Rachel (1887 British Edition)/Chapter 4
THE THÉÂTRE FRANÇAIS.
For eight months Rachel worked with unflagging zeal under Samson's direction. A great change came over her during this time. The stunted figure grew several inches, the pale complexion became clear and healthy, the voice musical and capable of every inflexion of feeling. She, as well as those surrounding her, thought the time had come for her appearance before the fastidious audience of the Rue de Richelieu. "On the 10th June," Védel tells us, "Mademoiselle Rachel, who often came to the theatre, said impatiently to me, 'I want to make my début, and have done with this suspense.' 'When you like,' I answered, 'will the day after to-morrow suit you?' She flushed up, and, with a look of delight I shall never forget, replied quickly, 'Yes, it will suit me.' 'In what part will you appear?' I asked her. 'In whatever you like.' 'What do you say to Camille in Les Horaces?' 'Very well, Camille.' 'Go, then, my child, and tell M. Samson that your début will be announced for the day after to-morrow.' 'But I have not got the dress.' 'Don't trouble about that, I will see to it.' Next day I took her myself what was necessary. She then lived on the sixth story at No. 23 Rue Traversière, Saint Honoré. On the 12th June 1838, therefore, Rachel appeared at the Français, for the first time, as Camille."
Since the day when, early in 1639, Corneille's tragedy of Les Horaces was first acted at the Hotel de Bourgogne, it had kept its place as one of the great classics of the French language. We in England find it difficult to understand the enthusiasm of Frenchmen for Corneille and Racine, the one seems hard and dry, the other but a weak echo of Euripides and Sophocles; but, as Saint Beuve said to the English critic who ventured to dissent from his opinion that Lamartine was a poet of very high importance, "He was important to us." Corneille and Racine were and are important to Frenchmen. They delight in the grandiloquent patriotism of Les Horaces, the high-sounding heroism of Polyeucte and the overstrained honour of Cinna. The scene where the elder Horace parts from his son and the affianced lover of his daughter, soon to face each other in deadly strife, and ends by saying, "Moi même en cet adieu, j'ai les larmes aux yeux. Faites voire devoir, et laisser faire aux dieux"; or his bitter invectives against his third son for having, as was supposed, fled from the field, and his fierce reply to the question, "Que vouliez-vous qu'il fit contre trois?" "Qu'il mourut," had become a portion of the intellectual pabulum on which the youth of France was nourished, and stock pieces at every Academy recital; but, as Samson tells us, in the few years preceding Rachel's advent, ordinary readers had put them on the shelves of their libraries, and no longer cared to see them acted. They were fascinated by the movement, poetry and picturesqueness of Hernani and Ruy Blas and would not submit to the cold formality of the stereotyped temples and palaces where Orestes, Hermione, and Andromaque wandered, repeating lines and passages which, certainly, had been transmitted from generation to generation, and were still engraven on men's hearts, but from which, for stage representation, all fire seemed to have departed, now that Talma was no longer there to infuse the strength and energy of his genius into them. Corneille was wont proudly to exclaim, when the faults of his plays were pointed out to him by contemporary critics, "Je ne suis pas moins pour cela Pierre Corneille." His theoretical admirers might still re-echo the boast; but the practical fact was, that since Talma's death the appearance of his name on the "affiche" meant a severe financial loss to the Français. The horn-blasts, moonlight scenes, tapestry, armour, and brocades of the romantic drama, "tickled the fancy of the town," and there was no way of obtaining a hearing for Greek and Roman warriors and heroines, dressed in the sternly simple togas and peplums designed by David. One critic, indeed, so impressed was he by the superior spectacular attractions of the new school, suggested that, as the tragedies of Racine and Corneille could not be totally eliminated from the repertory of the Théâtre Français, they ought to be represented with the costumes in fashion at the time they were written. Had it not been for the opportune appearance of Rachel, the French public might have been treated to the exhibition of Orestes and Achilles in full bottom wigs and knee breeches, and Iphigenia and Hermione in brocades and stomachers.
