Old and New Paris Part 22

"Je sais mes perfidies, OEnone, et ne suis pas de ces femmes hardies Qui, goutant dans le crime une tranquille paix, Ont su se faire un front qui ne rougit jamais."

As the d.u.c.h.ess de Bouillon, according to Mdlle. a.s.se, was capricious, violent, impulsive, and much addicted to love affairs, she might well be considered one of those "brazen women who, finding an untroubled calm in crime, succeed in acquiring a brow that knows no blush." It may readily be believed, too, that Adrienne made every point tell, so that the d.u.c.h.ess, brazen-faced as she might be, would feel wounded to the quick.

So appropriate were the verses and so clear was the intention of the much-loved actress in applying them, that the audience, in full sympathy with her, applauded to the point of wild enthusiasm.

Voltaire, on the other hand, wrote in a ma.n.u.script note appended to Mdlle. a.s.se's narrative: "She died in my arms of inflammation of the bowels, and it was I who caused the body to be opened. All that Mdlle.

a.s.se says on the subject is mere popular rumour without any foundation."

If the French clergy objected usually to bury actors and actresses with religious rites, they were scarcely likely to make an exception in favour of an actress who had died in the arms of Voltaire. Her body, then, was thrown "a la voirie," as the author of _Candide_ puts it, or, to be exact, was buried somewhere on the banks of the Seine, in the neighbourhood of a wharf, the interment being made secretly and at midnight, as though poor Adrienne had been a criminal. The Abbe Languet, Cure of Saint-Sulpice, the parish to which Adrienne Lecouvreur belonged, after taking the orders of the Archbishop, had refused to admit her body to the cemetery, and all hope of a Christian burial was then abandoned.

The intolerance of the archbishop and of the priest provoked from Voltaire some indignant verses, beginning as follows:--

"Ah, verrai-je toujours ma faible nation, Incertaine en ses voeux, fletrir ce qu'elle admire; Nos moeurs avec nos lois toujours se contredire; Et le Francais volage endormi sous l'empire De la superst.i.tion?"[D]

[D] Voltaire's lines do not lend themselves easily to translation:--"Ah, must I ever see my weakly nation, inconstant in its loves, degrade that which it admires;--our morals ever at variance with our laws;--the quick-witted Frenchman drugged by superst.i.tion?"

Voltaire, in writing the poem from which the above stanza is quoted, had simply obeyed his own natural impulse. His verses were not intended for publication, for he knew that if they were seen by the clergy they might get him into trouble. He simply sent a copy of the poem to his friend Thieriot, and perhaps to others, with a strong recommendation to keep it secret. The first thing, however, that Thieriot seems to have done was to take Voltaire's verses with him into society, where he was always received in the character of "Voltaire's friend." The poet had probably exaggerated the danger. The clergy could have no wish to re-awaken the scandal caused by the circ.u.mstances of Adrienne Lecouvreur's burial, and though Voltaire left Paris when he found that his poem on the death of Adrienne was being circulated everywhere in ma.n.u.script, there does not seem to have been any necessity for this species of flight. The place of Adrienne's burial, which long remained unknown, was discovered years afterwards, during some work of excavation and demolition. Voltaire and Maurice de Saxe were both dead; but an old friend of hers, named D'Argental, was still living, and he hastened to mark the spot by a tablet to her memory.

The Comedie Francaise, beneath whose shadow Adrienne Lecouvreur was brought up, is not the only theatre connected with the Palais Royal.

The Theatre du Palais Royal forms part of the s.p.a.cious construction from which it derives its name, and is entered from the Palais Royal itself. Standing at the northern extremity of the Galerie de Beaujolais, it was constructed in 1783 by Louis, architect to the Duke of Orleans.

Its original name was Theatre Beaujolais, and its original occupant the manager of a company of marionettes. The marionettes were replaced by children playing exclusively in pantomimes. But in 1790 Mdlle.

