  From Paris to Bruxelles—Visiting the plains of Waterloo—The Duke de Berri I met with my brother-in-law and his nephew at Paris, and hearing from them that they had an intention of returning to England by the way of Bruxelles, with the idea of visiting the plains of Waterloo, I was induced to accompany them. We started on the 18th August, taking the exact route from Paris that was taken by Napoleon. Passed the first night at St Quentin; the second at a small village on the line between Mons and Charleroy in the Belgian territory. The next morning, after breakfasting at Nivelles, we proceeded to Quatre Bras and Mont St Jean. At the little cabaret called À la belle Alliance we met a host of Englishmen who had been to behold the field of battle; Lacoste, the peasant who was Napoleon's guide on the day of battle, was about to conduct them across the fields to Hougoumont. We followed them. The devastation of the place, every tree being pierced with bullets, and the whole premises being nearly burned to the ground, seemed to astonish their weak minds; one of them was not contented till he had measured the length and breadth of the garden and orchards. Cuirasses, helmets, swords and various other spoils of war found on the spot, were offered for sale by some boys and eagerly bought up as relics. My brother-in-law made a purchase of a helmet, sword and cuirass, intending to hang it up in his hall. For my part I have seen, and can see no reason whatever to rejoice at this event. I fear it is pregnant with infinite mischief. We arrived at Bruxelles on the afternoon of the 20th August and after visiting thePark, AlÉe verte and Palace of Laeken, we proceeded the next morning on our journey to Lille. The Duke of Berri was at Lille and a grand fÊte was given in the evening to celebrate the second restoration of the Bourbons. Fireworks were let off, the city was brilliantly illuminated and boys (hired of course) went about the streets singing the following refrain À bas, À bas NapolÉon! A number of beautiful women elegantly attired paraded up and down the public promenades, which are exceedingly well and tastefully laid out. This city is built with great regularity, and the streets are broad, neat, and clean. It is by far the handsomest city I have ever seen either in France or Belgium. The HÔtel de Ville and the theatre both are on the Grande Place and are well worth seeing. Lille is renowned for its fortifications; I much wished to visit the citadel but I was not permitted. At dinner at the table d'hÔte at the HÔtel du Commerce, I remarked a French officer declaiming violently against Napoleon; but I heard afterwards that he was the son of an Emigrant; the rest of the company did not seem to approve his discourse and shewed visible impatience at it. Lille may be easily recognised at its approach from the immense quantity of wind-mills that are in the vicinity of this city, some of which are used for grinding of wheat and others for the expression of oil. A great deal of flax from whence the oil is made, grows in the country. I left Lille on the morning of the 24th inst., with the courier for Amiens. From Amiens I took the diligence to Beauvais and on arrival there I put up under the hospitable roof of my friend Major G., of the 18th Light Dragoons, lately made Lt.-Colonel for his gallantry at Waterloo.[42] I did not want for amusement here, for the next day a fÊte champÊtre was given just outside the walls of the town, and I admired the grace and tournure of the female peasantry and their good dancing. How much more creditable are these innocent and agreeable fÊtes to the fairs and meetings in England, which are generally signalized in drunkenness! The next afternoon presented a novel sight to the inhabitants of Beauvais, it being a grand cricket match played between the officers of the 10th and 18th Dragoons. It was won by the latter, mainly owing to the superior play of Colonel G. of the 18th, who never touched a bat since he was at Burney's school. The Officers afterwards dined al fresco and many toasts accompanied by the huzzas were given, to the astonishment of the bystanders, who seemed to consider us as little better than barbarians. One of the officers wishing to pay a compliment to the inhabitants of Beauvais proposed the health of Louis XVIII, but they seemed to take it coldly and not at all to be flattered by the compliment. After five days very agreeable residence at Beauvais, I put myself in the diligence to return to Paris. During the journey an ardent political altercation arose between a young lady, who appeared to