VICTORIEN SARDOU A PERSONAL STUDY Frontispiece. FjmiLij% Fjces ICTORIEN SaRDOU POETy AUTHOR, AND MEMBER OF THE ACADEMY OF FRANCE A PERSONAL STUDY BLANCHE ROOSEVELT OFFICER OF THE ACADEMY OF FRANCE AUTHOR OF "life AND REMINISCENCES OF GUSTAVE DORE ' **LIFE OF LONGFELLOW," ** VERDI," " THE COPPER QUEEN " ETC. ETC. PREFACE BY W. BEATTY-KINGSTON Some lives in peaceful vieadoivs Jlow ; Like brook that steals frovi hidden glen, Their tranquil days ebb to and fro, Their actions '^' scape the mark o/ men." Far more ivojild I the fiercest strife Engage, and strike for good or ill ; Who has not warred knoivs naught of life : Fate conquers maji, man fate through will. *' First Poems " : Blanche Roosevelt LONDON KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & Co., L^i^- 1892 ro XTbc S)cav ^emov^ OF FRANC B. WILKIE (POLINTOj IN ADMIRATION OF HIS KAKE GENIUS, IN RECOLLECTION OF HIS FklENDSHir, AND WITH GRATITUUE FOR HIS ENCOURAGEMENT— MY OLDEST LITERARY FRIEND FROM HIS FAITHFUL FOLLOWER BLANCHE ROOSEVELT PREFACE Although, as I have been assured, the function of blowing one's own trumpet is not absolutely distasteful to some eminent personages in the world of art and letters^ there are others, to my personal knowledge, who expe- rience an unconquerable reluctance to perform upon that instrument, however importunately they may be solicited to do so by hosts of admiring friends. This is why I, in its author's stead, am writing the preface to this booklet. The purpose of these introductory lines is to set forth Blanche Roosevelt's qualifications for fulfilling the task she has undertaken, not to trespass upon viii PREFACE the literary ground she has taken up as a biographer of contemporary cele- brities. To the English public there is a good deal to be said, more or less new and interesting, about Victorien Sardou, who in this country is tolerably well known as a dramatist, but not at all as a man. Hitherto no memoir of this distinguished playwright has, as far as I know, been printed in our lan- guage. Miss Roosevelt has prepared one which consists mainly of personal narrative and anecdote immediately derived from its subject ; of matter, in short, that has never heretofore been given to publicity. This work has been built up on a foundation identical in all essential respects with that which underlay her biographies of Longfellow, Gustave Dore, Carmen Sylva, and Giuseppe Verdi, each of which, so to speak, was suffused with PREFACE ix the personality of its illustrious subject, while bearing the impress of its author's vigorous individuality. These were the secrets of their indis- putable charm : that Blanche Roosevelt knew, and knew well, the persons about whom she wrote ; that she is gifted with a Boswellian memory, singularly retentive and exact, which enables her to reproduce the style as well as substance of her interlocutors' verbal statements ; and that she is capable of describing what she has seen with peculiar felicity of expression. In re- spect to its profuse display of these enviable faculties, and of the poetic temperament with which bountiful Nature has also endowed "la belle Americaine " — the epithet was Victor Hugo's — her "Life of Gustave Dore " is one of the most remarkable and attractive books of the past decade ; X PREFACE and it is high, but by no means unde- served praise of her biographical sketch of Victorien Sardou, to say that it is entitled to rank " with and after " that admirable work, although designed and executed upon a much smaller scale. I may be permitted in this place to briefly summarise Miss Roosvelt's special qualifications for undertaking the task embodied in this volume. She has for several years been privileged to count Sardou among her intimate personal friends; has been a frequent visitor at his house, and has enjoyed many opportunities of listening to his brilliant talk and interesting remin- iscences of an exceptionally eventful and adventurous youth. Her first meeting with him took place at the hospitable table of Victor Hugo, in whose house, during the later years of the venerable poet's life, she was a PREFACE xi favourite and ever-welcome guest. There, at different times, she became acquainted with the leading lights of the con- temporary French schools of belles lettres and the plastic arts ; with Arsene Houssaye, Jules Claretie, Francois Cop- pee, Guy de Maupassant, Barbey d'Aurevilly, Alphonse Daudet, Joseph Peladan, Catulle Mendes, Paul Bourget, Meilhac, Halevy, Tourgenieff, Gustave Dore, and many other poets and roman- cists of the day, who cordially recog- nised her claims to literary distinction, and associated with her on terms of frank and genial comradeship. Her place among Hugo's habitual cominen- saux was at the right hand of her illustrious host, whose admiration of her prompted him — on a memorable occasion, recorded by Arsene Houssaye in his brilliant preface to the French edition of *' Gustave Dore " — to address xii PREFACE her as " The Beauty and Genius of the New World." When this supreme tribute of appreciation was paid to her by the greatest poet of France she was a girl of seventeen, and, accord- ing to Houssaye's graphic description of her appearance, *' lovely with every loveliness ; her fair hair rippling with sunshine ; her blue eyes as deep as the sky, beneath their dark lashes ; tall, slight and supple as a reed ; her profile one that might have been designed by Apelles or Zeuxis." A few years later the Academic Frangaise confirmed Victor Hugo's judgment of her literary abilities by creating her one of its officers. It is scarcely necessary to observe that this high distinction is seldom conferred by the ''Immortal Forty" upon native authors of the female sex, and still more rarely upon foreigners. Even more : Blanche Roosevelt was the first Ameri- PREFACE xiii can authoress to be decorated by the French Academy. Perhaps no stronger recommendation of this book can be preferred than the assurance — which I am authorised to tender to its readers — that, having been submitted to M. Victorien Sardou in its present form, it has secured his hearty and unqualified approval. He has in- deed defined it as " the most curious and intelligent study of himself and his works that has ever heretofore been produced." To this pronouncement — " praise from Sir Hubert Stanley " — I have nothing to add, save the expression of my belief that its justice will be gene- rally acknowledged by the press and the public. In literary and dramatic circles on either side the Atlantic it will be learned with interest that M. Sardou is collaborating with Miss Roosevelt in xiv PREFACE the dramatisation of her justly cele- brated novel " The Copper Queen," an English version of which will ere long be produced upon the English and American stage. W. BEATTY-KINGSTON. CONTENTS PAGE A PERSONAL STUDY I PERSONAL APPEARANCE . . . .' . 29 MY DIARY 41 SARDOU AT HOME 59 SARDOU'S WORKS 76 THERMIDOR I06 HOW I TOOK THE TUILERIES . . . . 130 SARDOU , . 