Montansier, who had formerly directed the Royal Theatre of Versailles, and who had followed the king and queen, took possession of the little theatre in the Palais Royal, and opened it under the t.i.tle of Theatre des Varietes. Every kind of play was presented, and it was here that the directress brought out as a child the afterwards famous Mdlle. Mars.

In time, under the Empire, the company of the Palais Royal left it to take possession of the theatre on the Boulevard Montmartre, to which the name of Theatre des Varietes was thereupon transferred. The Palais Royal Theatre now pa.s.sed into the hands of a succession of managers, who relied, one on tight-rope dancers, another on marionettes, and a third on learned dogs. "These animals," says Brazier in his "Pet.i.ts Theatres de Paris," "played their parts with an intelligence not often met with among bipeds. The company was completed with its light and low comedian, its walking gentleman, its heavy father, its chambermaid, its leading actor and actress, and so on. For the four-footed artists was arranged a melodrama which was scarcely worse than many others I have seen. Many private persons took their dogs to this theatre to act as 'supers.'

Nothing droller can be imagined than these performances."

From 1814 to 1818 the theatre was changed into a cafe-concert, inappropriately ent.i.tled Cafe de la Paix. This establishment became famous during the Hundred Days. Men of different periods met there as on some appointed fighting-ground; and as a result of many violent scenes the house had to be closed.

After the Revolution of 1830 the theatre, still a.s.sociated with the name of Mdlle. Montansier, was restored to its original purpose. Entirely reconstructed, it was opened to the public in June, 1831, under the t.i.tle of Theatre du Palais Royal. A company of excellent comedians had been engaged, many of whom, such as Alcide, Tousez, Achard, Leva.s.sor (who loved to impersonate eccentric Englishmen), Gra.s.sot, Ravel, and the fascinating Virginie Dejazet, were to attain European fame. Here were produced a number of highly diverting pieces, several of which have become known in translated or adapted form at our London theatres; for example, _Indiana et Charlemagne_ (_Antony and Cleopatra_); _Le Chapeau de Paille d'Italie_ (_A Wedding March_); _La Chambre aux deux Lits_ (_The Double-Bedded Room_); _Gra.s.sot embete par Ravel_ (_Seeing Wright_); _Un Garcon de chez Very_ (_Whitebait at Greenwich_); with many others.

The liveliest and most risky pieces of the French stage have for the most part seen the light at the Palais Royal Theatre. These productions were, not without reason, considered in a general way unfit for the ears of young girls; and it became one of the recognised privileges of the married woman to be able in her new state to witness a Palais Royal farce. Even wives, however, in many cases thought it as well, while seeing, not to be seen at the Palais Royal; and for the benefit of such ladies were provided an extra number of _loges grillees_--those _loges grillees_, otherwise _pet.i.tes loges_, one of which a certain abbe wished to have for the first performance of _The Marriage of Figaro_, when the author declined, declaring with indignant satire that he had "no sympathy with those who wished to unite the honours of virtue with the pleasures of vice."

The _pet.i.te loge_ of France, like the private box of England, is comparatively a modern invention. In neither country were such things known till the end of the last century; and it is probable that, like most other theatrical novelties, they were imported, not from England into France, but from France into England. Even thirty or forty years ago private boxes were much less numerous at our English theatres than they have since become. They have increased in proportion as the pit has diminished, and, in some theatres, entirely disappeared. On their first introduction they were unpopular in both countries.

"This is a modern refinement," writes Mercier, just before the Revolution of 1789, "or rather a public and very indecent nuisance introduced to please the humour of a few hundreds of our women of fas.h.i.+on. These boxes are held by subscription from year to year; nay, from mother to daughter, as part of her inheritance. Nothing could ever be devised better calculated to favour the impertinent pride and idleness of a first-rate actor, who, being paid handsomely by his share of the subscription, even before the beginning of the season, takes no trouble about getting up new parts, but solicits, under some pretence or another, leave of absence, and receives annually some 18,000 livres from the inhabitants of the capital, whilst he is holding forth at Brussels.

