Memoirs | Page 6

us in his box--the three centre ones on
the grand tier thrown together--returning to fetch us at the end of the
performance. Those evenings at the Comedie-Francaise were our
greatest joy, and taught us many a useful lesson, filling our heads with
classic literature far more efficiently than all the reading and courses of
lectures in the world. But those unlucky classics were very much
neglected. They were not a bit the fashion. There would hardly be two
hundred people in the theatre, and all the boxes were empty. A
wretched orchestra, conducted by a stout man of the name of Chodron,
squeaked a tune that set everybody's teeth on edge. Up would go the
curtain, without any warning, in the very middle of some phrase in the
music which would break off with a sigh from the clarionet, and
drearily the play would begin. We were all eyes and ears in spite of that,
and nothing in the play of the tragic actresses--Madame Duchesnois,
Madame Paradol, and Madame Bourgoin--ever escaped us. I can see
and hear yet all Corneille's plays, and Racine's too, and Zaire, and
Mahomet, and L'Orphelin de la Chine, and many more. But what we
longed for most impatiently were Moliere's plays. They were our prime
favourites, and what actors too! Monrose, Cartigny, Samson, Firmin,
Menjaud, and Faure, whose appearances as Fleurant in Le Malade and
Truffaldin in L'Etourdi we always greeted with delight, on account of

the properties he carried in his hand. This same Faure, an old soldier of
1782, never failed to say to my father, as he escorted him to the door,
taper in hand, "Ha, Sir! this is not the camp at la Lune!" referring to a
bivouac just before the battle of Valmy. It was always a great
amusement to us to go along the passages behind the scenes, especially
when the classic Roman processions were being formed up there for the
tragedies, for among the lictors and the other Romans we recognized
many of the clerks and workmen employed about the Palais-Royal, and
we used to bid them good day, and call them by their names, and be
very proud indeed of speaking to artists, and we went home to our own
fold, imitating the call in the theatre: "On va-a commmencer! On
co-mmence!"(Going to begin, just beginning).Sometimes too we were
taken to see modern plays, but that did not happen often. Yet even now
I seem to hear the actor Armand, just before 1830, talking thick behind
his Directoire cravat, in TOM JONES:--
Point d'amis, point de grace, A la session prochaine il faudra qu'on y
passe!
and the whole house rose at him! I remember also being taken to the
first night of Henri III., and being very much amused by the cups and
balls and the pea-shooters. I was much affected too by the death of
Arthur, a charming page in a violet dress, played by Mile. Despreaux,
who afterwards became Madame Allan. I had no eyes for anybody else.
As we were going away, my father leading me by the hand, we found
the Duchesse de Guise, Mademoiselle Mars, panting, and wrapped in a
rose- coloured satin cloak lined with swansdown, waiting for the
compliments which my father showered on her. She had not impressed
me nearly so much as the page in violet.
Talking of Henri III., a play we took great interest in, because its author,
quite unknown at the time, belonged to our household, I will recall here
a recollection connected with the name of Alexandre Dumas.
Everybody knows he began life as a clerk in my father's library at the
Palais-Royal. The chief librarian was Vatout, whose works, and
perhaps too some well-known songs, have gained him a seat in the
Academy. But Vatout was never in the library by any chance. The real

librarian, and a very worthy fellow he was, was a man of the name of
Tallencourt. He was an old soldier, and this caused him to be elected
captain of a grenadier company in the Citizen Guard--a position to
which, in the first blush of his enthusiasm, he attached an exaggerated
importance. Well, some time after Dumas had resigned his position in
the library, in the midst of the riots which occurred so frequently about
that period, we saw Tallencourt come home one day in full warlike
attire, with his bearskin cap and his cloak, and a very gloomy
countenance." What do you think has just happened to me? I was in
command of a patrol in my ward--as we had heard several shots, we
were advancing with the greatest caution, in double file, keeping close
to the walls, with our eyes and ears open. All at once I heard a
shout--'Here's for you, de Tallencourt!' and then a