The Memoirs of Victor Hugo
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MADEMOISELLE MARS
In her last illness Mlle. Mars was often delirious. One evening the doctor arrived. She was in the throes of a high fever, and her mind was wandering. She prattled about the theatre, her mother, her daughter, her niece Georgina, about all that she held dear; she laughed, wept, screamed, sighed deeply.
The doctor approached her bed and said to her: “Dear lady, calm yourself, it is I.” She did not recognise him and her mind continued to wander. He went on: “Come, show me your tongue, open your mouth.” Mlle. Mars gazed at him, opened her mouth and said: “Here, look. Oh! all my teeth are my very own!”
Célimène still lived.
FREDERICK LEMAITRE
Frédérick Lemaitre is cross, morose and kind. He lives in retirement with his children and his mistress, who at present is Mlle. Clarisse Miroy.
Frédérick likes the table. He never invites anybody to dinner except Porcher, the chief of the claque.3 Fredérick and Porcher “thee-thou” each other. Porcher has common sense, good manners, and plenty of money, which he lends gallantly to authors whose rent is due. Porcher is the man of whom Harel said: “He likes, protects and disdains Literary men.”
Frédérick has never less than fifteen dishes at his table. When the servant brings them in he looks at them and judges them without tasting them. Often he says:
“That is bad.”
“Have you eaten of it?”
“No, God forbid!”
“But taste it.”
“It is detestable.”
“I will taste it,” says Clarisse.
“It is execrable. I forbid you to do so.”
“But let me try it.”
“Take that dish away! It is filthy!” And he sends for his cook and rates her soundly.
He is greatly feared by all his household. His domestics live in a state of terror. At table, if he does not speak, no one utters a word. Who would dare to break the silence when he is mute? One would think it was a dinner of dumb people, or a supper of Trappists, except for the good cheer. He likes to wind up the repast with fish. If there is turbot he has it served after the creams. He drinks, when dining, a bottle and a half of Bordeaux wine. Then, after dinner, he lights his cigar, and while smoking drinks two other bottles of wine.
For all that he is a comedian of genius and a very good fellow. He is easily moved to tears, which start to his eyes at a word said to him angrily or reproachfully.
This dates back to 1840. Mlle. Atala Beaudouin (the actress who under the name of Louise Beaudouin created the role of the Queen in Ruy Bias) had left Frédérick Lemaître, the great and marvellous comedian. Frédérick adored her and was inconsolable.
Mlle. Atala’s mother had strongly advised her daughter on this occasion. Frédérick was occasionally violent, notwithstanding that he was very amorous; and, besides, a Russian prince had presented himself. In short, Mlle. Atala persisted in her determination and positively refused to see Frederick.
Frederick made frightful threats, especially against the mother. One morning there was a violent ringing at Mlle. Atala’s bell. Her mother opened the door and recoiled in terror. It was Frédérick. He entered, dropped into the chair that was handiest to him, and said to the old woman:
“Don’t be afraid, I haven’t come to kick your – , I have come to weep.”
THE COMIQUES September, 1846
Potier, having grown old, played at the Porte Saint Martin towards the close of his life. He was the same in the street as he was on the stage. Little boys would follow him, saying: “There is Potier!” He had a small cottage near Paris and used to come to rehearsals mounted on a small horse, his long thin legs dangling nearly to the ground.
Tiercelin was a Hellenist. Odry is a connoisseur of chinaware. The elephantine Lepeintre junior runs into debt and lives the life of a coquin de neuveu.
Alcide Tousez, Sainville and Ravel carry on in the green room just as they do on the stage, inventing cock-and-bull yarns and cracking jokes.
Arnal composes classic verse, admires Samson, waxes wrath because the cross has not been conferred upon him. And, in the green room, with rouge on his nose and cheeks and a wig on his head, talks, between two slaps in the face given or received, about Guizot’s last speech, free trade and Sir Robert Peel; he interrupts himself, makes his entry upon the stage, plays his part, returns and gravely resumes: “I was saying that Robert Peel – ”
Poor Arnal recently was driven almost insane. He had a mistress whom he adored. This woman fleeced him. Having become rich enough she said to him: “Our position is an immoral one and an end must be put to it. An honest man has offered me his name and I am going to get married.” Arnal was disconsolate. “I give you the preference,” said the belle, “marry me.” Arnal is married. The woman left him and has become a bourgeoise. Arnal nearly lost his reason through grief. This does not prevent him from playing his pasquinades every night at the Vaudeville. He makes fun of his ugliness, of his age, of the fact that he is pitted with small-pox – laughs at all those things that prevented him from pleasing the woman he loved, and makes the public laugh – and his heart is broken. Poor red queue! What eternal and incurable sorrows there be in the gaiety of a buffoon! What a lugubrious business is that of laughter!