Another objection against these hired boxes is that the comedians have constantly refused to admit the authors of new plays to a share in the subscription money; and they are so sensible to this advantage that they are daily improving it by throwing part of the pit into this kind of boxes. Whilst the public complain loudly of such encroachments on the liberty of the playhouses, hear the apology set up by our _belles_: 'What! will you, then, to oblige the _canaille_, compel me to hear out a whole play, when I am rich enough to see only the last scene?

This is a downright tyranny! I protest! There is no police in France nowadays. Since I cannot have the comedians come to my own house, I will have the liberty to come in my plain deshabille, enjoy my arm-chair, receive the homage of my humble suitors, and leave the place before I am tired. It would be monstrous to deprive me of all these indulgences, and positively encroach upon the prerogatives of wealth and _bon ton_.'

A lady therefore, to be in fas.h.i.+on, must have her _pet.i.te loge_, her lap-dog, etc.; but above all, a man-puppy who stands, gla.s.s in hand, to tell her ladys.h.i.+p who comes in and goes out, name the actors and so forth, whilst the lady herself displays a fan, which, by a modern contrivance, answers all the purpose of an opera-gla.s.s, with this advantage, that she may see without being seen. Meanwhile the honest citizen, who, like a tasteless plebeian, imagines that play-houses are opened for entertainment, cannot get in for his money, because part of the house is let by the year, though empty for the best part of it, so that he is obliged to put up, instead of rational amus.e.m.e.nt, with the low, indecent farces acted on the booth of the boulevards."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE COMMITTEE ROOM OF THE COMeDIE FRANcAISE: ALEXANDRE DUMAS (THE YOUNGER) READING A PLAY.

(_From the painting of Laiss.e.m.e.nt in the Comedie Francaise._)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: BEHIND THE SCENES: COMeDIE FRANcAISE.]

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE NATIONAL LIBRARY AND THE BOURSE.

The "King's Library"--Francis I. and the Censors.h.i.+p--The Imperial Library--The Bourse.

The most interesting edifice in the Rue Richelieu is the Library, called, according to the existing form of Government, Royal, National, or Imperial. Its original t.i.tle was King's Library (Bibliotheque du Roi), and it has been suggested that, to avoid the frequent changes of name to which the instability of things in France seems to expose this valuable inst.i.tution, it should be called, once for all, Bibliotheque de France. The nucleus of the National Library, with its innumerable volumes, was formed by Charles V., and received considerable additions, considerable at least for the time, when books were scarce, from Louis XI. Under the reign of the latter sovereign so much value was attached to books of a rare character that, to obtain the loan of a certain volume written by the Arabian physician Rhazes, the king had to furnish security, and bind himself by the most solemn obligations to return it.

According to Dulaure, this pious monarch had but a poor reputation for returning books, combined with an eagerness for getting them into his possession. "In 1472," says the author of "The History of Paris" and of the "Singularites Historiques," "Hermann Von Stathoen came from Mayence to Paris entrusted by the famous printers Scheffer and Hanequis to sell a certain number of printed books. While at Paris he was attacked by fever and died. In virtue of the _droit d'aubain_ the king's officers took possession of the books and money of the defunct, sending the latter to the king's exchequer and the former to the king's library.

This proceeding was by no means to the taste of Scheffer and Hanequis, who complained to the emperor, and obtained from him letters addressed to Louis XI. in which the French king was invited to restore both books and money. Louis XI. admitted the justice of the claim, and on the twenty-first of April, 1475, issued Letters Patent in these terms: 'Desiring to treat favourably the subjects (Scheffer and Hanequis) of the Archbishop of Mayence, and having regard to the trouble and labour which the persons in question have had in connection with the art and craft of printing, and to the profit and utility derived from it, both for the public good and for the increase of learning; and considering that the value and estimation of the said books and other property which have come to our knowledge do not amount to more than 2,425 crowns and three sous, at which the claimants have valued them, we have for the above considerations and others liberally condescended to cause the said sum of 2,425 crowns and three sous to be restored to the said Conrad Hanequis.'" Dulaure, after citing this letter, adds that the rest.i.tution was made in such a manner that the printers received every year from the King's Treasury a mere driblet of 800 livres, or francs, until the entire sum had been repaid.