be a warm partisan of Napoleon, on the one side, and a Garde du Corps on the other. The lady was seconded by a young gentleman, of whom it was difficult to say, whether he sustained her argument from a dislike to the present order of things, or from a wish to ingratiate himself in her favour. The argument of the Garde du Corps was espoused, but soberly, by one of the passengers who was a mathematical professor at one of the Lyceums; he was not by any means an Ultra, but he supported the Bourbons, with moderate, gentlemanly and I therefore believe sincere attachment. This professor seemed a well informed sort of man; he told me that he was acquainted with Sir James M., formerly recorder at Bombay. On our arrival at the Bureau des Messageries, the whole company forgot their disputes and parted good friends; and the young man who was partisan of the young lady in the political dispute took care to inform himself of her abode in Paris. * * * * * Remarks on the various dramatic performances which I witnessed at Paris, with opinions on the French theatre in general. In my ideas of dramatic works I am neither rigidly classic nor romantic, and I think both styles may be good if properly managed and the interest well kept up; in a word I am pleased with all genres hors le genre ennuyux,[43] and tho' a great admirer of Shakespeare and Schiller, I am equally so of Voltaire, Racine and Corneille; I take equal delight in the pathos of the sentimental dramas of Kotzebue as in the admirable satire and vis comica of the unrivalled MoliÈre, so that on my arrival at Paris I was not violently prejudiced either for or against the French stage, but rather pre-occupied, to use a gentler term, in its favour; and I have not been at all disappointed, for I think I can pronounce it with safety the first, perhaps the only stage in Europe. I now mean to speak not of Operas, nor of Operas-comiques, nor of melodrames, nor of vaudevilles; all these have their respective merits; but when I speak of the French stage, I confine myself to the regular theatre of tragedy and comedy, of their classical pieces; in a word, to the dramatic performances usually given at the ThÉÂtre FranÇais. The first piece I saw performed was Manlius;[44] but I was too far off from the stage to judge of the acting, and could do little more than catch the sounds. The parterre and the whole house was full. I was in the fourth tier of boxes, yet I could distinguish at intervals the finest and most prominent traits, of Talma's acting, particularly in that scene where he upbraids his friend with having betrayed him. This he gave with uncommon energy and effect. The plot of this piece is very similar to that of Venice preserved.[45] The next piece I saw represented was the Avare of MoliÈre, which to me was one of the greatest dramatic treats I had ever witnessed. Every part was well supported. The next was Athalie of Racine. Here too I was highly gratified. Mlle Georges performed the part of Athalie and gave me the perfect ideal of the haughty Queen. Her narration of the dream was given with the happiest effect, and in her attempt to conceal her uneasiness and her affected contempt of the dream in these lines: Un songe, me devrois—je inquiÉter d'un songe? she seemed in reality to labour under all the anxiety and fatigue arising from it. That fine scene between Joad and Joas was well given, and the little girl who did the part of Joas performed with a good deal of spirit. The actor who played Joad recited in a most impressive manner the advice to the young prince terminating in these lines: Vous souvenant, mon fils, que cachÉ sous ce lin, The interrogating scene between Athalie and Joad was given spiritedly, but the rather abrupt and uncourtierlike reply to the Queen's remark, "Ils sont deux puissans dieux"—"Lui seul est dieu, Madame, et le vÔtre n'est rien"— excited a laugh and I fancy never fails to do so, every time the piece is performed. Racine has several passages in his tragedies which perhaps have rather too much naivetÉ for the dignity of the cothurnus; for instance in the answer of Agamemnon to Achille in the tragedy of IphigÉnie: Puisque vous le savez, pourquoi le demander? A poet of to-day would be quizzed for a line like the above, but who dare venture to point out any defect in an author of whom Voltaire has said and with justice too, that the only criticism to be made of him (Racine) would be to write under every page: "Admirable, harmonieux, sublime!" The costume and the decorations at the ThÉÂtre franÇais are so strictly classical and appropriate in every respect, that