Honour and praise, therefore, are due to the "young Antigone," who stood forth alone and unaided, supporting ancient tragedy like the blind and bleeding Oedipus. On the one side was ranged, as we have said, public opinion and fashion, led by the members of the Romantic school, numbering in their ranks the names of all the greatest poets and artists of the day; on the other this insignificant, uneducated little Jewish girl, embued with all the courage of genius, convinced of the justice of her perceptions, undaunted by praise or blame, trampling under her little foot, not only the tenets of the Romanticists, but setting at nought all the preconceived notions of the classicists themselves. Where tradition and custom had sanctified rant, she was quiet and subdued. Where violent, quick gestures were expected, she was calm and dignified. In the celebrated imprecation launched by Camille against Rome, "Rome l'unique objet de mon resentiment," instead of casting off all restraint and passionately shrieking it, as almost every actress had done hitherto, she began in a low voice, standing motionless, as though petrified to stone, and gradually mounted, step by step, gradation by gradation, to the supreme moment of anguish and despair. The public were taken by surprise; they did not know what or when to applaud, and sat stupefied, gazing at this child who thus dared to violate ancient usages. They felt there was something unconventional, something that moved them in spite of themselves, but did not consent for weeks to acknowledge that the power the young girl exercised was genius, and genius of the very highest order.
Again it was Mars who had the discrimination to appreciate the genius of the young girl who, as a child, she had encouraged four years before. Daughter of Monval, who had acted with Talma, and herself a contemporary of Duchesnois, Rancourt, and Georges, Mars had inherited some of the greatest memories of the French stage, and could form a just appreciation of Rachel's powers. M. de Varenne relates the following incident:—
It was the day of Rachel's début, she was to perform Camille in Les Horaces. I met Mademoiselle Mars at the theatre, who said to me, "You are aware that there is a débutante to-day?" "Ah!" I replied, "it seems there is nothing extraordinary about her." "On the contrary, I have seen her, and I can tell you great things may be expected of her." I accompanied Mademoiselle Mars to her box; we were alone with a young man, who stood behind, and during the whole performance criticised the young actress, in the hope, of course, of gratifying the older one. When Camille appeared on the stage, Mars followed her attentively; then turning to me, she said, with a half nod and a sigh of satisfaction, "She walks the stage well." Those acquainted with theatrical criticism well know what praise was contained in these simple words, especially from the lips of Mars. Sabine addresses a few words to Camille when the latter appears on the stage. Mademoiselle Rachel had not yet opened her lips, when Mars turned to me again, and regarding me with an air of personal triumph, said, "And she listens well." Listening well is the height of art, which few actresses possess—an art as difficult, more difficult, perhaps, than that of speaking well. Mademoiselle Mars was too profoundly, too delicately artistic, not to seize with delight the slightest nuance. Camille spoke in her turn. She had scarcely uttered half a dozen lines, when Mars exclaimed, with an expression of relief I shall never forget, "Ah! I told you she does not declaim, she speaks!" When the famous imprecation came, instead of the classic elevation of the voice, and those noisy outbursts of grief, which carry away the audience and force applause, Mademoiselle Rachel, either through fatigue, calculation, or disdain of received traditions, uttered these words hoarsely, and with concentrated feeling, so that the public, who expected something very different, did not applaud. "Ah!" the young gentleman remarked, "she lacks strength." "But, Sir," Mademoiselle Mars exclaimed, turning sharply to him, as if stung to the quick, "surely you will allow her to recruit her strength. Are you afraid she will not grow old soon enough? She grows taller while performing, this young girl." For my own part, though far from ill-disposed to the young actress, I could not summon up such an amount of admiration, and was struck by Mademoiselle Mars' enthusiasm.
Another member of "the profession," not so eminent a one as Mademoiselle Mars, but still a competent judge, Joanny, wrote in his journal on the 16th June 1838: "I took the part of Augustus last night; I acted well and was recalled. That little . . . has something in her, however." That little three-stars was Mademoiselle Rachel, and the something she had in her was more than even Joanny dreamt of in his philosophy! Then comes Védel the manager's hard business-like account. "She was well received, but with no more than the usual favour shown to beginners. The theatre was empty; it was not the fashionable time of year. Her appearance had not been heralded with the usual amount of newspaper paragraphs. No one knew Mademoiselle Rachel's name: no particular interest, therefore, was felt in this representation. She appeared, like so many others, without leaving an unfavourable impression, but, we must confess, without making anything like a success." After Camille she acted as Émilie in Cinna, Hermione in Andromaque, and Aménaïde in Tancrède. It was in the latter, represented on the 9th August, that Rachel first attracted public attention. The papers and placards had announced this réprise long before. There was a full house, a great many tickets must have been given away, since the total receipts only reached the sum of 623 francs. But she was able to appear before a larger number of spectators, of whom the majority did not even know her name. She was very much applauded in the second act, still louder at the fourth, and at the end of the piece she was enthusiastically recalled, and a bouquet and a crown were thrown to her.