MADEMOISELLE GEORGES. October, 23, 1867
Mlle. George came to see me to-day. She was sad, and elegantly dressed in a blue dress with white stripes. She said: “I am weary and disgusted. I asked for Mars’ reversion. They granted me a pension of two thousand francs which they do not pay. Just a mouthful of bread, and even that I do not get a chance to eat! They wanted to engage me at the Historique (at the Théâtre Historique). I refused. What could I do there among those transparencies! A stout woman like me! Besides, where are the authors? Where are the pieces? Where are the roles? As to the provinces, I tried touring last year, but it is impossible without Harel.4 I don’t know how to manage actors. How do you think I can get on with these evil doers? I was to have finished the 24th. I paid them on the 20th, and fled. I returned to Paris to visit poor Harel’s tomb. It is frightful, a tomb! It is horrible to see his name there on the stone! Yet I did not weep. I was dry-eyed and cold. What a strange thing is life! To think that this man who was so clever, so witty, should die an idiot! He passed his days doing like this with his fingers. Not a spark of reason remained. It is all over. I shall have Rachel at my benefit; I shall play with her that chestnut “Iphigênie”. We shall make money, but I don’t care. Besides, I’m sure she wouldn’t play Rodogune! I will also play, if you will permit me, an act of “Lucrèce Borgia”. You see, I am for Rachel; she is an artful one, if you like. See how she checkmates those rascally French actors! She renews her engagements, assures for herself pyrotechnics, vacations, heaps of gold. When the contract is signed she says: “By the bye, I forgot to tell you that I have been enceinte for four months; it will be five months before I am able to play.” She does well. If I had done the same thing I shouldn’t have to die like a dog on a litter of straw. Tragedians, you see, are comedians after all. That poor Dorval, what has become of her, do you know? There is one to be pitied, if you like! She is playing I know not where, at Toulouse, at Carpentras, in barns, to earn her living! She is reduced like me to showing her bald head and dragging her poor old carcass on badly planed boards behind footlights of four tallow candles, among strolling actors who have been to the galleys, or who ought to be there! Ah! Monsieur Hugo, all this is nothing to you who are in good health and well off, but we are poor miserable creatures!”
TABLEAUX VIVANTS
In the year 1846 there was a spectacle that caused a furore in Paris. It was that afforded by women attired only in pink tights and a gauze skirt executing poses that were called tableaux vivants, with a few men to complete the groups. This show was given at the Porte Saint Martin and at the Cirque. I had the curiosity one night to go and see the women behind the scenes. I went to the Porte Saint Martin, where, I may add in parentheses, they were going to revive “Lucrêce Borgia”. Villemot, the stage manager, who was of poor appearance but intelligent, said: “I will take you into the gynecium.”
A score of men were there – authors, actors, firemen, lamp lighters, scene shifters – who came, went, worked or looked on, and in the midst of them seven or eight women, practically nude, walked about with an air of the most naïve tranquillity. The pink tights that covered them from the feet to the neck were so thin and transparent that one could see not only the toes, the navel, and the breasts, but also the veins and the colour of the least mark on the skin on all parts of their bodies. Towards the abdomen, however, the tights became thicker and only the form was distinguishable. The men who assisted them were similarly arranged. All these people were English.
At intervals of five minutes the curtain parted and they executed a tableau. For this they were posed in immobile attitudes upon a large wooden disc which revolved upon a pivot. It was worked by a child of fourteen who reclined on a mattress beneath it. Men and women were dressed up in chiffons of gauze or merino that were very ugly at a distance and very ignoble de prês. They were pink statues. When the disc had revolved once and shown the statues on every side to the public crowded in the darkened theatre, the curtain closed again, another tableau was arranged, and the performance recommenced a moment later.