144 VICTORIEN SARDOU A PERSONAL STUDY The world wants to know all about its celebrated men and women ; what they are, where they live and how, what they eat and drink, the part they play in everyday life ; and, having talents beyond the ordinary, how much, besides, of the ordinary everyday man and woman. This is not curiosity, but interest. What would we not give to have had a page from some gossiping neighbour who had personally known wise Omar ; known of his loves, his wine, his roses ; a page from one who A 2 VlCTORIEN SARDOU had seen Dante and fair Beatrice walking in the vales of amber Arno ; to have had one word from Tasso as he mourned the cruelty of the house of d'Este, or the trivial fond record of some goodly neighbour who had drank a friendly posset with Shakespeare and Shakespeare's love, — sweet Ann Hatha- way — and yet none can unfold such pages. There are many men, however, before the world to-day, not greater than the past masters, but whose lives in this busy epoch are of the deepest interest, and who will bear the same relation to future generations as their great predecessors bear to the present. Among others, Victorien Sardou, mem- ber of the French Academy, poet, dra- matist and author, recently before the public with his plays of " Cleopatra " and " Thermidor," a remarkable man in the annals of any time, and one whose A PERSONAL STUDY 3 life and career cannot be without interest to whomsoever appreciates the final triumph of genius over poverty, evil fortune, and dire despair. If you know Paris well, you must know the ancient Quartier St. Antoine — that portion of the city rich in his- toric interest — where, could it speak, every paving-stone would cry out with a voice from the historic past ; a district of wide streets, old-fashioned squares, antique palaces set in quaint old gardens, protected by grim, sentinel- like walls ; that in their impassability and solidity have been witnesses to some of* the greatest scenes in France's his- tory ; long quays fringed with tattered book-stalls or shops ; the Quai des Celestins, where witty Rabelais has a plaque consecrated to his memory, and where the march of modern progress and commerce has obliterated neither 4 VICTORIEN SARDOU the spirit nor form of the dim long-ago. This quarter is still sacred to the eager tourist, the old houses are hallowed to the memory of illustrious names, their walls have seen the light of illustrious eyes, and their wide gateways have resounded to the footsteps of many, how many, of France's most illustrious dead. Flowers have bloomed in the old gardens for wearers whose very names are a perfume from a fragrant past ; whose lives belong to the worlds and whose memories, like hidden streams silently stealing from mountainous causeways, have flowed onward with resistless impulse to join the great ocean of life and immortality and pro- gress. The old Quartier St. Antoine was divided up into sub-quarters, among others the Quartier St. Paul, the old Hotel St. Paul, first known to history A PERSONAL STUDY 5 as the Palace and Gardens of the Kings of France ; and in the ancient plan of the city we see that this demesne com- prised a portion of the Quai des Celes- tins, and extended beyond the Place de la Bastille, to the Barriere du Trone ; ever memorable for the Revolution of 1848, and for that greater page stained by the name of Robespierre and the fatal guillotine. Later, the King's Gardens were divided into streets, each bearing a name with reference to its former state : Rue Beautreilles (literally street of the beautiful trellis). Rue des Cerisiers, Rue des Noisettiers, and, most quaint of all, I remember a streetlet whose name from an etymological point of view is most curious. In old French it was styled '' Rue de Pute y Musse," in more modern French "Fille s'y cache," and at the time of the Revolu- tion " Fille s'y cache " was condensed 6 VICTORIEN SARDOU into " Rue du Petit Musse," a name, I think which it bears to this very day. At that period this was the Parisian Haymarket, a street outlawed to virtue, and a general rendezvous for corruption and vice ; a corner held in horror and shunned by all the good people living in its immediate neighbourhood. While the century was still in its adol- escence a certain Professor Sardou and his wife lived in a charming house set in a quaint garden, in the Rue Beau- treilles, and on the 5 th September 1 83 1 Madame Sardou presented her husband with an heir — Victorien Sardou, the greatest living dramatist. One more added to the memorable names which adorn France's galaxy of greatness to-day, and have, since many a day, been renowned in the annals of France and of French dramatic art. Good Professor Sardou, in his A PERSONAL" STUDY 7 modesty, little dreamed that his son's name was destined to become, not alone a household word in his native country, but a household word wherever literature, the stage, or drama have found shrines and enthusiastic fol- lowers ; but so it was, and, as all the world knows the genius, many would like to know the man ; as all the world knows his artistic life, many would also like to know his home life ; to read one of those cloud-pages which publicity rarely opens, but which, when opened, exhale a sweeter perfume than any flower of fame. Being privileged, I open the pages ; being persistent, you may peruse them. Sardou once said to me : " Never be afraid of slow commencements ; have your characters fully, solidly planted, engrafted as it were into the soil. Balzac and your Walter Scott and S VICTORIEN SARDOU Dickens knew how to do that"; and in virtue of the dramatist's own words, in order to appreciate the development of so rich and varied a genius, we must go back to his earliest days, when he trundled his hoop with other lads in P^re Beaumarchais* garden at the cor- ner of the Place de la Bastille ; a boy at school, when he pattered around the old Quais des C^lestins, d'Orsay and Voltaire, studying with eager curiosity the advertisements on the illuminated kiosks, or thumbing with childish reverence the musty volumes heaped in picturesque confusion on the low- lying shelves of the riverside book vendors. Monsieur Sardou, senior, whose resi- dence has been transferred to Nice, was, and is, a most remarkable man. At the time of Victorien's birth he was a leading professor in one of the A PERSONAL STUDY 9 leading Parisian Colleges, author of several elementary classics, a man of deep historical research and a certain literary attainment, also famous for editing an edition of Rabelais, the envy of even Lacroix — better known as the Bibliophile Jacob. Sardou's wife shared his talent in much, and his taste in everything ; their home was simple ; they lived very retired, but whenever they went out or received, they frequented the choicest wits of France ; hence Victorien was rocked by birth, so to speak, in a literary and artistic cradle. He once said to me : "My father knew everything and went everywhere. I do not so much remember great people at our house, but I never heard other than great names spoken, other talk than talk of the popular authors and celebrities of the day ; and I remember that I was 10 VICTORIEN SARDOU never happier than when I went to play in Pere Beaumarchais' garden. Not alone because he was a dear man, but I suppose because he was Beaumarchais." As a lad his precocity and memory were fabulous ; he absorbed, he never learned ; his lightning-like quickness and retentiveness were the marvel of family friends and neighbours. Add to this a curiosity without limit, a faculty of observation approaching witchcraft, a sensitiveness more in character with a romantic growing girl than with a clever, highly strung youth, and you have a picture of the dramatist from his early years to that latest florescence when he dreamed of becoming, not an author, but — do not start — an ^sculapius : one of the famous Parisian medical brigade who have also an academy ; rivals of that A PERSONAL STUDY ii noble forty among whom Victorien Sardou is one of the most brilliant and universally renowned. Sardou studied medicine and cul- tivated hospitals and dissecting tables ; he attended lectures and clinics and coteries ; frequented Professor This, the celebrated nerve man, and Pro- fessor That, the renowned phthisis man ; attended the soirees of Madame la Professeur This, and danced at the cotillons of Madame la Professeur That ; but all to no avail. If people felt ill they did not send for him, and if they died — they could not blame him. The blackest of poverty stared him chronically in the face ; he worked on hope, but starved on despair, and his unique solace was studying the old Greek drama ; but one day it dawned upon him that he preferred the dissect- ing table of ancient history to that of 12 VICTORIEN SARDOU human ills and human anatomy. He gave up medicine and became historian and student ; working in those fertile meads, embroidered by the genius of a Michelet, a Thiers, or a