sentiments and habits of thought and feeling that belong essentially to France.

The French bourgeois: wherein he differs from, and as a type of humanity is superior to, the English shopkeeper; the French jeune fille—and the French sentiment about her—and wherein this sentiment explains her jealously and tenderly guarded inferiority in attractiveness, intelligence and independence to her English prototype—here are the secrets which La Déserteuse may assist a foreign spectator to penetrate....

We are in the town of Nantes, in the home of Forjot, music publisher, husband, father and confirmed bourgeois. Forjot also gives concerts, but he himself is nothing of a musician and would regard music with contempt, were it not a means of making money. Not so his wife, Gabrielle, young, beautiful and vivacious, who has been assured by the director of the local theatre that she is possessed of a rare voice. Gabrielle sings at little Nantais concerts and is admired and applauded. Gabrielle is told that she would triumph on the operatic stage—and sighs. She loves excitement, she longs for fame, she is full of dreams and ambitions and fancies—but she finds no sympathiser in the music publisher, her husband, who, looking up impatiently from his ledgers, bids her pay more attention to her house, her child and “the rest.”

Gabrielle. What do you mean by “the rest”? Do you want me to write out the bills, for instance?

Forjot. Never mind the bills: my shopman does that. But I see no reason why you should not stay in the shop and receive clients, and, when there is a press of work, lend me a helping hand with the correspondence.

Gabrielle. Don’t expect me to do anything of the sort.

It is the old story: the bourgeois husband and the beautiful, dissatisfied, ambitious wife, who rebels at her dull surroundings, who believes herself “wasted,” who is tempted by a sympathetic admirer; and who falls. Rametty, director of the Nantes Theatre, is Gabrielle’s lover. His ardent prayer that she should accompany him on one of his tours and win the fame that inevitably awaits her, rings constantly in her ears. She resists, chiefly for the sake of her daughter, Pascaline. But the temptation to fly becomes irresistible when, on the night of one of Forjot’s concerts, audience, friends, her lover, and even a popular composer from Paris, delight, intoxicate her with their praise. Forjot, however, stands aloof; the eulogies of the popular composer—respectfully known as Le Maître—exasperate him.

Le Maître. Madame Forjot has sung admirably. Let me give my testimony. I do not know anyone, you mark me, I say anyone, and I am not excepting the most celebrated vocalists—I do not know anyone capable of singing this air with such mastery.

Forjot. Oh, you exaggerate, surely, her talent, Master. You are too indulgent.

Le Maître. I am not indulgent. Madame is an incomparable lyrical tragedian. But, madame, you must not remain en province—it would be a crime.

In ecstasies is Gabrielle. In the heavens is Gabrielle. But she soon comes to earth again, when at last she and her husband find themselves alone. Forjot has returned to his ledgers—is making up his accounts. He has not a word to say of his wife’s success. He is entirely absorbed in the night’s receipts. He counts under his breath; he rustles the pages of his ledgers; he is—to Gabrielle—exasperating, maddening, intolerable.

And the storm bursts when Gabrielle, beside herself with rage, dashes one of the ledgers to the ground.

Now furious, now broken, now contemptuous, now with hoarse, poignant emotion, Forjot addresses his wife.

He knows her to be the mistress of Rametty. His illness of three years ago was due to that humiliating and horrible discovery, but he had thought that she had sinned in a moment of madness and was repentant; and so he resolved to pardon her, generously, without even charging her with her crime:

Forjot. After I had discovered your treachery, I had that attack of brain fever, which nearly left you free. As a result of being brought so near to death, thoughts came to me that I might not have had otherwise, and they ripened in the long hours of my convalescence. When I recovered, as I was touched by the care you had taken in nursing me, and by your grief (which I still believe was sincere), I thought you had only given way to a mad impulse; and I forgave you in the silence of my heart. Yes; I know well I am not like the husbands in the novels you are constantly reading. Those husbands are idle men of fortune; their child’s future causes them no tormenting anxiety; they have not the incessant preoccupations of carrying on a large business concern, where many interests of others, as well as one’s own are involved. With men in my class, a false wife does not mean killing someone; it means asking for a divorce. Well, I did not want to make Pascaline the daughter of a divorced woman; nor did I want to expose her to the sense of disgrace of finding out her mother’s degradation. And it is on Pascaline’s account that I am putting you to-day in a position when you can make your choice—either become again the wife and mother you ought to be; or else I shall ask for a divorce. I don’t want to see again what I saw to-day, Rametty embracing my child! Nor do I want that one of these days, Pascaline may be told by some little playmate that her mother is a wanton [which is true], and her father a man who consents to his own dishonour—which is not true.

Gabrielle. Well, then, ask for a divorce. Adieu.

Forjot. What is your decision?

Gabrielle. To leave you.

Forjot. Think well of what it means. It means throwing over, once and for ever, a regular life.

Gabrielle. It bores me to death this “regular” life. And then, do you imagine I could endure to go on living near you when I knew that you despised me enough to hold your tongue about what you had discovered?

Forjot. If you stay, I promise that, by my attitude towards you, you may be able to suppose that everything is forgotten.

Gabrielle. No! I refuse to lead here the life of eternal humiliation you offer me. Good-night.

Forjot. Good-night. You have given me all the pain it was in your power to give.

But even now the music publisher does not believe that Gabrielle will desert him. Shortly after she has left the room his little daughter enters and asks for her mother. The servant is sent in quest of Gabrielle, but returns to announce that she is nowhere to be found. When Forjot realises that his wife has left him he covers his face with his handkerchief and trembles all over and sobs.

Pascaline [running up to him]. Father! Father! What is the matter?

Forjot. Nothing, nothing. [He uncovers his face, which is tragic with sorrow and stained with tears.] My child, your mother has gone away from us on a long journey.