it is to me a source of high delight to witness the representation of the favourite pieces of Racine, Corneille, MoliÈre and Voltaire, which I have so often read with so much pleasure in the closet and no small quantity of which I have by heart. The next piece I saw was the Cinnna of Corneille; and here it was that I beheld Talma for the second time. I was of course highly pleased, tho' I was rather far off to hear very distinctly; this was, however, no very great loss, as I was perfectly well acquainted with the tragedy. Talma's gestures, his pause's, his natural mode of acting gave a great relief to the long declamation with which this tragedy abounds. When this tragedy was given it was during the time that poor LabÉdoyÈre's trial was going on, and the allusions to Augustus' clemency were eagerly seized and applauded. It was hoped that Louis XVIII would imitate Augustus. Vain hope! I have seen PhÈdre; the part of PhÈdre by that admirable actress Mlle Duchesnois, who performs the part so naturally and with so much passion that we entirely forget the extreme plainness of the person. She acts with far more feeling and pathos than Mlle Georges. I shall never be able to forget Mlle Duchesnois in PhÈdre. She gave me a full idea of the impassioned Queen, nor were it possible to depict with greater fidelity the "VÉnus toute entiÈre À sa proie attachÉe," as in that beautiful speech of PhÈdre to Oenone wherein she reveals her passion for Hippolyte and pourtrays the terrible struggle between duty and female delicacy on the one hand, and on the other a flame that could not be overcome, convinced as it were of the complete inutility of further efforts of resistance and invoking death as her only refuge. I was moved even to tears. I am so great an admirer of the whole of this speech beginning "Mon mal vient de plus lorn" etc., and ending "Un reste de chaleur tout prÊt À s'exhaler," that I think in it Racine has not only united the excellencies of Euripides, Sappho and Theocritus in describing the passion of love, but has far surpassed them all; that speech is certainly the masterpiece of French versification and scarcely inferior to it is that beautiful and ingenuous confession of love by Hippolyte to Aricie. What an admirable pendant to the love of PhÈdre! In Hippolyte you behold the innocence, simplicity and ingenuousness of a first and pure attachment: in PhÈdre the embrasement, the ungovernable delirium of a criminal passion. I have seen Mlle Duchesnois again in the MÉrope of Voltaire and admire her more and more. This is an admirable play. The dialogue is so spirited; the agitation of maternal tenderness, and the occasional bursts of feelings impossible to be restrained, render this play one of the most interesting perhaps on the French stage, and Mlle Duchesnois gave with the happiest effect her part in those two scenes; the first wherein she supposes Egisthe to be the person who has killed her son; in the other where having discovered the reality of his person, she is obliged to dissemble the discovery, but on Egisthe being about to be sacrificed she exclaims "Barbare, c'est mon fils!" The part of Egisthe was given by a young actor who made his appearance at this theatre for the first tune, and he executed his part with complete success (Firmin, I think, was his name). Lafond did the part of Polyphonte and did it well. At this tragedy many allusions were caught hold of by the audience according as they were Bourbonically or Napoleonically inclined; at that part of Polyphonte's speech wherein he says: Le premier qui fut Roi fut un soldat heureux. Thunders of applause proceeded from those who applied it to Napoleon. At the line: Est il d'autre parti que celui de nos rois? a loud shout and clapping proceeded from the Royalists; but I fancy if hands had been shown these last would have been in a sad minority. I have often amused myself with comparing the MÉrope of Voltaire with that of Maffei and am puzzled to which to give the preference. Maffei has made Polyphonte a more odious and perhaps on that account a more theatrical character, while Voltaire's Polyphonte is more in real life. In the play of Voltaire he is a rough brutal soldier, void of delicacy of feeling and not very scrupulous, but not that praeternatural deep designing villain that he is represented in the piece of Maffei. In fact Maffei's Polyphonte appears too outrÉ; but then on the stage may not a little exaggeration be allowed, just as statues which are destined to be placed in the open air or on columns appear with greater effect when larger than the natural