The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 05, No. 29, March, 1860. Various
literati,—that "l'esprit a toujours quelque chose de satanique." Every revolution is identified with some musical air: when Louis XVIII. first appeared at the theatre, after his long exile, he was greeted with the "Vive Henri IV.," and the new constitution of 1830 was ushered in by the "Marseillaise." The Vaudeville theatre, we are told, during the Revolution and under the Empire, was essentially political. An imaginary resemblance between la chaste Suzanne and Marie Antoinette caused the prohibition of that drama; and the interest which Cambacères took in an actress of this establishment led him to give it his official protection.
In the family of nations France is the child of illusions, and excites the sympathy of the magnanimous because her destinies have been marred through the errors of the imagination rather than of the heart. Government, religion, and society—the three great elements of civil life—have nowhere been so modified by the dominion of fancy over fact. Take the history of French republicanism, of Quietism, of court and literary circles; what perspicuity in the expression, and vagueness in the realization of ideas! In each a mania to fascinate, in none a thorough basis of truth; abundance of talent, but no faith; gayety, gallantry, wit, devotion, dreams, and epigrams in perfection, without the solid foundation of principles and the efficient development in practice, either of polity, a social system, or religious belief,—the theory and the sentiment of each being at the same time luxuriant, attractive, and prolific.
The popular writers are eloquent in abstractions, but each seems inspired by a thorough egotism. Descartes, their philosopher, drew all his inferences from consciousness; Madame de Sévigné, the epistolary queen, had for her central motive of all speculation and gossip the love of her daughter; Madame Guyon eliminated her tenets from the ecstasy of self-love; Rochefoucauld derived a set of philosophical maxims from the lessons of mere worldly disappointment; Calvin sought to reform society through the stern bigotry of a private creed; La Bruyère elaborated generic characters from the acute, but narrow observation of artificial society; Boileau established a classical standard of criticism suggested by personal taste, which ignored the progress of the human mind.
The redeeming grace of the nation is to be found in its wholesome sense of the enjoyable and the available in ordinary life, in its freedom from the discontent which elsewhere is born of avarice and unmitigated materialism. The love of pleasing, the influence of women, and a frivolous temper everywhere and on all occasions signalize them. "Why, people laugh at everything here!" naively exclaimed the young Duchess of Burgundy, on her arrival at the French court.
The amount of commodities taken by French people on a journey, and the cool self-satisfaction with which they are appropriated as occasion demands, give a stranger the most vivid idea of sensual egotism. The pâté, the long roll of bread, the sour wine, the lap-dog, the snuff, and the night-cap, which transform the car or carriage into a refectory and boudoir, with the chatter, snoring, and shifting of legs, make an interior scene for the novice, especially on a night-jaunt, compared to which the humblest of Dutch pictures are refined and elegant.
The intrinsic diversity and the national relations between the French and English are curiously illustrated by their respective history and literature. Compare, for instance, the plays of Shakspeare, which dramatize the long wars of the early kings, with the account given in the journals of the reception of Victoria at Paris and of Louis Napoleon in London; imagine the royal salutation and the official recognition of the once anathematized Napoleon dynasty; General Bonaparte becomes in his tomb Napoleon I. No wonder "Punch" affirmed that the statue of Pitt shook its bronze head and the bones of Castlereagh stirred in protest.
"The English," says a celebrated writer, "like ancient medals, kept more apart, preserve the first sharpness which the fair hand of Nature has given them; they are not so pleasant to feel, but, in return, the legend is so visible, that, at the first look, you can see whose image and superscription they bear." This is a delicate way of setting forth the superior honesty and bluntness and the inferior smoothness and assimilating instinct of the Anglo-Saxon,—a vital difference, which no alliance or intercourse with his Gallic neighbors can essentially change.