In a former paper[4] I spoke of the prodigious importance of the child in France; the Child, the great indestructible bond between the parents. Of course, exceptions—as in Gabrielle Forjot’s case. But, as we shall see, Gabrielle seeks to recover Pascaline; and it is around this struggle that the vital interest of the play centres. It is also around this struggle, and in the feelings, language and conduct of those engaged in it that we realise the different conditions of sentiment, morals and manners that characterise respectively the French bourgeoisie and the lower English middle class.

Pascaline is the typical jeune fille. In the First Act she is a child of thirteen; thirteen, l’âge ingrat, for at that period the French jeune fille is plain. It is considered right—imperative—that she should be plain. If she be not so by nature she is made so. See her in her convent dress, her “Sunday best”—the one that most successfully conceals her natural grace—when Mademoiselle is most nearly a fright. Pascaline, for instance, first appears before us shy, awkward, with her hair dragged back from her forehead and falling down her shoulders in depressing little plaits, and arrayed in a dreadful white dress which no English girl of her age would don without a struggle and a tearful outburst. Nevertheless, the jeune fille is adored, and she knows it. She is strictly, terribly surveillée—but that, after all, is a proof of her importance. She must be protected from dangers, so precious is she. Has she, at the age of fifteen, only to cross the street the servant (I can see the indignant glances and hear the expressions of pity of her English sisters) must be close at her elbow. Plenty and plenty of time to wear fine dresses and make the first exciting bow to the world, and to be surprised, and to wonder. Says the French mother, speaking from experience: “It is delicious to be a jeune fille. And I tell my Yvonne so, when she grumbles.” But Yvonne’s grumblings do not betray a tragic, desperate state of mind. As a matter of fact, Yvonne, in spite of those dresses and that constant strict, terrible surveillance, is delightfully happy. And I expect her first bow to the world will be made all the more exciting by that long, rigid training, and that she will don her elegant dresses with all the more rapture, and that she will find life the more brilliant, exhilarating and extraordinary. The parents preserve those old, ugly dresses. When Cosette left her convent, and discarded her depressing dress for tasteful finery, and did what she pleased with her hair, and became all of a sudden beautiful—Jean Valjean kept the dress, and often brought it forth in secret, and looked upon it with infinite tenderness and emotion....

But to return to our particular jeune fille, Pascaline. In the Second Act, she is seventeen and charming. Nevertheless, it is still necessary to hide from her all dangerous knowledge, all doubts or suspicions, even of the existence of evil outside her own experience. Father, governess, nurse, family friends and all who approach her are in league to keep from her the true history of her mother’s desertion. The legend, as she hears it, is that the brilliant, captivating mother she recollects abandoned her home in order to follow her vocation—to become a great and famous singer. And this passionately interests Pascaline; consequently, she is wild with excitement when, after a four years’ absence, her mother claims the right to see her daughter, and obtains legal authorisation to do so. Then, trouble. For, in the meanwhile, Forjot has married the excellent, trustworthy governess, Hélène, chiefly because she was so devoted to the little Pascaline and would make her a second mother. Pascaline at thirteen—dazzled and overawed by the brilliant Gabrielle—had treated the kind and homely governess as a confidante; but at seventeen—flattered, fascinated and caressed by Gabrielle—she sees in Hélène only the “Stranger,” who has usurped her mother’s place.

Then begins the second struggle; that is once again to make havoc of poor Forjot’s domestic peace! The struggle of Hélène, on the one side, to reconquer by patience and kindness, and sometimes by affectionate reproaches, the confidence of the child she loves, and has cared for as her own; and of Pascaline, on the other side, to resist these attentions and appeals to her feelings and to remain true to her more brilliant mother, who, she is convinced, has been harshly turned out of her home, simply because she was too artistic to make a good bourgeoise housekeeper of the usual type.

The knot in the entangled situation is that Pascaline must not be told the truth. So that misunderstanding the position, she cannot, from her own point of view, without disloyalty to her admired and adored mother, recognise the interloper, Hélène, as the rightful mistress of her father’s home, and with claims upon herself, Pascaline, for respect and gratitude, on account of the care and affection she has shown one whom she has robbed of her natural guardian.

Pascaline comes back from her first interview with Gabrielle fascinated and enthusiastic, and full of anger and disdain for the homelier, much less outwardly demonstrative Hélène. This condition of mind becomes aggravated later on, when Gabrielle is in misfortune. Alas! her voice has failed her. She is no longer able to follow her artistic vocation, for the sake of which she sacrificed her home. She now is directress of a theatrical agency, and she is no longer so gay, although still full of noble courage. All this Pascaline confides to her old nurse, Marion, with whom she is still able to talk about her mother.

Pascaline. Oh, Marion dear! When one thinks of mama coming back; and of her having no right to enter this house, and of someone else installed in her place! If you only could have seen how sad she was when she left me, my poor mama, who is generally so gay! And no wonder she is sad. All alone there at Auteuil in a little pavilion, Rue des Martyrs, at her office, a stuffy little place without sunshine, without air.

The Nurse. At her “office”?

Pascaline. Yes. You must know that, for some time, mama has not been able to sing. It is all the trouble she has gone through. You see to be constantly crying is not good for the voice, so that now she is the directress of an agency for theatrical tours. You can understand that, as I am no longer a child, I have a right to know things. I do know now why papa sent mama away.

Marion. Did your mother tell you?

Pascaline. Yes. Papa would not allow her to sing anywhere! So then mama, who had an admirable voice, felt obliged to follow an irresistible vocation.