Taine. Only those who have known the sting of bitter want can fully appreciate the agony of the intellectual student's career. The eager brain, the famished body, the long night watches and hideous nightmares, the struggle to make both ends meet, to keep body and soul together, the continual battle with poverty, pride, ambition, hope, and despair. Sardou's young life was such a struggle ; and the terrible ordeals to which his ardent receptive nature was subjected — in spite of himself — have left their mark. As we must crush the rose to get the attar, so there are human flowers which thrive best under mis- A PERSONAL STUDY 13. fortune. Sardou possessed a valiant soul ; one of those resisting plants which flourish in adversity, which blos- som on the dew of tears, and bloom only to their fullest beauty under the sun of never-failing courage and am- bition. He did not give way ; the more he had to work against, the harder he worked, and every new trial fell like a pointless dart against the steel armour of his resistance. He determined to be some one, and realised that the bridge which connects greatness and nothingness is knowledge. Although he daily passed the old Theatre Moli^re in the ancient square of St. Paul's, and was familiar with the artists and authors of the day, he never once thought of becoming a playwright , but in order to prosecute his studies gave lessons in history, philosophy, and mathematics. 14 VICTORIEN SARDOU He wrote articles for dictionaries, dailies and even medical journals; he wrote essays and essayed serious stories ; and one novelette, " La Perle Noire," found its way into the hands of a good, even discriminating public. He toiled day and night with the dogged perseverance which ever has been and is one of his most eminent characteristics ; no pains were too great to take ; he was never behindhand in any promised work, and ever striving to improve his mind ; to garner up such a store of miscellaneous information as few, even of the most noted erudites, possess to-day. He thus laid the foundations, not alone of that fame and fortune so justly his due, but of all the envy, jealousy, and ridicu- lous exaggeration afloat in France, which repeatedly, though vainly, assails one of her most brilliant and versatile sons. A PERSONAL STUDY 15 In the midst of these enforced classi- cal studies, Sardou began to feel the quickening of that dramatic instinct which has brought to life such splendid and noble creations. He adored the play, but was equally devoted to the opera, and, speaking of the latter one day, said : " Ah, don't talk to me of music ; that is one of my passions. I re- member, a long time ago, when I went to the opera, not in box or stalls, but right up in the gallery, to hear the * Huguenots ' or the * Prophet' I de- lighted in Meyerbeer. The seats were four francs apiece. I had probably pawned my best coat to get there ; but there I was, and I never think of those costly evenings without remembering how I enjoyed them, and felt a certain sense of gratification that I have never experienced since." i6 VICTORIEN SARDOU " And now," I replied, " other stu- dents pawn their best clothes to sit in the gallery or on the roof, not to hear Meyerbeer, but Sardou." *^ Mais naturellement," he said, laugh- ing, " c'est ainsi que va le monde." My mind went back to the past, to the old Rue Lepelletier Opera House.^ I did not see the successful author in white cravat and regulation swallow-tail, but a poor lad in working jacket and Dantesque cap, leaning over the gallery rails, happiest among the gallery gods, an enthralled student, forgetting the long day of worry, fatigue, and care ; forgetting that he had not dined, even though his best cutaway was at " my * Napoleon III. was going to this theatre the night of the famous Orsini throwing of bombs. The house was burned in November 1873, ^^^ very day on which Count de Chambord threatened to come from Versailles, en Rio, with the famous but fated white flag of the Bourbons. A PERSONAL STUDY 17 uncle's/' oblivious of all and everything but the splendour of the scene, the music, the lights, the public ; filling his soul with the inspiration of the divine ; inspired, shabby and ignorant, yet dreaming of the day when he should be something or somebody; wearing in his bosom the rose of youth and youth's happiest, dearest illusions. Then, the opera finished, I could see him going back to his modest home, humming a gay tune as he crossed the Pont d'Orsay, happy as he supped on a biscuit and glass of syrup and water, happy and hopeful as he seized pen and paper and scribbled off that first play, " La Taverne des Etudiants," brought out at the Odeon, and destined to be, not his first success, but his first most complete, irremediable failure. This was in 1854, and Sardou was so disgusted and disappointed that he i8 VICTORIEN SARDOU determined never to write another play ; happily for himself, however, and the world at large, this determination did not hold good. In 1858 he married Mile, de Brecourt, and found in this charming companion a panacea to many of the ills of existence. He took courage, and again thought of the theatre, but life was a sore struggle with poverty, chagrin, disappointment, and overwork. His supersensitive nature was beginning to feel the effect of these constant and rude shocks that a precarious existence entails upon the lives of genius ; blows which fell on all sides and began to undermine both physical and moral force. Ordinary people cannot live in the world and be impervious to its contact and its contamination ; those alone can do this who have the poet's nature, the resource of its ideal ; the eternal back- A PERSONAL STUDY 19 ground of beauty and delight, which makes a palace of the most sordid hovel, and gardens of Paradise of the meanest courtyard. It must be a very strong character that can resist the daily communication with all that is mean, much that is abasing, and more that is distasteful, without the original sweetness of the nature becoming soured. Sardou's bright hopefulness was quenched, and the wit that enchanted friends and family soon sharpened to a satirical blade which cut right and left, as sure and fatal as the scythe which sweeps the dewy meadow of its earliest blooms. Still, in many respects the Sardou of to-day is the same Sardou. With all the old nervousness, the quick sym- pathy, the brilliant wit, the ready tear ; a good lover, a good hater ; a man of extremes, the most loyal of friends, the 20 VICTORIEN SARDOU most bitter of enemies ; anything you like, eager, intense, interesting and in- terested, but never indifferent. He rarely alludes to his past experience, but if anything brings it forward, he speaks with the utmost naturalness and unconcern. There is nothing pontifical about Sardou ; his simplicity is delight- ful as agreeable, very unlike many suc- cessful writers of the day, who cross the street when they see the old friends who knew them in poverty, and read all of Tom Hood excepting the lines : " And I would that the coats of my stomach were such that my uncle might take." Sardou is of such a striking indivi- duality that after a few moments in his presence you realise at once that you are before a man and a mind which have lived through the most terrible of ordeals. To the romantic impression- A PERSONAL STUDY 21 able lad, running all over Paris with verses in one pocket and plays in another (a second Frederick the Great on the eve of more than a seven years' war), to this lad, in his impressionability and facile enthusiasm, it were easy to predict his future character ; the con- tact of the world, the absorption of worldliness, hopes fled and dreams vanished ; the bloom brushed from the grape and the perfume fled from the flower. The old story of idealism versus realism, when for long years the latter dominates ; until the world seems one vast sea of commonplaces covered but by the floating wrecks of vanished dreams ; themselves dreams