Two of these women were very pretty. One resembled Mme. Rey, who played the Queen in “Ruy Blas” in 1840; it was this one who represented Venus. She was admirably shaped. Another was more than pretty: she was handsome and superb. Nothing more magnificent could be seen than her black, sad eyes, her disdainful mouth, her smile at once bewitching and haughty. She was called Maria, I believe. In a tableau which represented “A Slave Market,” she displayed the imperial despair and the stoical dejection of a nude queen offered for sale to the first bidder. Her tights, which were torn at the hip, disclosed her firm white flesh. They were, however only poor girls of London. All had dirty finger nails.
When they returned to the green room they laughed as freely with the scene shifters as with the authors, and talked broken French while they adjusted all kinds of frightful rags upon their charming visages. Their smile was the calm smile of perfect innocence or of complete corruption.
AT THE ACADEMY
Session of November 23, 1843
CHARLES NODIER. – The Academy, yielding to custom, has suppressed universally the double consonant in verbs where this consonant supplanted euphoniously the d of the radical ad.
MYSELF. – I avow my profound ignorance. I had no idea that custom had effected this suppression and that the Academy had sanctioned it. Thus one should no longer write atteindre, approuver, appeler, apprehender, etc., but ateindre, aprouver, apeler, apréhender?
M. VICTOR COUSIN. – I desire to point out to M. Hugo that the alterations of which he complains come from the movement of the language, which is nothing else than decadence.
MYSELF. – M. Cousin having addressed a personal observation to me, I beg to point out to him in turn that his opinion is, in my estimation, merely an opinion and nothing more. I may add that, as I view it, “movement of the language” and decadence have nothing in common. Nothing could be more distinct than these two things. Movement in no way proves decadence. The language has been moving since the first day of its formation; can it be said to be deteriorating? Movement is life; decadence is death.
M. COUSIN. – The decadence of the French language began in 1789.
MYSELF. – At what hour, if you please?
October 8, 1844
This is what was told to me at to-day’s session:Salvandy recently dined with Villemain. The repast over, they adjourned to the drawing-room, and conversed. As the clock struck eight Villemain’s three little daughters entered to kiss their father good night. The youngest is named Lucette; her birth cost her mother her reason; she is a sweet and charming child of five years.
“Well, Lucette, dear child,” said her father, “won’t you recite one of Lafontaine’s fables before you go to bed?”
“Here,” observed M. de Salvandy, “is a little person who to-day recites fables and who one of these days will inspire romances.”
Lucette did not understand. She merely gazed with her big wondering eyes at Salvandy who was lolling in his chair with an air of benevolent condescension.
“Well, Lucette.” he went on, “will you not recite a fable for us?”
The child required no urging, and began in her naïve little voice, her fine, frank, sweet eyes still fixed upon Salvandy:
One easily believes one’s self to be somebody in France.
1845
During the run of M. Ponsard’s “Lucrece”, I had the following dialogue with M. Viennet at a meeting of the Academy:
M. VIENNET. – Have you seen the “Lucrece” that is being played at the Odéon?
MYSELF. – NO.
M. VIENNET. – It is very good.
MYSELF. – Really, is it good?
M. VIENNET. – It is more than good, it is fine.
MYSELF. – Really, is it fine?
M. VIENNET. – It is more than fine, it is magnificent.
MYSELF. – Really, now, magnificent?
M. VIENNET. – Oh! magnificent!
MYSELF. – Come, now, is it as good as “Zaire”?
M. VIENNET. – Oh! no! Oh! you are going too far, you know. Gracious! “Zaire”! No, it is not as good as “Zaire”.
MYSELF. – Well, you see, “Zaire” is a very poor piece indeed!
AN ELECTION SESSION
Thirty-one Academicians present. Sixteen votes are necessary.
First ballot.
Emile Deschamps 2 votes.
Victor Leclerc 14 ”
Empis 15 ”
Lamartine and M. Ballanche arrive at the end of the first ballot. M. Thiers arrives at the commencement of the second; which makes 34.
The director asks M. Thiers whether he has promised his vote. He laughingly replies: “No,” and adds: “I have offered it.” (Laughter.)
M. Cousin, to M. Lebrun, director: “You did not employ the sacramental expression. One does not ask an Academician whether he has *promised* his vote, but whether he has *pledged* it.”