This is the legend as Pascaline has received it from her mother. Marion does not contradict it. Nor yet do Forjot and Hélène ever hint at the true facts of Gabrielle’s desertion. Hélène’s reticence is heroic, for Pascaline becomes more and more bitter against the good Hélène and defies her to justify herself by some real fault discovered in Gabrielle, worse than the noble ambition of a gifted artist.

Pascaline [to Hélène]. Of course, you are burning to tell me all about poor mama’s divorce. Well: let me show you I know all about it already. I know that, in spite of my father’s orders, mama would go on singing, and then she was rather extravagant, and, well, she was not domesticated, and chose to follow her artistic vocation. There you have the whole story of her sins. Oh, if there is anything else, I invite you, or rather, I require you to tell me. Was there anything else?

Hélène [avoiding Pascaline’s eyes]. There was nothing else.

Pascaline [triumphantly]. There, you are forced to admit it! Mama’s only fault was that she had an artistic vocation! Again I beg you to contradict me, if you can. Was there anything else against her?

Hélène. No; only that—nothing else.

However, one little awakening, one little shock. In the Third Act Pascaline visits the theatrical agency, sees the tawdriness of the place, hears noisy laughter and is even addressed at length by a shabby old comedian—a veritable cabotin—who mistakes her for an ingénue, in quest of an engagement. The comedian is delightful. He might have stepped straight on to the Odéon stage from one of those dim little cafés haunted by broken-down actors in the neighbourhood of the Porte St-Martin. He appals Pascaline with his grins, grimaces and familiarity. Pascaline’s silence he attributes to worry. And he seeks to console her by declaring that one must always be gay, always be smiling, even if one has eaten nothing all day and the landlord has threatened to turn one out into the street. He calls her mon petit enfant, and mon petit chat, and he tutoies her. Pure, irresistible comedy! The scene deserves to be quoted in full, but we must hasten on to the dénouement.

It is close. Life at the Nantais publisher’s has become intolerable. Constant strife; day after day, scenes between Pascaline and her step-mother. And, at last, Hélène decides on a daring step: to visit Gabrielle, tell her of Forjot’s unhappiness, implore her to interfere no longer between father and daughter. But she fails to move Gabrielle, who is cold and impertinent. And then, believing that if she herself disappeared, Pascaline would be entirely restored to Forjot, Hélène determines to leave Nantes and resume her dull career of governess. And this determination becomes all the stronger when she learns that Pascaline has fled Nantes and taken refuge with her mother. Poor Forjot has aged and withered when next we see him. Pascaline’s flight has been a bitter blow. But the music publisher will not hear of Hélène’s sacrifice, and is passionately bidding her remain, when Gabrielle is announced. Hélène leaves the room. And Gabrielle and Forjot find themselves face to face again.

In the great scene that follows, Gabrielle begins by saying that, as Hélène has determined to leave Nantes, she, Gabrielle, no longer wishes to keep Pascaline away from her father, and has brought her home.

Forjot declares that Hélène shall not be sacrificed; and upon this, Gabrielle proclaims her intention of keeping Pascaline.

Now again we have the Bourgeois Forjot displaying qualities of temper, character and moral sense, of the very highest order: qualities of the chivalrous sort. He does not fly into a passion. He does not taunt this offender against maternal and conjugal obligations. But earnestly and simply he addresses the author of all this trouble; and with a self-restraint that would certainly not have been found in his English prototype, he invites her to examine her own conduct; and to ask herself whether it is Hélène and himself, or whether it is Gabrielle herself, and Gabrielle only, who has behaved cruelly and selfishly to Pascaline, as well as to the husband she betrayed and the good woman who has taken care of the child she abandoned.

Forjot. Gabrielle, just remember. You are the cause of all this trouble. It only depended upon you to stay on here, and never to be separated from your child. I never made your life unhappy! I loved you; and you know very well I should have forgiven you. I begged you to stay and you would not. What harm you have done by obeying your caprice! Just now I saw very well you hardly recognised me—so aged am I by all this. For my part, I have never harmed you. Hélène has never harmed you—what do you say? No, no; she has never harmed you! And yet it is we who are punished. It is because you behaved badly in the past that we are threatened to-day with distress and loneliness. After having poisoned my life, you wish then to hasten my death?

Gabrielle. You know very well that I regret having made you suffer.

Forjot. Let me tell you this: a great many people would not have acted as we have done. They might not have told our child the real story of your desertion; but they would not have invented excuses for you.

Gabrielle. Yes; I know you have been very kind, and I thank you for it.

Forjot. I am not the only one you ought to thank. Hélène has always respected you: she has taught Pascaline to love you! It seems to me that should touch you. Give our child back to us. Now, admit it, you have launched yourself upon a new life. You have made yourself different from us. I can’t well explain myself; and it is difficult to make you understand my feelings because I don’t want to use words that might hurt or irritate you; but I must put the facts before you plainly.

Always generous is Forjot. Not one brutal, not one harsh word does he throw at his wife! He promises that Pascaline shall continue to visit her as often as she pleases, if Gabrielle, on the other side, will promise not to poison Pascaline’s mind against him and Hélène. Gabrielle is touched. Rising, she opens the door, and brings in Pascaline. And Pascaline, seeing her poor father’s anxious, care-worn face, runs up to him.

Pascaline. Oh, father! father! advise me. I am puzzled, bewildered. Something tells me I am acting badly; but I don’t know what I ought to do. Oh, dear, I don’t know what I ought to do!

Forjot. My little Girl, it all depends upon you whether I am to finish my life in misery, or in peace. You can give me happiness in the days I have still to live. But to do that, you must come back to us; and you must try to treat Hélène with the respect and gratitude you owe her. In her despair at not being able to win back your affection, she wants to leave us. She wishes to return once more to the lonely, uncertain life of a governess. She wants to plunge herself into this unknown, uncertain destiny. It is I who appeal to you to have mercy upon her, and upon me.

