1830 aux théâtres (review)

For many, 1830 is the year of Hernani, the subject of the first of the four sections in Sylvie Vielledent’s study. Hernani appeared in February of that year and predates the book’s main focus: the plays that emerged after the ‘Trois Glorieuses’ at the end of July. These plays were more concerned with the consequences of the Revolution than with the squabbles surrounding Hernani and led to many imitations and parodies that mock what were seen as the imperfections in the text. The Romantics tend to disengage from theatrical activity in the following months, as much as anything because the Revolution ushers in a period when authors are keen to echo the history (or a version of it) of those three exciting days. The following sections are devoted to the barricades, the Jesuits, and Napoleon, all subjects that the censor would previously have ruled out. Vielledent makes the point that the plays produced cannot be judged by the usual theatrical criteria: they are often little more than the stringing together of actual events, interspersed with song and thrown together in haste. Stereotypes (reactionary aristocrats ridiculed, valorous revolutionaries acclaimed) abound: they create an image tailored to please a popular audience. Immediate political concerns include commentary on the king, seen as inadequate, especially when compared with Louis-Philippe, ‘l’élu du peuple’ (p. 237). As for the Jesuits, the subject of the third section, they are what Vielledent calls ‘la cible favorite des dramaturges’ (p. 250). They are portrayed in animal form, criticized for their perceived immorality and for their vices, including greed, lechery, hypocrisy, ambition, and so on. When it comes to Napoleon, he is ‘un concentré de vertus’ (p. 433), both simple and grandiose, comradely with the ordinary soldier, and heroic, in plays that are an ‘oscillation entre l’anecdotique et l’épique’ (p. 442). He inspired many authors: call a play Napoléon or Bonaparte and success is guaranteed. Popular audiences may have preferred the myth to a reality that could be less than glorious, but it is the image that counts. As Vielledent points out, ‘[l]’invasion du théâtre par l’Histoire contemporaine est l’une des évidences massives de l’après-Juillet. (p. 554); it is also one of the reasons for the rapid going out of fashion of this kind of theatre. The study is based on thorough research and documentation, including valuable annexes amounting to forty pages that list the many plays dating from 1830. The book itself tends to be over-documented: repetition through a string of examples of the stereotypes and an excess of quotation lead to monotony, given, especially, that the text is subdivided into sections that are sometimes only two pages long. It was no doubt fun for theatre audiences to see the Jesuits, for example, held up to ridicule time and again; once we, as readers, have seen their depravity, the point has been made for us. Some further editing would have been helpful: the number of banalities could have been reduced with no loss; similarly, fewer appearances of expressions like en somme, de fait, d’emblée would have been welcome.