of dreams, shades of shadows, already become a vague mass of that distant vague hori- zon which despair calls destiny and fatalists designate as the future. One day we were speaking of the 22 VICTORIEN SARDOU deceptions sensitive youth knows, of the shattering of our idols, of the ruth- less hurling from their fair pedestals of gods whose names to us are as the canopy of heaven. M. Sardou himself gives the keynote to his somewhat cynical character, condemned by the many, understood by the few. "Ah," he cried, "to whom do you speak of deceptions ? My life has been one long deception, spent in seeing my idols shattered and my gods de- throned. I remember the first great illusions I ever had. I was an enthu- siastic boy, running all over Paris with plays in my pocket that no manager wanted — I don't wonder, they were bad enough then — I was so fond of reading, that in the streets, or on tops of houses, I was always devouring some work — one of the classics or of the works of George Sand, then at the A PERSONAL STUDY 23 zenith of her fame, and one of my pet idols. I thought of her ; I dreamed of her ; I scarcely ever hoped to know her ; but I hoped some day at least to see her. One morning I went to the Odeon with a play rolled up in my hand — not accepted, of course ; the stage manager told me they were rehearsing one of George Sand's pieces, that the stage was full, and Madame Sand there, superintending the stage setting. * Madame Sand ! * I screamed. * Oh, let me go on the stage ; let me look at her, let me go near her ; find me a place somewhere — do ! ' I was wild with excitement. My idol ! I was to see her at last. As I went on the stage — very timidly, of course, and as awkward as any school-boy — I saw a large, not ill-favoured woman, looking like a cook, rolling up cigarettes, and lolling in a large arm-chair. The 24 VICTORIEN SARDOU cigarettes I noticed particularly, as the regulations were very severe, no one being allowed to smoke on the stage. I thought to myself, that is some old duenna or the manager's stage cousin ; but imagine the shock when I heard and realised that she was George Sand ! That blow, however, was slight. Her appearance was the first shock, and you must admit that, for a poet to see his idol looking like a cook and smoking one cigarette after another, was not exactly the dream, the goddess, his fancy had pictured. The rehearsal went on. At a certain point there was a lull, and one of the machinists, or firemen, was obliged to cross the stage. He had but just started when Sand caught sight of him ; she stopped short with the cigarette she was rolling, she turned from the manager, then speaking to her, and her eye followed ^^ pompier A PERSONAL STUDY 25 out of sight ; when, instead of answering the manager's question, with a bland smile she murmured, * II est bigrement bien fait ce gars la ! ' "Illusion? Another? Pray, listen. If there was one man in the world I had a feeling of affection for, that man was — well, one of our greatest poets. His life, his exaggerations, his personality- surrounded his genius and his beauty with that Byronic sort of halo the very idea of which dazzled me. I thought if I could ever know him I would be perfectly happy ; I would be willing to walk miles barefoot for the sole hope of looking upon him ; but what chance had a poor struggling devil like myself of ever meeting the most brilliant poet of the day ? Sought after in Court and salon, a being almost a myth to his best friends, and the one man all Paris at that time was raving over and bowing 26 VICTORIEN SARDOU down to ? From having so often looked at his picture I knew his face and form by heart, and I really loved him with the romantic passion of a student, who worshipped such mind, genius, and fame. Early one morning I was on my way to the Theatre Frangais ; it was pouring with rain. I had just reached it, when I observed a man sheltering himself, leaning against the sides of the walls — the pillars, you know — near the Palais Royal. This man was emaciated, haggard, shabby ; he was so intoxicated that he could scarcely stand, and once I thought he would reel into my very arms. As I approached I saw, to my horror, who it was, and naturally looked with all my might a mingled look of curiosity, interest, sorrow, and chagrin. He returned my gaze, swaggered to one side, cocked his hat, and began : * What are you staring at ? Who are you and A PERSONAL STUDY 27 what do you want ? Move on, curse you ; move on ! ' Each word prefaced with the vilest oath I had ever heard, and each phrase followed by a string of vituperation enough to make a Billings- gate habitue shudder. He raved on in such a torrent of abuse that I thought he had lost his senses, and could scarcely credit the evidence of my own. " At last I could stand it no longer ; I recoiled, gasping, * Not the great poet ! ' ' Idiot ! ' he screamed, * whom did you expect it was ? ' And, with a dread- ful hiccough, added * Poet 1 Je le crois bien!' Then, loftily, drunkenly, touching his hat, with another choice selection from his choice vocabulary, he reeled, swearing, away, and was soon lost in the crowd of the street. That was the only time I ever saw my idol, the greatest poet of his time — a being whose very name to me had 28 VICTORIEN SARDOU been the synonym of all that was great, glorious, and enviable. Mais — ^ue voulez vous ? " " Yes,'' I added : " Sic transit gloria 7nundi ;'' and Sardou, in turn smiling, said : *' Je le crains bien^ que voulez vous?'' PERSONAL APPEARANCE I HAVE remarked a curious coincidence. Three women, probably the greatest in brain-power of the century, actually resembled each other, not alone in form, but in feature. Need I name George Eliot, George Sand, and Madame Viardot ? Victorien Sardou also strikingly resembles three great persons — Dante, Voltaire, and the First Consul. At twenty years of age he looked so like Bonaparte that it was ridiculous ; and Arsene Houssaye showed me a little silver statuette of the Emperor, which I thought and said must be M. Sardou dressed for a 6a/ inasqic6. 30 VICTORIEN SARDOU After the seasons that have waned and faded, in spite of the fatigue and cares of brain-work, the face has at times a Napoleonic expression, a Dantesque, a Voltairian expression, which adds a strange character to this characteristic physiognomy. No one could even glance at Sardou and not recognise in him a personage. He has that inde- finable something about him which attracts, and one and all turn a second time to look at a man of such marked personality. He is of about medium stature, of a very slight physique, very spare, very active, very eager. Everything about Sardou is alive ; his gestures are per- fectly graceful, his speech is graceful, his walk is graceful ; but naturally his face exercises the greatest attraction. A broad, square forehead, crowned with masses of long and still lustrous black PERSONAL APPEARANCE 31 hair, scarcely threaded with a tinge of grey. His face is still clean shaven ; the mobile mouth, which denotes keen- ness, firmness, and tenderness, is veiled by a fine ironical expression, only changing when he smiles : a rare, seductive smile, which shows all his kindliness, and would be charming even in a woman who wished to charm. His eyes are dark grey, large and sparkling ; they light up with every expression of his face, and long before he speaks indicate his humour ; in short, the whole face is one of intensity, eagerness, and intelligence. Sardou is not one of those sleepy geniuses who sit like tame cats for hours, then sud- denly spring some extraordinary thing upon you. He is not only alive, but seems the very incarnation of life, of readiness, of being. He is very re- markable at his rehearsals, but he is 32 VICTORIEN SARDOU quite as remarkable when reading one of his scenarios, or skeletons of plays, which, by the way, are very far from being skeletons, as these first studies are in themselves almost complete plays, the flesh