The Eighteenth Century as Represented in Nineteenth-Century French Theater

The Eighteenth C entury as RepresentedonmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONM in N ineteenth-C entury French Theater A D R IE N N E D . H Y T IE R That the Re naissancehe ldspe cialattractionfor nine te e nth-ce ntury French dramatists has often been noted. The Middle Ages and the seventeenth century were also popular with them. Little attention, however, has been paid to their portrayal of the eighteenth century.1 The French theatergoer of the 1830s and 1840s was made to travel every­ where: Portugal, Spain, England, Scotland, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Russia, Italy, and the United States. In plays like Les D iam ants de la couronne, La Part du diable, Le Bijou de la reine, Les D em oiselles de SaintCyr , C harles III, M adam e des U rsins, Struense, Bertrand et Raton, G us­ tave III, Le M enuisier de Livonie, La C zarine, C atherine II, Lestocq, Potem kine, Le Verre d'eau, L'Am bitieux, La Popularity, C hatterton, Edouard en Ecosse, La D am e blanche, La Bohem ienne, Zanetta, M aitre jean, au­ thors like Alexandre Duval, d'Epagny, Deyeux, Scribe, Alexandre Dumas pere and fils, Casimir Delavigne, Vigny, Hippolyte Romand, transported him to different times and to different climes. Even Merimee wrote Le C arosse du Saint-Sacrem ent which takes place in Lima and which, like the other plays of the Theatre de Clara G azul was never represented. Palace revolutions were especially attractive to dramatists. The specta­ tor could enjoy the dismissal of Madame des Ursins, the fall of the Whig ministry under Queen Anne, the execution of Struensee, the assassination of Gustavus III, the plot against Anna of Curland, and the taking of power by Elizabeth of Russia and Catherine the Great. The Forty-five, the adven­ turous career of Peter the Great's second wife, Catherine, and the intrigues against Walpole also funished writers with lively topics. 101 102 / HYTIER Most of the plays were entertaining, some were even considered master­ pieces at the time, like RQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA Le Verre d'eau and Bertrand et Raton, but, with their complex plots and weak characterizations, none attempted to give a real impression of the eighteenth century. Historical truth was, at best, of the textbook variety, elementary and simplistic. Preposterous plots were often grafted on bare facts. Queen Anne, at the time of the fall of the Whig ministry was not a young girl seeking love as she appears in Le Verre d'eau, but a middle-aged widow who had had seventeen children. The rest of the play was similarly fantaisiste. Local color was made of the usual stereotypes, accented by a few details, always the same. Russia was a country torn between East and West, struggling with westerniza­ tion; the czars were all-powerful and they could send anyone they pleased to Siberia or have them flogged with the knout. In winter, people travelled on snow-covered roads in sleighs driven by drunken serfs or m ujiks; in the summer they rode in dronskis. People had names ending in ski or ska; rubles were the currency; the capital was Saint Petersburg and the main city Moscow. England, on the other hand, was a commercial coun­ try with a parliament and a free press. Politics were corrupt. The men, who were unemotional, drank ale and beer and ate roast beef; the girls were called M iss and the women M istress. The currency consisted of livres sterling, guinees, and schellings. The Tower of London was the state prison. The identification of other countries was even more sketchy. Except for the subject (the fall of Struensee), it would be hard to guess that you are in eighteenth-century Denmark in Bertrand et Raton. Only once did Scribe, who wrote a number of plays on the eighteenth century, try to attain a certain level of historical accuracy and a minimum of depth. In La C zarine, one of his last works, he put into dialogue (sometimes almost word for word) the newly published and serious history of Russia by the Comte de Segur. As a rule, however, the picture painted was neither subtle nor correct. Although critics, even then, laughed, the spectators...