Louis XII. had formed a library of his own at Blois, to which he added those collected by his predecessors. Francis I., called the Father of Letters, honoured writers, and had a particular taste for ma.n.u.scripts; but he detested printed books, and, like the reactionists of the period, deplored the invention of printing, which the previous occupants of his throne had looked upon as of the greatest benefit to mankind. On the 13th of June, 1535, he ordered all the printing offices in the kingdom to be closed, and prohibited, under the severest penalties, the printing of any fresh books. Some have supposed that the king's sole object was, by preventing the reproduction of books, to keep up the value of the ma.n.u.scripts which he so much prized. Against this view, however, must be placed the fact that when, in reply to remonstrances from various deputations, he rescinded his order against the printing offices a month after its issue, he at the same time limited the number of printing offices to twelve, which were only allowed to print books approved beforehand and deemed absolutely necessary. Thus Francis I. must be regarded as the inventor of that nefarious inst.i.tution, the Censors.h.i.+p, which followed the invention of printing as shadow follows light. After the lapse of a century or two, the Censors.h.i.+p was destined to do harm to France, even in a commercial sense; for numbers of books which the Censor would never have allowed to be brought out in France were printed and sold in England, Holland, and Germany.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ENTRANCE TO THE NATIONAL LIBRARY IN THE RUE DES PEt.i.tS CHAMPS.]

"Whoever opposes the freedom of the Press," wrote Mercier on this subject two centuries and a half after Francis I.'s inst.i.tution of the Censors.h.i.+p, "is a professed foe to improvement, and, of course, to mankind. But the very obstacles which are laid in an author's way are an inducement to break through all restrictions. 'It is in man's nature,'

observes Juvenal, 'to wish for those things which are prohibited merely because they are so.' Were we permitted to enjoy even a moderate freedom authors would seldom fall into licentiousness. It may be set down as an axiom that the civil liberty of any nation may be estimated by the liberty of its Press. If so, we daily take new strides towards slavery, since the ministers are every day forging new fetters for the Press. What is the consequence of this unnatural restraint? All books published here on the history, political interests, and even manners of foreign nations are the most incomplete and despicable productions that ever disgraced a country. If despotism could, as it were, murder our thoughts in their impenetrable sanctuary, it would do so; but as it is beyond its power to pluck out the tongue of the true philosopher, or deprive him of the use of his instructive hand, other means are employed--a State inquisition is set on foot, and the boundaries of literature and all its avenues are blocked up by a world of satellites who endeavour to interrupt the slightest correspondence between truth and mankind. Fruitless endeavours! So preposterous an attempt against our natural and civil rights serves only to expose to public hatred the wretches who dare thus far to encroach on man's first privilege, that of thinking for himself. Reason daily gets ground, its powerful light s.h.i.+nes to every eye, and all the witchcraft of tyranny cannot plunge it into utter darkness. In vain will despotism dread or persecute men of genius; all its efforts cannot put out the light of truth; and the sentence it awards against the injustice of men in power shall be confirmed by indignant posterity. You brave inhabitants of Great Britain! ye are strangers to our shameful slavery. Never, ah, never give up the freedom of the Press; it is the pledge of your liberty. It may be truly said that you are the only representatives of mankind. You alone have hitherto supported its dignity, and human reason, expelled from the Continent, has found a safer asylum in your fortunate island, whence it spreads its rays all over the world. We are so insignificant when compared with you, that you could hardly comprehend the excess of our humiliation." After this apostrophe, Mercier continues:--"If we next weigh the restraint laid on the Press in the scale of commercial interest, we shall find it greatly preponderate against the trade of this metropolis. The graphomania is not without its absurdities and disadvantages, but it is the chief support of different tradesmen. The Montagne Sainte-Genevieve is peopled by hawkers, bookbinders, etc., who must starve if not permitted to carry on the only business to which they were brought up. Meanwhile, as the desire of publis.h.i.+ng their thoughts is common to all men, the money which would be laid out amongst our own countrymen is paid to the printers of Holland, Flanders, and Germany."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BOURSE.]