of composition already more than covering the framework of bone and sinew. Sardou is a perfect actor ; takes every part and illustrates every one of his characters with such versatility and vigour that the illusion is quite com- plete. You may laugh and you may cry with him, and never know how it came about ; indeed, the stage in him has lost a great actor. It is usual to lend to celebrities virtues as well as vices which they do not possess, and because Sardou is a close man of business and looks well after his affairs, many imagine that the milk of human kindness does not over- PERSONAL APPEARANCE 35 flow his veins ; that he is hard, cold, and unimpressionable ; but those who know him know the contrary. Should you hear otherwise, remember Byron's answer to his wife, ever complaining of what those around her said of her hus- band : ** Madam, has it never struck you that you do not live amongst my friends ? " Sardou hates injustice and im- position ; he has not the facile generosity of Dumas, senior, who borrowed twenty francs of an impecunious friend's ser- vant, and tipped her with the whole sum as she showed him to the door, observing : '^/e nai pas de monnaiey Hens!'' But Sardou is sympathy itself ; many and many are the artists he has helped, and many another not in the artistic world. Poor Virginie Dejazet, who had squandered fortunes and was always without a halfpenny, ever and anon C 34 VICTORIEN SARDOU experienced to the very last how true a friend the dramatist was ; an old woman, dead to the scenes of her for- mer triumphs, interred, as it were, before she was dead, playing half an hour at some morning performance, a fleeting apparition at some charity entertain- ment, just because she had been Dejazet ; running into the provinces to show the younger generation what a comedienne of the old school was, drag- ging her seventy years about as though they were thirty ; struggling to the end, one fatal illness, and her real last ap- pearance on the stage of life. Besides the memory left behind her were a few grateful letters, wherein Sardou was more than once mentioned, and finally the flighty Parisian world realised that generosity does not alone consist in heading lists of public charities, that one man who had kept in the back- PERSONAL APPEARANCE 35 ground was the one who had alone been the final stay to old age and dying, decrepid talent. Sardou's kindness to young authors is proverbial, and many a once obscure scribbler is indebted to him for rank, position, and comfort in the world, spiritual and material. Nine out of every ten who rush into dramatic effort com- plete their first play and are off to Sardou with it. The maitre not only gives advice and wonderful counsel, but arranges, corrects, criticises, suggests, and to some privileged few even shows his own way of working. The amazing 7inse en seme book, a huge volume in itself, which contains scarcely a word of dialogue, is like a general's plan of campaign. Every movement, every gesture, almost every thought that the player is to reproduce, is designated in full — the furniture, the walls, the doors 36 VICTOR! EN SARDOU the Windows, all have their role clearly marked out. This IS the most wonderful book I have ever seen, and shows the trouble the maitre takes over his plays. It is an inductive sort of study, and demon- strates, even more than the completed drama, the perfection of the completed dramatic scenario. This scenario, as he calls it, is an absolutely speaking score ; and once, when submitting a scene to M. Sardou, I complained of not finding some words I wanted. He smiled grimly, and said : " Le geste fait naitre la parole, trouvez le geste, et vous en aurez meme de trop." He does not spare those to whom he gives counsel ; on the contrary, his time, if worth anything, must not be wasted, and his advice, if to be followed, must be taken literally and absolutely. He once raved at me for — well, perhaps PERSONAL APPEARANCE 37 an hour — because I had written some- thing to my mind very fine, but to his very inferior. ** Ah ! " he cried, " you think it is in that way people write plays ? Miss Jones arrives. Perhaps she comes from the Arc, or perhaps from the Tour Eiffel No one knows anything about her, her antecedents, her family ; you drag her in, spring her upon your audience ; not a preceding word or gesture from any one leads up to who she is or what she is, and because she rattles off a volley of smart words you think it is all right. She goes off as she came on, but instead of being agreeable, she mystifies everybody — elle de route tout le vionde — and your play is well-nigh damned long before it has been either heard or played." And so he raved on. I did not dare open my mouth and think it one 38 VICTORIEN SARDOU instance on record of a woman keeping- her tongue, still for — for so very long a consecutive time. His remarks were scarcely flattering in one way, but to have had such a lesson in the art of writing for the stage I would have stood much — but very much^more. My only regret is that the world could not have heard him : had there only been a shorthand reporter at the door, or a crafty phonograph in the room, posterity might be richer by one of the most electric, eloquent, scathing, splendid outbursts ever delivered extempore on the art of constructing and writing modern plays for the modern stage. When he had finished he was all apology, kindliness, sympathy. He said : " Dickens could never write a play ; Balzac could never write a play ; novelists cannot write plays. If you PERSONAL APPEARANCE 39 could, you would not need to come to me to help you. Writers will not understand the terrible mechanical ap- prenticeship necessary to turn even the greatest dramatic instinct to account. The labour must be unceasing, the effort unending, the self-scrutiny im- placable ; then, if you do not in the end show genius, you at least show train- ing ; your play will be well put to- gether ; and we all know that the genius of modern drama is its construction, and without that you might as well expect to write a good piece as to build a fine house without any foundation- stones." He added, smilingly : "You have listened well. Thanks ; but at one moment your attention strayed. What were you thinking } " " I was thinking of the great Pauline Viardot," I replied, " and a music lesson I once heard at her house. George 40 VICTORIEN SARDOU Sand was on the sofa, and sat near to Madam. After a few weak-hearted passages she closed the pupil's book. The girl seemed in tears." "That's all very well, Miss," she said, " but don't you think you had better weep at home ? It really is not worth while coming here and paying me twenty francs a half- hour to cry." Sardou : " C'est 9a! Nous appren- nons tous a pleurer. Mais — 9a conte moins chere de pleurer a la maison." MY DIARY On the 2nd of August 1887 I went to visit M. Sardou at Marly, The day was hot, very hot I found the maitre in the garden, storming because two gardeners, told to fill up a cavity at the base of a fine old oak, had spent a day doing the contrary, undermining the finest tree in the park- '* Voyez-vous ? " he cried ; " what the ordinary intellignce is. Within an hour I explained perfectly what these men were to do ; I left them five minutes ; they talked things over, and this is the result, I once felt sorry for servants, especially when their errors caused 42 VICTORIEN SARDOU them to be scolded by their masters, but that was a long time ago. Never fear, water finds its level, and in all my experiences of life I have never yet found one human being in an inferior position above that position ; on the contrary, they are usually far below it, and have all they can do to main- tain even .their inferiority before their world.'' I take the following from my diary : I should call it from my Sardou : — ' Only imagine you have before you the brilliant ' eyes, the ready, fascinating smile, the quick, nervous manner, and clear, sarcastic