A century ago there were few better tests of popular sentiment in England than the plays in vogue. As indications of the state of the public mind, they were what the ballads are to earlier times, and the daily press is to our own,—generalized casual, but emphatic proofs of the opinions, prejudices, and fancies of the hour. Now a large English colony is domesticated in France; it is but a few hours' trip from London to Paris; newspapers and the telegraph in both capitals make almost simultaneous announcements of news; the soldiers of the two nations fight side by side; the French shopman declares on his sign that English is spoken within; the "Times," porter, and tea are obtainable commodities in Paris; and fraternité is the watchword at Dover and Calais. Yet the normal idea which obtains in the conservative brain of a genuine Anglais, though doubtless expanded and modified by intercourse and treaties, may be found still in that once popular drama, Foote's "Englishman in Paris." "A Frenchman," says one of the characters, "is a fop. Their taste is trifling, and their politeness pride. What the deuse brings you to Paris, then? Where's the use? It gives Englishmen a true relish for their own domestic happiness, a proper veneration for their national liberties, and an honor for the extended generous commerce of their country. The men there are all puppies, the women painted dolls." Monsieur Ragout and Monsieur Rosbif bandy words; the former is said to "look as if he had not had a piece of beef or pudding in his paunch for twenty years, and had lived wholly on frogs,"—and the latter pines to leap a five-barred gate, and is afraid of being entrapped by "a rich she-Papist." His fair countrywoman is invited by a French marquis to marry him, with this programme,—"A perpetual residence in this paradise of pleasures; to be the object of universal adoration; to say what you please,—go where you will,—do what you like,—form fashions,—hate your husband, and let him see it,—indulge your gallant,—run in debt, and oblige the poor devil to pay it."
As a pendant, take the description of one of the last French novels:—"À Paris tout s'oublie, tout se pardonne. Par convenance, par décence, quelquefois par crainte, on s'absente, ou fait un entr'acte: puis le rideau se rèleve pour le spectacle de nouvelles fautes et de nouvelles folies; toute la question est de savoir s'y prendre."
Comedy is native to French genius and appreciation; it follows the changes of social life with marvellous celerity; it is the best school of the French language; and is refined and subdivided, as an art, both in degree and kind, in France more than in any other country. The prolific authors in this department, and the variety and richness of invention they display, as well as the permanent attraction of the Comic Muse, are striking peculiarities of the French theatre. No capital affords the material and the audience requisite for such triumphs like Paris; and there is always a play of this kind in vogue there, wherein novelty of combination, significance of dialogue, and artistic felicities quite unrivalled elsewhere, are exhibited.
It is quite the reverse with the serious drama. In England this is a form of literature which goes nearest to the normal facts and conditions of human nature; it teaches the highest and deepest lessons, wins the most profound sympathy, and is remarkable and interesting through its subtile and comprehensive truth to Nature: whereas in France the masters of tragic art are but skilful reproducers of the classical drama. French tragedy is essentially artificial, grafted on the conventionalities of a distant age. It gives scope either to mere elocutionary art or melodramatic invention,—not to the universal and existing passions. There is but a slender opportunity to identify our sympathies—those of modern civilization—with what is going on. Figures in Roman togas or Grecian mantles rehearse the sentiments of fatalism, the creed of ancient mythology, or Gallic rhetoric in a classic dress; and these disguises so envelope the love, ambition, despair, hate, or patriotism, that we are always conscious of the theatrical, and it requires the extraordinary gifts of a Rachel to enlist other than artistic interest.
The French have manuals for breathing and composing the features to secure artistic effects; they offer academic prizes for every conceivable achievement; their very lamp-posts are designed with taste; a huckster in the street will exhibit dramatic tact and wonderful mechanical dexterity. "Quand il paraît un homme de génie en France," says Madame de Staël, "dans quelque carrière que ce soit, il atteint presque toujours à un degré de perfection sans exemple; car il réunit l'audace qui fait sortir de la route commune au tact du bon goût." And yet in vast political interests