Pascaline. Ah, if only I might love you without being false to Mama!

Gabrielle [emotionally]. You can, you can, Pascaline! Yes, my daughter, I am not the mother that you believe in! Since I left you I have created for myself a new life, new habits, new affections; and then, Pascaline, I am going to marry again!

Always, emotionally, Gabrielle tells how she once had two paths to choose, and that she chose the wrong one.

But Pascaline interrupts her with a cry of: “What a calumny!” and vows that her mother has never done wrong. And that she knows for certain, as Hélène herself has often told her so.

Gabrielle. Eh bien, va embrasser Hélène pour cela. Je te le demande. Je vous la confie, Hélène.

And so, the end. Not heroic, in accordance with the English poetic sentiment, demanding that Gabrielle should pass out sorrowing and penitent; convicted in her child’s eyes, who flies for safety to the virtuous bosom of Hélène, but à l’amiable, in accordance with the French sentiment expressed by Forjot: “Mon enfant, si l’on n’avait pas d’indulgence les uns pour les autres, la vie des plus braves gens ne serait pas possible.”

But what comes of it all? No argument for or against divorce; no attack upon, no justification of the French method of educating the jeune fille. But a picture of the feelings and emotions bound up with that method; and a picture also of the generous reasonableness, sense of justice, and human kindness that lie at the root of French character—and that may to some extent compensate for a lack of the absolutely sincere and unadulterated love of decency and respectability for their own sakes that are our own distinguishing characteristics.

4. Paris, M. Edmond Rostand, and “Chantecler”

Six years have elapsed since a Paris newspaper announced that M. Constant Coquelin—dear, wonderful Coquelin aîné—had suddenly taken train to the south-west of France in the following circumstances:—

“Yesterday morning the greatest of our comedians received a telegram urging him to proceed without delay to Cambo, the tranquil, beautiful country seat, in the Pyrenees, of M. Edmond Rostand. No sooner had he read the message than M. Coquelin bade Gillett, his devoted valet, pack a valise, hail a fiacre, and accompany him to the Gare d’Orléans. Excitement and delight were depicted on the face of the distinguished traveller, whom we found smoking a cigarette in front of a first-class compartment. ‘Yes,’ he joyously admitted. ‘Yes, I am off to the Pyrenees—but that is all I shall tell you.’ Never, indeed, such indomitable discretion! In reply to our adroit, persuasive questions regarding the object of his journey, M. Coquelin made such irrelevant observations as these: ‘The weather looks threatening,’ and ‘Gillett is the most admirable of valets,’ and ‘Ah, my friends, has it ever occurred to you what an extraordinary thing is a railway station?’ And then, as the train steamed slowly away: ‘You may state in your article that the cushions of this carriage are exceedingly restful and sympathetic.’ Still, in spite of M. Coquelin’s reticence, we are in a position to acquaint our readers with the reason of this sudden, this sensational visit to Cambo. M. Edmond Rostand is engaged upon a new play, and the leading part in it will be sustained by M. Coquelin. Down there in the golden calm of the Pyrenees—yes, even as we pen these words—the most exquisite of poets is reading to the most brilliant of actors... another chef-d’œuvre. It will surpass the triumphant, the glorious Cyrano de Bergerac! Parisians will certainly rejoice, Parisians will assuredly be thrilled to hear of the superb, artistic festival in store for them.”

Such, six years ago, was the very first—and very florid—potin to be published on Chantecler; and no sooner had it appeared than Paris, truly enough, “rejoiced” and was “thrilled”—but complained that it was maddening and heart-breaking to know so little about the new masterpiece. What was its theme? What, too, was the title? And when—oh, when—would the first performance take place? In order to satisfy the Parisian’s curiosity, newspaper editors despatched their Yellowest Reporters to Cambo with instructions to force a statement out of the comedian and the poet. With the Yellow Ones went alert, sharp photographers. And then, what strange, indelicate scenes in that once-tranquil and refined spot in the Pyrenees! Since M. Rostand and his guest refused to receive the invaders, the latter set about performing their vulgar mission from a distance. Outside the poet’s picturesque Basque villa, cameras and cameras; and again and again was the “golden calm” of Cambo disturbed by shouts of “There’s Madame Rostand at that window,” and “There’s her son, Maurice, picking a flower,” and “There’s Rostand talking hard to Coquelin on a bench.” Nobody, nothing in the far-spreading grounds, escaped the photographers. The gardener was “taken”; so were a housemaid, a peacock, a mowing-machine, a dog and a hammock. As for the reporters, they followed MM. Rostand and Coquelin when the latter took their afternoon walks, even hid themselves behind bushes and hedges in the hopes of overhearing a fragment of their conversation; and minutely they described in their newspapers the gait and the gestures of the comedian, and the smile, the eyeglass and the extreme elegance of the poet; and wildly they declared that insomuch as MM. Rostand and Coquelin discussed naught but the new masterpiece during those afternoon walks, every step they took left a glorious, an historic imprint in the dusty white lane. But the subject of the play, the date of its production?—“mystery, mystery!” admitted the reporters. Nor was it until many months later, and until after M. Coquelin had paid half-a-dozen visits to Cambo, that Paris heard with amazement that M. Rostand’s hero was a cock, his heroine a hen pheasant, his chief scene a farm-yard, in which all kinds of feathered creatures were to fly, strut and waddle about. As Paris was marvelling at the novelty and audacity of the idea, the poet fell ill. A severe operation kept him an invalid a whole year. The successive deaths of a relative and of three close friends so shocked him that he had not the heart to return to his work. But when in the autumn of 1908 M. Coquelin made yet another expedition to Cambo, the “glorious,” “historic” walks were resumed. In M. Rostand’s study, animated, all-night sittings. In the drawing-room, extraordinary rehearsals—M. Coquelin the cock, Madame Rostand the pheasant, M. Rostand a dog, young Maurice Rostand a blackbird. Then visits from wig-makers, costumiers, scene-painters, electricians. And at last the official, stirring announcement that M. Rostand and the play were leaving for Paris, that the name of the play was Chantecler, and that the first performance would be given at the Porte St-Martin Theatre in the spring of 1909.