voice of the maitre. Sardou is so bright, and seizes upon the points of a thing so instanta- • neously ; his repartee is so happy that wit seems to flash from his body. . After one of his brilliant sallies you some way expect to see his coat MY DIARY 43 sparkle, or diamond dust shine on the small black toque set on the small Dantesque head. After the gardener episode we began talking of his play, to quote himself, '* for the great Sarah." He questioned me of my own work, and I said, " I am studying Poe at present." He then began about our national glory, and simply raved over Poe's genius and literary skill. " One night, long ago," Sardou said, " a poor student, on my way home, I stopped, as usual, at the book-shop on the Quai, when I ran across an old review-magazine with * The Purloined Letter' in it, translated from the original, without the author's name, but with the name of the translator. I was wild to find out who had written the original. I was so struck with the intricate and almost miraculous reason- 44 VICTORIEN SARDOU ing evinced, especially in those remarks about the Cobbler playing and being too small, that the story ran incessantly in my mind for a very long time. Some time afterwards Baudelaire's work ap- peared, and put all Paris in an uproar. Imagine my surprise to find among the collection my delightful * Purloined Let- ter/ Baudelaire was a nobody — abso- lutely unknown — and he startled the world with his Edgar Poe translations." (Poej/y as the French pronounce it.) And speaking of the " Purloined Letter" reminds me that *' Les Pattes de Mouche," Sardou's most brilliant effort, and one which will remain with the classics, must certainly have been a little inspired, in part, by the marvellous and intricate story above named. During the conversation Byron's name came up, and Sardou cried, " Ah ! mon Dieu, that reminds me of La MY DIARY 45 Guiccioli ; a long time ago she was my neighbour. She was the Marquise de Boissy, and Boissy always presented her as * Madame Guiccioli, my wife ; but the Guiccioli, you know, the very same bonne amie of Lord Byron.' Very funny ! and if he thought that any body present did not understand that fact, he would hunt them up to explain it fully to them. La Guiccioli was still fair, and wore a blonde wig, an imitation of her tresses of the olden time ; not so rich as the real Venetian red, which was once her greatest beauty ; but this hair was curled just the same, and she seemed to think she appeared just the same. ''She talked — they talked — very freely about Byron ; and one day she said to me : * I'm going to publish his letters, the entire correspondence, but you know it is very shady — il y a des choses bien scabreuses — viais des choses the world 46 VICTORIEN SA RDO U must not see.' 'Naturally/ I Cried; * and these are the very ones that the world in general, and I in particular, want to see.' So we arranged to dine on Saturday at her house, and go over the whole correspondence. She added in the coolest way in the world : ' Boissy is ill, dying ; he can't last long ; any- way, we won't be disturbed on Saturday ; I feel that he is going, and once gone, there is no reason why I should not publish Byron's letters at once. Before his death, you understand, the family — so foolish, Boissy's family are so idiotic, they object to my saying anything more about Byron's letters ; but as the Marquis is so near the end, I may as well get at the correspondence now.' " Well, Friday came, and Friday night — the night before I was to dine — Boissy was breathing his last. The following morning, Saturday, he was MY DIARY 47. dead. The next week, when I began to think about the correspondence, the' Marquise told me that Boissy's family were giving great trouble, that she did not know what to do ; however, she was going to publish the letters. She did publish them later, and there was absolutely nothing in them. A . book that was absolutely inept, and anything but an honour to the memory of a great man. Ah ! poor Byron, he had no luck at all. I was dying to see that correspondence, and had I got hold of. it, I surely would have counselled her not alone to keep copies, but to print those letters exactly as they had been written. You see the letters of so great a genius are public property — they can- not be tampered with ; and these should have been given to the world intact as he wrote them, or they should not have been given to the world at all." 43 VICTORIEN SARDOU Speaking of Byron, Sardou men- tioned some of the poet's dramatic works, and gave me an opportunity of asking about his own play which he was then writing (since called " La Tosca " ). " Don't talk to me," he said, " of my works ; I am absolutely beside myself." He flung thirty or forty pages of MS. about, written in his spider-like impossible hand. " These," he cried, indicating the manuscript, ** represent six weeks' work, condensed into this." He showed several pages of copy, " of which " (he smiled a grim smile) " re- main but two." Across from top to bottom, with two strokes of the pen, he had wiped out the whole composition. '' Not cancelled } " I cried. " Oh, what a shame ! " ** Much greater shame to have lefc MY DIARY 49 them," he remarked coolly; **they were absolutely worthless " — he smiled another quiet smile — " but I am used to that ; only it is rather hard to spend weeks, day and night, in midsummer weather, to find out that I am but an imbecile. ' And now," he said, " I have stopped short. Tm writing this play ; I have the names of all the principals, but I can't find a name for my heroine. The woman is called Floria, but I can't invent a surname for her." I suggested maliciously, " That which we call a rose, by any other name " " Oh, stuff and nonsense ! " he inter- rupted, good-naturedly. " The name } — the name } * What's in a name .^ ' Why, everything. Le nom, voyez-vous, c'est une chose terrible. I'm haunted night and day. I've gone through every family name in Venice from the D 50 VICTOR I EN SARDOU Doges down." Then he began count- ing off one after the other alphabetically on his fingers, and, with his eager in- tensity, cried : '* The name I want must be short ; it must suit her ; it must be like, very like the character, and it must end in a. Floria — a : there you are. I can't get it, and until I do I am absolutely un- done." The accidental quoting " a rose by," &c., started us on Shakespeare, and to say that Sardou does not like the great master would be saying a great deal. That he criticises him is to acknow- ledge but the truth, and of the plays " Hamlet " took its share of condem- nation. Naturally I bridled, and said : " You are a great erudite, a great student ; but while you read the master in French, you only know a French Shakespeare MY DIARY 51. and a French Hamlet" The idea seemed to strike him ; still, he retorted : " But the dramatic scenes are the same, the dramatic action is the same.'' •^ Pardon me," I replied, *^ they are not the same ; the action is not the same at all. Shakespeare's Hamlet is not good enough for France. Two better writers have introduced a scene in the second act. I think the second act enough to make the Anglo-Saxon hair rise. Mounet-Sully is so mad when the play begins, that had he been in Denmark, or anywhere else, he would have been suppressed by the authorities, and Shakespeare never would have written the tragedy. What would you think were we to tamper with your Corneille, your Moliere, your Racine, your Scribe, &c. One sample of the French trans- lation of Macbeth is ' Out, brief candle ' — SorteZy cotcrte chandelle. Another 52 VICTORIEN SARDOU (M. Richepin's latest) in ' Macbeth ' : one of the witches says, ' I go/ &c. — ^ Fiches inoi le campy' Need I say Sardou laughed ? " But," he said, " I read the original, and I appreciate the difference/' There has been so much discussion about what Sardou has said of Shake- speare, that I not only subjoin a conver- sation held with him on the 2 i st of Sep- tember last at his house in the Rue Gene- ral Foy, but a letter on this very subject. " You speak of Shakespeare," he said, "and arrive just in time to see a copy of the letter written to the Daily Tele- graph on this very question.