size? Alfleri seems to have given the preference to the MÉrope of Voltaire. I have seen Talma a second time in the part of Nero in the Britannicus of Racine; Mlle Georges played the part of Agrippina. Talma was Nero from head to foot; his very entry on the stage gave an idea of the fiery and impatient character of the tyrant, and in the scene between him and his mother Agrippina nothing could be better delineated. The forced calm of Agrippina, while reproaching her son with his ingratitude, and the impatience of Nero to get rid of such an importunate monitress, were given in a style impossible to be surpassed. Talma's dumb show during this scene was a masterpiece of the mimic art. If Talma gives such effects to his rÔles in a French drama, where he is shackled by rules, how much greater would he give on the English or German stages in a tragedy of Shakespeare or Schiller! Blank verse is certainly better adapted to tragedy than rhymed alexandrines, but then the French language does not admit of blank verse, and to write tragedies in prose, unless they be tragedies in modern life, would deprive them of all charm; but after all I find the harmonious pomp and to use a phrase of Pope's "The long majestic march and energy divine" of the French alexandrine, very pleasing to the ear. I am sure that the French poets deserve a great deal of credit for producing such masterpieces of versification from a language, which, however elegant, is the least poetical in Europe; which allows little or no inversion, scarce any poetic license, no enjambement, compels a fixed caesura; has in horror the hiatus; and in fine is subject to the most rigorous rules, which can on no account be infringed; which rejects hyperbole; which is measured by syllables, the pronunciation of which is not felt in prose; compels the alternative termination of a masculine or feminine rhyme; and with all this requires more perhaps than any other language that cacophony be sedulously avoided. Such are the difficulties a French poet has to struggle with; he must unite the most harmonious sound with the finest thought. In Italian very often the natural harmony of the language and the music of the sound conceal the poverty of the thought; besides Italian poetry has innumerable licenses which make it easy to figure in the Tuscan Parnassus, and where anyone who can string together rime or versi sciolti is dignified with the appellation of a poet; whereas from French poetry, a mediocrity is and must be of necessity banished. Neither is it sufficient for an author to have sublime ideas; these must be filed and pruned. Inspiration can make a poet of a German, an Italian or an Englishman, because he may revel in unbounded license of metre and language, but in French poetry inspiration is by no means sufficient; severe study and constant practise are as indispensable as poetic verve to constitute a French poet. The French poets are sensible of this and on this account they prefer imitating the ancients, polishing their rough marble and fitting it to the national taste, to striking out a new path. The AbbÉ Delille, the best poet of our day that France has produced, has gone further; he had read and admired the best English poets such as Milton, Pope, Collins and Goldsmith, and has not disdained to imitate them; yet he has imitated them with such elegance and judgment that he has left nothing to regret on the part of those of his countrymen who are not acquainted with English, and he has rendered their beauties with such a force that a foreigner Versed in both languages who did not previously know which was the original, and which the translation, might take up passages in Pope, Thomson, Collins and Goldsmith and read parallel passages in Delille and be extremely puzzled to distinguish the original: for none of the beauties are lost in these imitations. And yet, in preferring to imitate, it must not be inferred that he was deficient in original thoughts. To return to the theatre, I have seen Mlle Mars in the rÔle of Henriette in the Femmes Savantes of MoliÈre. Oh! how admirable she is! She realizes completely the conception of a graceful and elegant Frenchwoman of the first society. She does not act; she is at home as it were in her own salon, smiling at the silly pretensions of her sister and at the ridiculous pedantry of Trissotin; her refusing the kiss because she does not understand Greek was given with the greatest naivetÉ. In a word Mlle Mars reigns unrivalled as the first comic actress in Europe. I have seen too, Les Plaideurs of Racine and Les fourberies de Scapin of