It was in January of that year that M. Rostand took up his abode in an hotel facing the Tuileries Gardens. The corridor outside the poet’s suite of apartments was guarded by footmen—so many sentinels with instructions to let nobody pass; and thus M. Rostand was secure from cameras and Yellow scribbling pencils except when he left the hotel, entered a motor car and sped off to the pleasant little country town of Pont-aux-Dames, where Constant Coquelin had founded a home for aged and infirm actors. Of this establishment Coquelin aîné himself was then an inmate. Not that he was feeling old or infirm—“only a little fatigued and in need of calm and repose ere disguising myself as a proud, majestic cock.” Kindly Coquelin was never so happy as when playing the host to his score of superannuated actors and actresses. He called them his “guests,” and had provided them with easy-chairs, a library, a billiard-table, playing cards, backgammon boards and gramophones; and with summer-houses in the garden where the old ladies might gossip and gossip out of the glare of the sun, and with a lake, too, in which the old fellows might fish. Also, he invited them to relate their theatrical experiences—the rôles they had played, the successes they had achieved, the costumes they had worn long, long ago; and, oh, dear me, how the “guests” took their host at his word—yes, heavens, how garrulously and lavishly they responded! Withered old Joyeux (late—very late—of the Palais Royal) described how emperors and kings had been convulsed by his grins, winks and tricks; swollen, red-faced Hector Duchatel (slim, elegant, irresistible at the Vaudeville in the seventies) declared that beautiful mondaines had sighed, almost swooned, when he passionately made love on the stage; wrinkled, haggard Mademoiselle Giselle de Perle (once such a radiant blonde at the Bouffes) narrated how she could scarcely turn round in her dressing-room for the corbeilles of flowers, in which jewels and billets-doux from illustrious personages lay concealed. Then, after all these reminiscences, the “guests” produced faded, tattered newspaper cuttings, that proclaimed Joyeux “extraordinaire de fantaisie et de verve,” and Hector Duchatel “le roi de la mode,” and Mademoiselle de Perle “the most exquisite, the most incomparable of blondes”—“Cabotinville,” if you like; the tawdry, flashy talk of M. le Cabot and Madame la Cabotine. But I like, nevertheless, to call up the vision of Coquelin aîné, wrapped in a dressing-gown, a skull-cap pulled down over his ears, listening patiently and sympathetically to these confidences of the past, and reading through the faded newspaper cuttings, and saying to haggard Mademoiselle de Perle: “I myself, like everybody else, was once madly in love with you,” and to withered old Joyeux: “Those winks and grins of yours were excruciating,” and—— But an end to this digression. The scene between Coquelin aîné and his superannuated “guests” is cut short by the arrival, from the hotel in the rue de Rivoli, of the author of Chantecler.

Well, Constant Coquelin was wearing a dressing-gown and a skull-cap, because he felt a little “fatigued.” But the visits of M. Rostand, and of the wig-makers, scene-painters and costumiers, as well as the impatience of the Parisians to behold the new “masterpiece,” restored to the comedian all his former energy, enthusiasm. Final resolutions were made. The first rehearsal at the Porte St-Martin Theatre was fixed for the following week; the first performance would be given, irrevocably, in the middle of May. “What a triumph we shall have!” said Coquelin aîné to the few friends he received in the Home. “Ah, my admirable Gillett, what a work of genius is Chantecler!” he exclaimed, when the devoted valet lighted him to his bedroom. “Listen, I will recite to you Rostand’s Hymn to the Sun. And after that, my good Gillett, you shall hear me crow.” Replied faithful Gillett: “To-morrow—not to-night. It is wiser to go to sleep.” But Constant Coquelin refused to sleep until he had recited and crowed. Up and down the room, in the dressing-gown and skull-cap, he strutted. The superannuated actors and actresses were awakened by his cry: “Je t’adore, Soleil!” Five minutes later there resounded throughout the Home a clarion, peremptory—“Cocorico.” Said the old players: “The master is rehearsing.” Said Gillett: “Your old servant insists upon your going to bed.” Said Coquelin aîné: “When I have played Chantecler I shall retire from the stage, and you and I, my faithful Gillett, will pass the rest of our lives down here, tranquilly, happily, amidst our twenty old guests.” But next morning, after Gillett had helped his master into the dressing-gown, Constant Coquelin fell heavily to the floor. Cry after cry from admirable Gillett, cries from the superannuated players—then profound silence and gloom. Gloom, too, in Paris. The blinds darkly drawn in the windows of the first floor of the rue de Rivoli hotel. The Porte St-Martin—other theatres—closed. All kinds of soirées, banquets and fêtes postponed. “What a disaster, what a tragedy, mon ami; what a blow, what a calamity, ma chère.” Gloom—dear, wonderful Coquelin aîné was dead....

In the summer of 1909 M. Edmond Rostand, after spending four months in seclusion at Cambo, returned to Paris; a few days later the rehearsals of Chantecler at the Porte St-Martin Theatre began. “Should anything happen to me, you must ask Guitry to play my part,” had said Coquelin, to the poet. M. Guitry, therefore, was appointed “Chantecler,” Madame Simone, ex-Le Bargy, was made the Hen Pheasant. Gay, frisky M. Galipaux was created Blackbird, M. Jean Coquelin, the great comedian’s son, chose the rôle of the Dog. “Irrevocably in November,” stated the newspapers, “we shall hear ‘Chantecler’ sound his first cocorico.” And Paris rejoiced once again and was “thrilled.”