"Was the impulse given?" asks Védel. "Alas! no; the amount of the receipts proves that conclusively. At this time I had serious opposition to encounter. Mademoiselle Rachel had acted in six different parts (16th August), many more than it is the custom of the Théâtre Français to allow when an actor or actress has not had a decided success, or even a succès de vogue. Now she could not be said to have had this since the receipts were so low. The actress above Rachel, who had been an associate for some years, demanded that she should be allowed to take the rôles usually assigned to her. I must congratulate myself for having at this moment rendered a great service to the theatre and dramatic art, by refusing to listen to these pretensions, and by persevering in the appearances of the great tragedian still unknown to the public."
The appreciative manager at last reaped his reward. The press, so decisive in all theatrical and literary matters in Paris, had as yet held aloof, hardly mentioning the young artist. M. Rolle, in the National, certainly devoted a feuilleton to the appearance of three young girls, Mademoiselles Hélène Gaussin, Rabut, and Rachel. He awarded, without hesitation, the palm of beauty to Gaussin, but allowed that, in spite of many disadvantages and an unattractive exterior, Rachel was the one who impressed the public with the most idea of talent. Frederic Souliè, who, in Janin's absence, was writing the weekly article in the Débats, dismissed contemptuously the doings for the months of July and August at the Comédie Française with the following words: "If you wish to know what the prospects of the Français are, I can tell you that the young recruits are wretched; none seem likely to arise who will adequately replace those that are leaving." Rachel had already, when this was written, acted Camille, Émilie, and Hermione. It needed a critic more appreciative than Souliè, therefore, to draw attention to the young actress, and that critic was found in Véron, "the self-elected Maecenas" of the French literary world, who wrote under the pseudonym of the "Bourgeois de Paris." He thus describes the impression the young actress made upon him the first time be saw her at the Français:—
One fine summer evening, June 12th, 1838, seeking for shade and solitude (everything, even shade and solitude, may be found in Paris by him who seeketh diligently), I entered the Théâtre Français between 8 and 9 o'clock. There were four people in the stalls; I made the fifth. My attention was suddenly attracted to the stage by a strange and expressive countenance; the brow was prominent, the eye dark, deep set and full of fire; while a certain elegance and dignity in movement and attitude saved the fragile body from insignificance. A clear, musical, and above all sympathetic voice, roused me at once out of my indolence and indifference. This strange countenance, this eye full of fire, this sympathetic voice, belonged to Mademoiselle Rachel. She was acting Camille in Les Horaces for the first time. A crowd of confused memories swept over my brain, and at last I remembered an odd-looking girl who had acted in the Vendéene at the Gymnase; and I also remembered this same young girl, miserably shod and poorly clad, being asked in the corridor of the theatre "what she was doing," and answering, to my great astonishment, in a slow, serious voice, "I am pursuing my studies." I discovered in Mademoiselle Rachel that young actress who had appeared in the Vendéene at the Gymnase, and the poorly-clad girl who "was pursuing her studies." From that moment I became a passionate admirer of her talent. I sought my friend Merle, who generally entered into my literary enthusiasms and ideas, hoping to induce him to follow with me the career of the child I already called my little prodigy. "When the twelve or fifteen hundred men of taste and judgment who constitute public opinion in Paria," I said to him, "have heard and passed judgment on that child, she will be the glory and fortune of the Comédie Française."
In spite of the prophecy of the enthusiastic "Bourgeois de Paris," however, the select twelve or fifteen hundred, la Clique in fact, did not appear, and Rachel continued to act to empty houses.