Second ballot.
Emile Deschamps 2 votes.
Empis 18 ”
Victor Leclerc 14 ”
M. Empis is elected. The election was decided by Lamartine and M. Ballanche.
On my way out I meet Leon Gozlan, who says to me: “Well?”
I reply: “There has been an election. It is Empis.”
“How do you look at it?” he asks.
“In both ways.”
“Empis? – ”
“And tant pis!”
March 16, 1847
At the Academy to-day, while listening to the poems, bad to the point of grotesqueness, that have been sent for the competition of 1847, M. de Barante remarked: “Really, in these times, we no longer know how to make mediocre verses.”
Great praise of the poetical and literary excellence of these times, although M. de Barante was not conscious of it.
April 22, 1847
Election of M. Ampere. This is an improvement upon the last. A slow improvement. But Academies, like old people, go slowly.
During the session and after the election Lamartine sent to me by an usher the following lines:
C’est un état peu prospereD’aller d’Empis en Ampere.I replied to him by the same usher:
Toutefois ce serait pisD’aller d’Ampere en Empis.October 4, 1847
I have just heard M. Viennet say: “I think in bronze.”December 29, 1848. Friday
Yesterday, Thursday, I had two duties to attend to at one and the same time, the Assembly and the Academy; the salt question on the one hand, on the other the much smaller question of two vacant seats. Yet I gave the preference to the latter. This is why: At the Palais Bourbon the Cavaignac party had to be prevented from killing the new Cabinet; at the Palais Mazarin the Academy had to be prevented from offending the memory of Chateaubriand. There are cases in which the dead count for more than the living; I went to the Academy.
The Academy last Thursday had suddenly decided, at the opening of the session, at a time when nobody had yet put in an appearance, when there were only four or five round the green table, that on January 11 (that is to say, in three weeks) it would fill the two seats left vacant by MM. de Chateaubriand and Vatout. This strange alliance, I do not say of names, but of words, – “replace MM. de Chateaubriand and Vatout,” – did not stop it for one minute. The Academy is thus made; its wit and that wisdom which produces so many follies, are composed of extreme lightness combined with extreme heaviness. Hence a good deal of foolishness and a good many foolish acts.
Beneath this lightness, however, there was an intention. This giddiness was fraught with deep meaning. The brave party that leads the Academy, for there are parties everywhere, even at the Academy, hoped, public attention being directed elsewhere, politics absorbing everything, to juggle the seat of Chateaubriand pell-mell with the seat of M. Vatout; two peas in the same goblet. In this way the astonished public would turn round one fine morning and simply see M. de Noailles in Chateaubriand’s seat: a small matter, a great lord in the place of a great writer!
Then, after a roar of laughter, everybody would go about his business again, distractions would speedily come, thanks to the veering of politics, and, as to the Academy, oh! a duke and peer the more in it, a little more ridicule upon it, what would that matter? It would go on just the same!
Besides, M. de Noailles is a considerable personage. Bearing a great name, being lofty of manner, enjoying an immense fortune, of certain political weight under Louis Philippe, accepted by the Conservatives although, or because, a Legitimist, reading speeches that were listened to, he occupied an important place in the Chamber of Peers; which proves that the Chamber of Peers occupied an unimportant place in the country.
Chateaubriand, who hated all that could replace him and smiled at all that could make him regretted, had had the kindness to tell him sometimes, by Mme. Récamier’s fireside, “that he hoped he would be his successor;” which prompted M. de Noailles to dash off a big book in two volumes about Mme. de Maintenon, at the commencement of which, on the first page of the preface, I was stopped by a lordly breach of grammar.
This was the state of things when I concluded to go to the Academy.
The session which was announced to begin at two o’clock, as usual, opened, as usual, at a quarter past three. And at half past three —
At half past three the candidacy of Monsieur the Duke do Noailles, *replacing* Chateaubriand, was irresistibly acclaimed.
Decidedly, I ought to have gone to the Assembly.
March 26, 1850. Tuesday
I had arrived early, at noon.
I was warming myself, for it is very cold, and the ground is covered with snow, which is not good for the apricot trees. M. Guizot, leaning against the mantelpiece, was saying to me:
“As a member of the dramatic prize committee, I read yesterday, in a single day, mind you, no fewer than six plays!”