But, ah me, how that positive word, “irrevocable,” was misused! No Chantecler in November, no “Cocorico” in December—only multitudinous newspaper potins that constantly announced the postponement of the event, and described “life” at the Porte St-Martin and in M. Rostand’s hotel on the Champs Elysées. It was repeatedly stated that the poet, after hot words with M. Guitry, had taken “the 9.39 train back to Cambo.” It was asserted that Madame Simone had thrown her type-written rôle on to the stage, stamped hysterically on the rôle, and left the theatre in tears. It was furthermore reported that M. Guitry was about to undergo an operation for cancer; that lively Galipaux was suffering from acute melancholia; that M. Jean Coquelin, distracted, prematurely ancient and infirm, had taken refuge in the Home at Pont-aux-Dames. Then, the insinuation that Chantecler would never, never “cocorico.”... Nor, according to the same newspaper potins, was “life” in M. Rostand’s hotel more serene. He was as closely guarded as the Tsar of All the Russias. Nevertheless, a waiter who served him was, in reality, a Yellow Italian journalist; threatening letters and telegrams from lunatics arrived by the score; and wizened old cranks sent the poet baskets of feathers, with the solemn warning that unless these, and only these feathers, were worn by the Cock and the Hen Pheasant, well, M. Guitry and Madame Simone, and M. Rostand and Chantecler would be ridiculed, ruined, and done for.... In fine, what a November, what a December—and what a January of the present year! And when MM. Hertz and Jean Coquelin, the proprietors of the Porte St-Martin Theatre, themselves announced that the first performance of Chantecler would be given on 28th January “most irrevocably,” how delirious became the potins, and how agitated the Parisians! The great question was: Would Chantecler be a triumphant success, or only a moderate success, or a catastrophe? To determine this problem, clairvoyantes—positively—were consulted. And Madame Olga de Sonski, at present of the rue des Martyrs, and late—so her card asserted—of Persia, Budapest, Cairo and Bond Street—Madame de Sonski declared she already felt the Porte St-Martin, massive theatre that it was, trembling, almost tottering, from applause. But not so Madame Juliette de Magenta, of the rue des Ténèbres, from Morocco, St Petersburg, Constantinople and Broadway: “I hear [sic] the silence, the coldness, the gloom of disappointment and disapproval,” funereally she said. However, in spite of Madame de Magenta’s lugubrious prognostications, the news came that M. Rostand had disposed of the publishing rights of Chantecler for one million francs; that stalls and dress-circle seats (for the box-office was now open) for the first three performances were selling like wildfire at six pounds apiece; that critics and millionaires from America, and French Ambassadors and Ministers from divers parts of Europe, and even dark-skinned, dyspeptic merchants from Buenos Ayres, were all hastening to Paris to hear the “cocorico” of Chantecler. What excitement, what a whirl! For the twentieth time it was rumoured that M. Rostand had taken “the 9.39 train back to Cambo.” Now M. Guitry had appendicitis; and Madame Simone had injured herself by falling through a trap-door. Nevertheless, the first performance remained fixed “most irrevocably” for 28th January—on which day many a quarter of Paris and most of the banlieue were flooded.

So, another postponement. Successively, and always “positively irrevocably,” it was announced that the great event would take place on 31st January, 2nd February, 5th February and 6th February. And thus the critics and millionaires from America, the French Ambassadors and Ministers from divers European capitals, the merchants from Buenos Ayres (looking sallow and bloodshot from the voyage) were detained in Paris at much personal inconvenience and loss to themselves. Nothing would move them until they had heard the clarion cry of—“Cocorico.” And M. Pichon, Minister of Foreign Affairs, became uneasy at the prolonged sojourn of the Ministers and Ambassadors. “Diplomatic relations between France and many a foreign Power are interrupted,” he cried tragically, “and all because of a cock and a hen pheasant.” Social life, too, was interrupted. Le Tout Paris refrained from issuing dinner invitations lest they should clash with the first performance, and countermanded rooms engaged weeks beforehand in the Riviera hotels.

A final rumour to the effect that M. Rostand had returned to Cambo by the 9.39 train—a train which, by the way, does not figure in the time-table. Another canard stating that M. Guitry had contracted typhoid fever through drinking water contaminated by the floods. A third Yellow potin reporting Madame Simone to have “mysteriously,” “sensationally” disappeared. What chaos, what incoherency! And what a scene in the Porte St-Martin when at last, on Sunday night, 6th February, Chantecler, in the presence of the most brilliant audience yet assembled in a Paris theatre, came, crowed and conquered.