While discouraging the multiplication of printed books, Francis I.

formed a valuable collection of ma.n.u.scripts, many of which were copies made by his orders in Italy. He brought together some 450 ma.n.u.scripts of various kinds, part of them original, the rest transcribed from the Greek (the king's favourite language), or from Eastern and other tongues. French literature was represented in the library of Francis I.

by the works of Louise de Savoie and her sister Marguerite.

Simple as was his collection of ma.n.u.scripts and printed books, Francis I. found it necessary to place them in the charge of an official bearing the t.i.tle of Master of the King's Library.

The library of Francis was at Fontainebleau, whence Henri IV. removed it to the College of Clermont at Paris. Catherine de Medicis formed a collection of books, including eight hundred Greek and Latin ma.n.u.scripts, which she added to those already preserved at the College of Clermont, the former habitation of the Jesuits, which, after their expulsion, was taken possession of by the Crown. When the Jesuits returned the books had to be removed, and they found a new abode in the house of the Cordeliers, on the site at present occupied by the School of Medicine. Under Louis XIII. the books were placed by the Cordeliers in the house belonging to the Order, but not occupied by it, in the Rue de la Harpe, and from the Rue de la Harpe they were, at the direction of the Minister Colbert, carried across the river to a house in the Rue Vivienne. The private library of the Count de Bethune, containing numerous works on the history of France, was next added to the Royal collection; and after the death of Cardinal Mazarin, his library was purchased from the heirs by Louis XV. and joined to the king's library, now of considerable value and importance. It has been seen that the library, justly called royal, was founded and constantly increased by the kings of France; and during the long and glorious reign of Louis XIV. the number of books on its shelves was raised from five thousand to seventy thousand.

A decree of Henri II. had ordered all booksellers to send copies of whatever works they produced to the king's library; and this was renewed and made thoroughly effective by the Great Monarch.

In 1697 the Mission of Father Bouvet brought back from China sixty-two volumes in the Chinese language and presented them to the Royal library.

These books formed the nucleus of a collection which since that time has gone on constantly augmenting. In 1700 the Archbishop of Rheims presented to the Royal library five hundred Hebrew, Greek, and Latin ma.n.u.scripts; and it received in the same year two ma.n.u.scripts from Spanvenfeld, master of the ceremonies at the Court of Stockholm. In this year, too, a number of Latin ma.n.u.scripts, including the works of Catullus, Propertius, and Tibullus, were bought at Rome for the French library.

In 1706 an ingenious theft was committed at this library by an apostate priest named Aymon. Wis.h.i.+ng, as he said, to consult certain works in order to demonstrate the errors of heretics, he asked for a number of ma.n.u.scripts, and, carrying them off, sold them at large prices in Holland.

After the Revolution, the Republican Government threw open to all comers a library which had previously been reserved for the use of a privileged few; and for many years the libraries of the French capital (for others in addition to the library founded by the French kings had now been formed) were the only ones in Europe which could be entered by the public at large. This fact scarcely harmonises with the a.s.sertion made by many writers, and insisted upon by M. Castil Blaze, that the Grand Opera was installed by the Republican Government in a house just opposite the famous library in order that when the Opera House met with the usual fate of theatres the library facing it might at the same time be burnt. A few members of the Commune of Paris may have been wild enough to declaim against all literature produced before the Revolution, on the supposition that it must of necessity be impregnated with feudal, monarchical, and generally anti-Liberal ideas. But the Republic as a whole proved in many ways its love of enlightenment. It was the Republic which established all over France colleges and gymnasiums at fees of a few s.h.i.+llings a month; which called, free of cost, to the lectures of the College of France or la Sorbonne all who wished to hear them, and fixed at a nominal sum the examination fee for students desiring to receive degrees in arts or sciences from the University of Paris.