“That,” I responded, “was to punish you for not having seen one acted in eighteen years.”
At this moment M. Thiers came up and the two men exchanged greetings. This is how they did it:
M. THIERS: Good afternoon, Guizot.
M. GUIZOT: Good afternoon, Monsieur.
AN ELECTION SESSION. March 28, 1850
M. Guizot presided. At the roll call, when M. Pasquier’s name was reached he said: “Monsieur the Chancellor – ” When he got to that of M. Dupin, President of the National Assembly, he called: “Monsieur Dupin.”
First ballot.
Alfred de Musset 5 votes.
M. Nisard 23 ”
M. Nisard is elected.
—To-day, September 12, the Academy worked at the dictionary. A propos of the word “increase,” this example, taken from the works of Mme. de Staël, was proposed:
“Poverty increases ignorance, and ignorance poverty.”
Three objections were immediately raised:
1. Antithesis.
2. Contemporary writer.
3. Dangerous thing to say.
The Academy rejected the example.
LOVE IN PRISON
I
BESIDES misdeeds, robberies, the division of spoils after an ambuscade, and the twilight exploitation of the barriers of Paris, footpads, burglars, and gaol-birds generally have another industry: they have ideal loves.
This requires explanation.
The trade in negro slaves moves us, and with good reason; we examine this social sore, and we do well. But let us also learn to lay bare another ulcer, which is more painful, perhaps: the traffic in white women.
Here is one of the singular things connected with and characteristic of this poignant disorder of our civilization:
Every gaol contains a prisoner who is known as the “artist.”
All kinds of trades and professions peculiar to prisons develop behind the bars. There is the vendor of liquorice-water, the vendor of scarfs, the writer, the advocate, the usurer, the hut-maker, and the barker. The artist takes rank among these local and peculiar professions between the writer and the advocate.
To be an artist is it necessary to know how to draw? By no means. A bit of a bench to sit upon, a wall to lean against, a lead pencil, a bit of pasteboard, a needle stuck in a handle made out of a piece of wood, a little Indian ink or sepia, a little Prussian blue, and a little vermilion in three cracked beechwood spoons, – this is all that is requisite; a knowledge of drawing is superfluous. Thieves are as fond of colouring as children are, and as fond of tattooing as are savages. The artist by means of his three spoons satisfies the first of these needs, and by means of his needle the second. His remuneration is a “nip” of wine.
The result is this:
Some prisoners, say, lack everything, or are simply desirous of living more comfortably. They combine, wait upon the artist, offer him their glasses of wine or their bowls of soup, hand him a sheet of paper and order of him a bouquet. In the bouquet there must be as many flowers as there are prisoners in the group. If there be three prisoners, there must be three flowers. Each flower bears a figure, or, if preferred, a number, which number is that of the prisoner.
The bouquet when painted is sent, through the mysterious means of communication between the various prisons that the police are powerless to prevent, to Saint Lazare. Saint Lazare is the women’s prison, and where there are women there also is pity. The bouquet circulates from hand to hand among the unfortunate creatures that the police detain administratively at Saint Lazare; and in a few days the infallible secret post apprises those who sent the bouquet that Palmyre has chosen the tuberose, that Fanny prefers the azalea, and that Seraphine has adopted the geranium. Never is this lugubrious handkerchief thrown into the seraglio without being picked up.
Thenceforward the three bandits have three servants whose names are Palmyre, Fanny, and Seraphine. Administrative detentions are relatively of short duration. These women are released from prison before the men. And what do they do? They support them. In elegant phraseology they are providences; in plain language they are milch-cows.
Pity has been transformed into love. The heart of woman is susceptible of such sombre graftings. These women say:
“I am married.” They are married indeed. By whom? By the flower. With whom? With the abyss. They are fiancées of the unknown. Enraptured and enthusiastic fiancées. Pale Sulamites of fancy and fog. When the known is so odious, how can they help loving the unknown?
In these nocturnal regions and with the winds of dispersion that blow, meetings are almost impossible. The lovers see each other in dreams. In all probability the woman will never set eyes on the man. Is he young? Is he old? Is he handsome? Is he ugly? She does not know; she knows nothing about him. She adores him. And it is because she does not know him that she loves him. Idolatry is born of mystery.