A new handsome curtain, new carpets, new velvet fauteuils, programmes printed on vellum, and red ribbons (also supplied by the management) in the grisly hair of the middle-aged ouvreuses. “I have been an ouvreuse for twenty years, but never have I seen an audience so vast, so animated, so chic,” said one of these ladies to me as she bundled up my overcoat, pinned a ticket to it and dropped it on to the floor. “Not a peg left,” she continued. “Immediately beneath your overcoat lies the overcoat of Prince Murat. In the heap next to it is a Rothschild overcoat. And as for that other pile of overcoats in the corner, all fur-lined, all magnificent, well, they belong to ambassadors, dukes, American millionaires, English milords, famous writers, politicians, jockeys—all the great personages in the world. Thus, although it lies on the floor, your overcoat is in illustrious company.” After warning me that no one would be admitted into the theatre when the curtain had risen, the ouvreuse showed me to my seat, held out her hand, was rewarded, and left me free to admire the jewels, feathers, dresses and coiffures of le Tout Paris. All eyes—or rather opera-glasses—on the box occupied by Madame Rostand and her two sons. In another box, M. Briand, the Prime Minister. In the stalls, Academicians, generals, playwrights, critics, newspaper proprietors, aviators, financiers, leading actors and actresses. Everyone afoot, or rather on tip-toe, gossiping, laughing, singling out celebrities with their glasses. But at ten minutes to nine o’clock the three traditional thuds made by a mallet behind the curtain (the signal in French theatres that the play is about to begin) caused a hush. Everyone sat down. “Chantecler at last,” said, emotionally, a lady behind me. The curtain rose two or three inches. “Pas encore, pas encore,” cried a voice. Consternation, dismay of le Tout Paris; was the play again to be postponed, was it true that M. Rostand had taken that 9.39 train, and that Madame Simone had “sensationally” disappeared, and that M. Guitry—— “Pas encore, pas encore!” But it was—thank heaven—only the voice of M. Jean Coquelin who appeared in the front of the stalls in a dress-suit, mounted a footstool and recited the prologue to M. Rostand’s fantastic, symbolical chef-d’œuvre.

It was a delightfully humorous description of the feathered inhabitants of a farm-yard; and as M. Jean Coquelin continued to harangue the audience eloquently from his footstool, the animals were heard becoming impatient on the hidden stage.

A crowing of cocks. A cackling of geese. The stamping of a horse’s hoof. The creaking of an old cart. The bray of a donkey. The miaow of a cat. The hoot of an owl. The whistle of a blackbird. Then—distinctly—three taps from a woodpecker: “le bec d’un pivert a frappé les trois coups”; and with a cry of “The woodpecker says the play must commence,” M. Coquelin disappeared, down went the lights: and up amidst thunders of applause rose the curtain.

Before us, a farm-yard, not an inmate or an object of which is wanting. White, black, grey and brown hens strut hither and thither, sharply discussing the powers, vanities, infidelities of Chantecler, their lord and master. Ducks and drakes, ganders and geese take sides for or against the king of the yard. Now and again the lid of a vast wicker-work basket opens, to reveal the head of the Old Hen—a very old hen, the doyenne of the place, and Chantecler’s foster-mother. In her, of course, the cock finds an ardent defender; but whenever the withered old head protrudes from the basket the Blackbird, hopping about in his cage, holds forth mockingly, ironically. For the Blackbird, like every other feathered creature in the play, is symbolical. He represents the smart, shallow, cynical Parisian, who scoffs at principles, ridicules genius, laughs at love, denies the existence of disinterested friendship, and is enormously pleased with his empty, impudent self. So he makes fun of the Old Hen and of the white, black, grey and brown hens whilst they pay naïve tributes to the supreme genius of Chantecler—the Cock of Cocks, the superb creature whose clarion, peremptory call causes the sun to rise and makes the world radiant, beautiful and cheerful. Chantecler has betrayed the hens, but they nevertheless admire and love him. As the discussion continues, bees, butterflies, wasps fly across the stage. On a pillar, a cat dozes tranquilly in the sun. Two fluffy little chicks play at getting in and out of a gigantic sabot. To the right, a huge dog’s kennel; in the background a gigantic cart, with its shafts in the air. In a corner, a set of enormous harness. The birds and beasts being of Brobdingnagian sizes, the objects on the stage have been magnified in proportion. But all is natural; never, from first to last, a note of extravagance, grotesqueness. Well, on and on goes the discussion, and, as the Blackbird sneers and scoffs, it becomes heated and shrill. “Silence; here he comes, here he comes,” cries a pigeon. And not a sound is heard when Chantecler appears, solemn, majestic, arrogant, on the poultry-yard wall. The hens gather together, look up at him with submission, admiration. The two chicks stop their game. The cat wakes up. Even the Blackbird ceases hopping about in his cage. Magnificent, awe-inspiring, indeed, is Chantecler in his dark green and light brown feather dress—“the green of April and the ochre of October.” He is, as on the top of the wall he recites his Hymn to the Sun, Cyrano de Bergerac in feathers. He represents the artist, the creative genius, the dispenser of beauty and spiritual light. If he be the lord over the other denizens of the farm-yard, it is because they will have it so. They believe the sun rises because Chantecler summons it with his shrill, imperious “Cocorico.” And Chantecler, the Superb, believes it himself—believes it in spite of the sceptical Blackbird. Chantecler, in fact, might stand for a great many types besides the artistic; for example, the statesman who fancies he is the creator of the social reforms that are advancing with civilisation like a tide. “I adore thee, O sun,” begins Chantecler, his beak raised towards the skies.

Night falls, and Chantecler sends his subjects to bed. Then he and Patou, the dog philosopher, discuss the situation in the farm-yard. Excellent Patou might be Anatole France’s M. Bergeret. He despises the pert, cynical Blackbird. He denounces the snobbishness, the vanity, the vulgarity of the age. He is for calm, for reflection, for—— A shot is heard, the Hen Pheasant flies in and implores Chantecler to protect her from the hunter. She nestles under the Cock’s wing; she looks up at him admiringly, tenderly—and proud, gallant, idealistic Chantecler there and then falls in love with the gorgeous black, gold and red Pheasant. Majestically Chantecler struts round and round her, his chest thrown outwards, his beak in the air. Curiously, somewhat disdainfully, the Hen Pheasant surveys the farm-yard. It strikes her as poor, sordid, such an obscure little corner of the world. How different from the beauty, the spaciousness, the grandeur of her forest!

Ardently, enthusiastically, then, Chantecler tells the Hen Pheasant how daylight, as it changes, floods the objects in the farm-yard with ever-varying colours. That geranium is never twice the same red. Patou’s kennel, the sabot stuffed with straw, the rusty old pitchfork—not for two successive moments do they look the same. A rake in a corner, a flower in a vase, as they change colour in the rays of the sun, fill idealistic Chantecler with ecstasy.