During the Napoleonic period the Imperial Library, as it was now called, was enriched with numerous acquisitions from the countries invaded and conquered by the French army; and indignation is expressed even now by French writers at the spoils of war having been given back by the Allies, in their turn victorious, to the rightful owners. "The foreign powers," writes on this subject an eminent French publicist, "profited by their position after the fall of the Empire to claim all that had been carried away from their libraries at the time of our victories, now as trophies, now in virtue of formal stipulations in the treaties of peace. Austria was the first to demand rest.i.tution, and all that was taken from Vienna in 1809 had been given back when the return of Napoleon from Elba put an end to any further dealings in such matters.

In 1815, after the Waterloo Campaign, Austria demanded for the Italian provinces annexed to her empire, and for Italy generally, all the works of literature and art that our armies had taken from the Italians; and on the 4th of October, 1815, we were deprived of a magnificent artistic monument acquired through the bravery of our soldiers."

Mention has already been made of a theft of ma.n.u.scripts--not a wholesale robbery of works of art such as the Allies, in restoring certain statues to their rightful owners, were accused of committing; and on various occasions, ma.n.u.scripts, books, and models have been purloined by visitors to the library of the Rue Richelieu. The last misdeed of this kind occurred in 1848, when a member of the Inst.i.tute, M. Libri, was charged with stealing a book. Not caring to meet the accusation, he quitted the country, and in his absence was sentenced to ten years'

imprisonment.

If anyone, Frenchman or foreigner, enters a public library in Paris to look at any particular book he cannot, as at the British Museum Library, consult the catalogue himself; one of the librarians will do this for him, and do it in effect as well as such a thing can be done. But the reader must know beforehand what book, or, at least, what kind of book he wants. However learned and however attentive a librarian may be, he is not likely to make his researches with the same a.s.siduity and care as the earnest student occupied with one sole object. On the other hand, the librarian, as a man of learning, will know the literature of any one subject better than the ordinary student, and much better than the casual reader.

Besides the National Library of the Rue Richelieu, Paris possesses the Mazarin Library, the Library of the a.r.s.enal, of Sainte-Genevieve, of the Inst.i.tute, of the Town, of the Louvre, of the National a.s.sembly, of the Senate, and of a number of museums and learned societies.

As for the readers, they are as varied in character and often as original as those of our own British Museum. In the French, as in the English, reading-room one sees, side by side with writers of distinction, unhappy scribblers, who, in London, when the Museum closes at night, look at the thermometer and weatherc.o.c.k to see if Hyde Park or the casual ward be the wiser dormitory. It is merely to avoid _ennui_ that many readers resort alike to the Bibliotheque Nationale and to our own Museum. Men of private means, at once with and without resources, can there escape from their own society, and, whatever their taste in literature, find relief in some book. Noise is carefully prevented, and there are even readers who volunteer active aid in maintaining silence.

If anyone, for instance, speaks above a whisper, they hiss at him like serpents, or, wheeling round in their chairs, fold their arms and glare at him until he desists and leaves them once more to their sepulchral pursuits.

Both in France and in England the public libraries have two other cla.s.ses of readers. First, there is the somnolent reader, who stares for a few minutes vacantly at a book, drops, nods, and finally collapses with a snore. The music of the nose, however, is against the rules, and promptly brings down an "attendant." On the other hand--though, fortunately, as a rare specimen--we find the particularly wakeful reader, who in his neighbour's absence makes a clean sweep of that gentleman's property, and who is apt to attire himself in the wrong hat and overcoat, and to walk off with an innocent and even injured air.