* I shall * M. SARDOU'S CL6OPATRE. September 24, 1890. To the Editor of the Daily Telegraph. Monsieur, — En reponse a un article du Daily Telegraphy date du 2^ Aout, vous trouverez bon que je vous addresse deux mots de rectification. L'auteur se serait epargne des frais d'eloquence MY DIARY 53 be glad when people are tired of talking about me, what I have done — above all, what I have never thought of doing, of publishing inter- views which have never taken place, and of propounding theories that I have never even thought of discussing. They then give my supposed opinions upon accepted classics, and say that I said this, that, and the other. inuiiles s'il avait pris le soin de verifier tout d'abord I'exactitude de ses assertions. II donne comme certain que la " Cleopatre " qui doit etre cree prochainement par Sarah Bernhardt est une adaptation de celle de Shakespeare ; c'est une erreur. II eut ete plus sage d'attendre I'apparition de la piece pour parler en connaissance de cause que d'affirmer cetle pretendue adaptation a seule fin d'ecrire un article malveillent, qui, portant a faux, n'a plus de raison d'etre. On pense bien qu'il n'a pas neglige de reediter c\ cetie occasion ma fameux phrase sur Shakespeare : *' Qu'il n'a pas le moindre talent I" Mais il a oublie de prouver que je Tai reellement dite. II ne suffit pas que Ton m attribue une sottise, pour qu'elle soit a mon actif. Je ne suis pas, il est vrai, des idolatres qui admirant Shakespeare sans reserves, et je me 54 VICTORIEN SARDOU " Some person has made a statement that I declared Shakespeare had no talent — a thing which I might have said, but which I did not say. No one with a grain of common-sense could speak of Shakespeare's talents. He was a genius ; he was Shakespeare ; and that ends it. Notez bien que je ne suis pas de ces fanatiques qui admirent tout dans un genie et qui permets de trouver que son statue usurpe en plein Paris la place qui conviendrait mieux a celle de notre Corneille ; mais de la au jugement que Ton me prete, il y a loin ; et je mets votre redacteur au defi de eiter un ecrit de moi, que qu'il soit, ou figure cette enormite. II n'a meme pas Texcuse de la bonne foi ; car j'ai proteste publiquement contre cette phrase I'egendaire ; et s'il pretend que ma protestation lui etait inconnue, je lui repondrai qu'un journalists qui se respects n'a pas le droit de connaitre I'accusation et d'ignorer la defense. Agreez, M onsieur, mes salutations distinguees. V. Sardou. Paris, September 1890. MY DIARY 55 insistent que tout genie soit perfection. II y en a du bon Shakespeare et il y en a du mauvais ; meme votre Angle- terre a reconnue cela, il a meme ete question, si oui ou non il avait ecrit de certains oeuvres ; tant qu'il y a de differ- ence entre Tun et Tautre. Par exemple. Ton veut me soutenir que les Contes d'Hiver, Deux Gentilhommes de Verona, Troilus et Cresside — que ma foi est bien curieux — et d'autres vaillent Otello, Jules Cesar, Macbeth, ou Romeo et Juliette ? Ah, par exemple non ; ca ? Jamais de la vie. C'est comme les gens qui veulent me soutenir que Racine, Corneille, et Moliere, n'avient jamais ecrit une mauvaise page ; c'est de la betise tout pure. Nous savons tous que Le Cid est une merveille et que Surena est toute autre chose, etc. etc., enfin sans en finir.'' Which words should, I think, settle the vexed 56 VICTORIEN SARDOU question of Sardou v. Shakespeare, to use a little more French, a tout jamais. He also said : " I am not willingly a critic, but my profession makes me one. I am obliged to discriminate. I am still a student, a working man ; I can- not follow things and people blindly. I must have my eyes open and know what I am about ; and in reference to a conversation above quoted as to the fitness of men and women for the tasks they set themselves, so much do I love men and women in whatever walk of life they may be who do their work thoroughly ; so much do I loathe these slovenly, careless creatures who under- take everything and accomplish nothing; for the former I have a real, veritable affection, while the latter I can never look at. There is no medium with me ; people are either capable or incapable, MY DIARY 57 trustworty or untrustworthy ; and that sums up all human nature. " I do not care in what walk of life, however humble the person, I reverence the conscientious worker. " I remember at the theatre — at the Porte St. Martin — there was an honest fellow named Camus, whom I actually loved. He was a property-man, always ready, always cheerful ; all his heart and soul in his work. He would listen to the rehearsals, and evidently absorbed scraps of conversation relative to the piece — what would be required, what would be easy, and what would be diffi- cult to find ; and the next day, without a word to any one, would come quietly up to me and say, * M. Sardou, I heard you mention you wanted such and such a thing. I had a bit of time yesterday on my hands ; I hunted about ; I came across this.* And per- •S8 VICTORIEN SARDOU haps a lamp, or a fork, or spoon ; and he would hand me the object. Perhaps a nothing, worthless in itself, but just the one thing wanted to fit harmoniously with some elaborate scene. Now, that is what I call doing work for work's sake. His sole ambition was to bring anything to bear upon the needs of his position, and I honestly loved that man. He is dead now, poor fellow, died a short time ago ; yet every time I go to the theatre I miss something, and when I look around and find that his vacant place is filled by another, I knov/ what that something is." Then Sardou gazed unconsciously to- ward the window, and I gazed uncon- sciously toward him. Camus's rank was humble, but the poor property-man will never be forgotten. SARDOU AT HOME. Another slip from my Diary. — Christmas Day, 12 a.m., 1890. Paris. — I have been again reading to M. Sardou from the little sketch of himself I have made, and when we came to the part about his rich residences he burst into a little laugh. As the children say, his face smiled all over ; then he jumped up — (what a man ! — he is as active as quicksilver) — he jumped up and fetched an old engraving of old Paris, called " Le Pont de Notre Dame," and said, simply : " My houses ! I will tell you of one residence not so rich as those you have 6o VICTORIEN SARDOU described. You see this quay, the Seine, the church, &c.? This was old Paris, and called le Quai des Fleurs. In 1852 I lived with another medical student in a mansarde in this very house (pointing out a block of quaint, curious build- ings) : and you may judge of the size of our garret when I tell you it was so low that neither of us could stand up in it with our hats on, without touching the ceiling. " You see the bridge " (again indicat- ing the place) ; " well, the whole Seine at that point was studded with flower booths, and when, in the early morning, we opened our windows, the air which stole upwards was our sole breath of fragrance. It was delicious, delightful. Leaning from our casement we could see right and left the long sweep of the Seine shining in the sunlight, and, as far as eye could reach, many a beauti- SARDOU AT HOME 6i fal old building — alas ! a thing of the past — quays freighted with their moving mass of humanity, the little marts and the myriad bouquets on the vendors' richly heaped tables, made the river- banks one long, lovely, scented garden. " There was an old woman who had a little kiosk upon the end of the bridge, who sold hot potatoes and chestnuts, and I used to run down early to buy our, at that time, most sumptuous break- fast — two sous' worth of hot boiled po- tatoes, one sou's worth of bread, and one of fresh butter, procured from a little market stall beside the first flower