Still, the Hen Pheasant is not very much impressed. She consents, nevertheless, to pass the night in Patou’s kennel, which the dog-philosopher obligingly gives up to her. Owls, with huge, luminous eyes, appear. Bats dash about in the air. A mole creeps forth. As they love darkness and detest light, they fancy if Chantecler dies the night will last for ever. “I hate him,” they say, one after another.—“Je commence à l’aimer,” says the Hen Pheasant, womanlike, when she thus hears that Chantecler is in danger.

Owls, bats, the Cat, the Blackbird and strange night creatures are assembled beneath the branches of a huge tree, when the curtain rises on the second act. The Big Owl chants an Ode to the Night. “Vive la Nuit,” cry his brethren, at intervals, in a hoarse chorus. It is determined that Chantecler must die. At five o’clock in the morning, when the Guinea-Fowl holds a reception, a terrific fighting-cock shall insult, attack and slay Chantecler. “Vive la Nuit,” cry the night-birds, their eyes shining luridly in the darkness. But when a “Cocorico” sounds in the distance the night creatures fly away, and Chantecler, followed by the Hen Pheasant, struts on to the dim stage. “Tell me,” pleads the Pheasant, “the secret of your power.” At first Chantecler refuses, then hesitates, then in a glorious outburst he declares that the sun cannot rise until he has sung his song. It is perhaps the noblest, the most exquisite passage in the play.

Here is the last verse:

“But if,” asks the Hen Pheasant, “the skies are clouded and grey?”

Majestically, Chantecler struts to and fro beneath the branches of the trees. Humbly, admiringly, the Hen Pheasant watches his perambulations. Night has passed, daybreak is near; the skies above the hillock on which Chantecler is standing turn from black to purple, and next from purple to dark grey. “Look and listen,” says Chantecler. He digs his claws firmly into the turf; he throws his chest out; he raises his head heavenwards: “Cocorico... Cocorico... Cocorico.” And gradually, delicately, the skies light up; birds twitter, cottages stand out in the distance, the tramp of the peasant on his way to the fields tells that the day’s work has begun—shafts of golden light fall upon the majestic Chantecler and illuminate the plumage of the graceful, beautiful Hen Pheasant.

And now, in a kitchen garden, the Guinea-Fowl’s “five o’clock”—a worldly, fashionable reception—at five o’clock in the morning! It is a satire on elegant Paris salons; what tittle-tattle, what scandalmongering, what epigrams, paradoxes and puns! At a weather-stained old gate stands the Magpie. One of the first guests he ceremoniously announces is the Peacock—the grande dame, to whom her hostess, the snobbish Guinea-Fowl, makes a profound curtsy. (The Peacock’s tail is a miracle of ingenuity; the actress can spread it out fanwise, raise it, let it drop, at will.) Then, one after another, arrives an endless procession of cocks. “The Golden Cock; the Silver Cock; the Cock from Bagdad; the Cock from Cochin China; the Scotch Grey Cock; the Bantam Cock; the Cock without Claws; M. le Doyen of All the Cocks,” announces the Magpie. Bows from these multitudinous Cocks to the Guinea-Fowl, to the Peacock and to the Blackbird. In all, forty-three amazing Cocks, each of whom is jealous of Chantecler; who eventually appears at the gateway with the Hen Pheasant. “Announce me, simply, as the Cock,” proudly says Chantecler. “Le Coq,” cries the Magpie. And the trouble begins.

Coldness from the Guinea-Fowl, scorn from the Peacock, mockery from the Blackbird, and insults from the Prize Fighting Cock, who has been commissioned by the uncanny, unwholesome Night Birds to slay idealistic, sun-loving Chantecler. Then, the duel, which ends in the victory of the Cock, and the pain and humiliation of the prize-fighter. All the Cocks, from M. le Doyen down to the Cock without Claws, are dismayed. The Peacock is disgusted; the Guinea-Fowl is dejected at the wretched failure of her “five o’clock”—only the smart, irrepressible Blackbird keeps things going. But not for long. Contemptuously, Chantecler turns upon him; taunts him with his vain, miserable endeavour to imitate the true, delightful wit, gaiety and genius of the Sparrow—the gavroche—of Paris. The Parisian Sparrow is flippant, but warm-hearted. He laughs, he scoffs, he whistles, he swaggers, but he is faithful and brave. But you, wretched Blackbird, are a coward. You, shallow creature, are a sneak. And then the line that would have rejoiced the heart of Victor Hugo: “Il faut savoir mourir pour s’appeler Gavroche.”

A month passes. The last Act represents the Hen Pheasant’s forest, where she and Chantecler are spending their honeymoon. For the bird has enticed the Cock away from the farm-yard; and thus, distress of his old foster-mother, and much indignation amongst the white, grey, brown and black hens.

Night in the forest, and how beautifully depicted! Up in a tree sits a solemn woodpecker; below him, around a huge mushroom, a number of toads with glistening eyes are assembled. Then, a gigantic cobweb, and in the middle of it, a spider. Here and there, rabbits peep out of their holes. Everywhere, birds. “It is time,” says the solemn woodpecker to them, “for you to say your prayers.”

At length, when Chantecler appears, we perceive that there is something wrong with the Cock. “Does not my forest please you?” asks the Hen Pheasant tenderly. “Oh yes,” replies Chantecler half-heartedly. The fact is, he pines after the farm-yard. Every night in the forest he telephones to the Blackbird, through the flower of the bindweed, for news of his old foster-mother, the hens, the chicks, the dog Patou. Then the Hen Pheasant is jealous of his love for the sun. Cruelly, she has insisted that he is to crow only once every day.