MoliÈre, both exceedingly well given; particularly the scene in the latter wherein it is announced to GÉronte that his son had fallen into the hands of a Turkish corsair, and his answer "Que diable allait-il faire dans la galÈre?" I have seen also Andromaque, IphigÉnie and ZaÏre. Mlle Volnais did the part of Andromaque; but the monotonous plaintiveness of her voice, which never changes, wearies me. In IphigÉnie I was more gratified; for Mlle Georges did the part of Clytemnestre, and her sister, a young girl of seventeen, made her dÉbut in the part of IphigÉnie with great effect. The two sisters supported each other wonderfully well, and Lafond did Agamemnon very respectably. Mlle Georges the younger, having succeeded in IphigÉnie, appeared in the part of ZaÏre, a bold attempt, and tho' she did it well and with much grace, yet it was evidently too arduous a task for her. The whole onus of this affecting piece rests on the rÔle of ZaÏre. In the part where naivetÉ was required she succeeded perfectly and her burst: "Mais Orosmane m'aime et j'ai tout oublie" was most happy; but she was too faint and betrayed too little emotion in portraying the struggle between her love for Orosmane and the unsubdued symptoms of attachment to her father and brother and to the religion of her ancestors. In short, where much passion and pathos was required, there she proved unequal to the task; but she has evidently all the qualities and dispositions towards becoming a good actress, and with more study and practise I have no doubt that three or four years hence, she will be fully equal to the difficult task of giving effect to and portraying to life, the exquisitely touching and highly interesting rÔle of ZaÏre. She was not called for to appear on the stage after the termination of the performance, tho' frequently applauded during it. The actor who did the part of Orosmane, in that scene wherein he discovers he has killed ZaÏre unjustly, gave a groan which had an unhappy effect; it was such an awkward one, that it made all the audience laugh; no people catch ridicule so soon as the French. What I principally admire on the French stage is that the actors are always perfect in their parts and all the characters are well sustained; the performance never flags for a moment; and I have experienced infinitely more pleasure in beholding the dramas of Racine and Voltaire than those of Shakespeare, and for this reason that, on our stage, for one good actor you have the many who are exceedingly bad and who do not comprehend their author: you feel consequently a hiatus valde deflendus when the principal actor or actress are not on the stage. I have been delighted to see Kemble, and Mrs Siddons and Miss O'Neil, and while they were on the stage I was all eyes and ears; but the other actors were always so inferior that the contrast was too obvious and it only served to make more conspicuous the flagging of interest that pervades the tragedies of Shakespeare, Macbeth alone perhaps excepted. I speak only of Shakespeare's faults as a dramaturgus and they are rather the faults of his age than his own; for in everything else I think him the greatest litterary genius that the world ever produced, and I place him far above any poet, ancient or modern; yet in allowing all this, I do not at all wonder that his dramatic pieces do not in general please foreigners and that they are disgusted with the low buffoonery, interruption of interest and want of arrangement that ought of necessity to constitute a drama; for I feel the same objections myself when reading Shakespeare, and often lose patience; but then when I come to some sublime passage, I become wrapt up in it alone and totally forget the piece itself. In order to inspire a foreigner with admiration for Shakespeare, I would not give him his plays to read entire, but I would present him with a recueil of the most beautiful passages of that great poet; and I am sure he would be so delighted with them that he would readily join in the "All Hail" that the British nation awards him. Thus you may perceive the distinction I make between the creative genius who designs, and the artist who fills up the canvas; between the Poet and the Dramaturgus. I am probably singular in my taste as an Englishman, when I tell you that I prefer Shakespeare for the closet and Racine or Voltaire or Corneille for the stage: and with regard to English tragedies, I prefer as an acting drama Home's Douglas[46] to any of Shakespeare's, Macbeth alone excepted; and for this plain reason that the interest in Douglas never flags, nor is diverted. |
|