booth. Then I would run home again, and you may imagine with what appe- tite and pleasure we devoured our de- licious repast. Mon Dieu ! The num- ber of times I did that I never could tell. "Mow and again my friend went out, 62 VICTORIEN SARDOU for if one was busy working, naturally the other had to go out for the dejeuner. Then we worked like slaves all day, when we had a sort of hodge-podge, God-knows-what kind of eight-sou dinner, swallowed in some Latin quar- ter pot-house about seven p.m. " But that is not all about my man- sarde. Listen, pray. " One morning, years afterward, I was breakfasting with my old friend Baron Haussmann * at the Hotel de la Ville (he was then in process of tearing down and rebuilding Paris). Not knowing exactly where we were, I went to the window, and looking opposite, cried 'Tiensl I know that house — I recognise it ; they are ' * Since deceased, January 189 1. The famous architect of the last Napoleonic Empire, who changed, restored, beautified, and to quote the Ex-Emperor of Brazil, Dom Pedro, Haussmanized Paris. SARDOU AT HOME 63 ^* * What IS it ? ' said Haussmann. '* ' What is it ? ' I replied ; ' nothing- only they are tearing down my mansarde. I — I lived there a long time ago, when a poor medical student in the Latin quarter,' and pointed to my old student home. It was being demolished at that very moment. A strange feeling, perhaps of sadness, came over me. How I would have liked to have visited it once more. ** ' Had I known of this rebuilding,' I added, * I would have come ' " Haussmann interrupted me, and was for stopping them at once, but it was too late. While we were yet looking the roof fell in — my poor old home was no more ! " Sardou's voice trembled slightly, and I thought how like the story of the mansarde was to life. Haussmann shrugged his shoulders, of course, and 64 VICTORIEN SARDOU said what no Frenchman, when he gets a fitting chance, ever misses saying: Toi/^ cassey tout passe, tout lasse. But I add, so it is with man. Everything has its day, its end. Our ambitions, our hopes, our joys, our sorrows, our memories, even our regrets — in the morn of life — crown life's fair edifice with what youth thinks an immortal crown ; but in the evening the walls totter and fall, until the last becomes enveloped in the smoke of time's fatal fires — that crucible whence arises the mist-hiding present past and future ; future present and past. Sardou is one of the richest dramatic authors living, and there is a vast difference between the humble lodgings of the long-ago and the charming house in the Rue General Foy ; the once regal residence of Maily le E.oi, not to mention the magnificent palace SARDOU AT HOME 65 of ever-changing Nice, designed by none other than the playwright himself ; for our poet Sardou is no mean archi- tect, and adds to archaeological, his- torical and dramatic gifts, that of a draughtsman, than whom there are few cleverer professionals and certainly very few abler amateurs. Sardou designs pictures, costumes, houses, stage scenes, gardens. He has a knowledge of every century and its customs since the flood at his finger-ends. This was demonstrated in a famous controversy which began with La Haine and was scarcely quieted with Theo- dora ; and all Paris remembers how Mr. Darcel, a professional archaeologist, vainly contested the historic correctness of the fork used by Theodora ; and in 1882 there was another quarrel about Odette and Phalammena ; Mario Uchard being the last to wage war and E 66 VICTORIEN SARDOU lose the battle with this terrible and infallible authority, Sardou. Until six years ago the maitre lived in a flat in the Rue de Clichy — a street, by the way, where Victor Hugo lived for many years (at No. 21), and Sardou moved from the Rue de Clichy into the newly named Rue du General Foy, properly in the Quartier de I'Europe, just above the beautiful church of St. Augustine. Many of the oldest and best families in France still cling to the idea that it is not the correct thing to have a house facing the street, but rather one looking into the courtyard, oftentimes surrounded by a high wall and often enclosed within heavenly gardens of magic and enchanting love- liness. I do not know about the garden ; but in this, as in everything, M. Sardou is most correct. His house, is on the court, quiet, retired, and a SARDOU AT HOME 67 perfect gem in its rich, harmonious per- fection. From the ante-chamber to the salon the rooms are tapestried with magnificent gobelins ; every object the eye falls upon is a fit companion to its mate, and an open staircase leading into an interior apartment gives one a pass- ing glance of richly furnished landings and rare tapestries guarding the doors to the upper chambers. To the right of the inner or first drawing-room is the poet's sanctum, a little low chamber, in dark harmonious tints, with books all round, pictures all around, cabinets all around, and underneath one a row of boxes labelled like those one sees at a solicitor's, containing valuable MSS., plays, &c., and two desks in the middle of the room heaped high with a mis- cellaneous mass of papers ; the second table faces a stained-glass window, where the dramatist sits for long hours 68 VICTORIEN SARDOU and composes. There was one picture in the room I remember : an old bit of a bridge crossing the Seine, some old houses rich in colour and a street well known to the inhabitants of the Latin quarter. I recollect Sardou looking at it once, and as he looked a softness stole over the pale face, and, with his rare, seductive smile, pointing out its accuracy as a picture of old Paris, he said : " Fm very fond of it ; it brings back the days of my youth." Sardou is the most methodical man in the world, the most eager, the most intense, the most indefatigable. He gets up at six o'clock in the morning, summer and winter — he will have no laggard about him ; at seven everybody in the house must be moving. He then breaks his fast with a light cup of tea or coffee, and works straight on until SARDOU AT HOME 69 eleven or twelve o'clock, when he takes his French breakfast, and, if not inter- rupted with callers or rehearsals, resumes and goes on till three o'clock, when his day's writing is supposed to be ended. It is then, however, his work really begins — always something to do with his plays : a young actress to coach in an old part, scenery to look after, the stage manager to see about properties, the costumier to see about costumes, and the general manager to go over every- thing in general. Then comes dinner, a light repast (Sardou is a very simple eater and drinker) : an evening spent at the play, when, if not a first night, the actors are not playing well, he in- variably says : ^* Tell them Sardou is in front," and all slovenliness instantly vanishes. Or perhaps a hurried appear- ance at some assembly in the great world of fashion. Sardou in principle 70 VICTORIEN SARDOU and politics is a monarchist, and very seldom frequents any other than the society of the old Faubourg, or a few of his literary and artistic intimates. As he said himself, there is no half-work with him. He cannot tolerate the society of nonentities. He is a very simple, silent man ; has a rare head for business ; he makes a few friends, but staunch ; and his greatest happiness is to be in the bosom of his family with his wife and four lovely children. Madame Sardou was Mile. Soulie (daughter of a distinguished legitimist and archaeologist at Versailles, and one of the honoured and esteemed friends of the princes of the house of Orleans) ; a fair, sweet woman with a face like a flower, of rare manners and gentleness ; in short, a tres grande dmne^ and, if I mistake not, the model in early days of those wonderful dramatic creations — SARDOU AT HOME 71 one of those winning maidens, admitted by the world at large to be the most perfect pictures ever framed in the dramatic gallery of to-day, and of whom Sardou, with pardonable pride, says, " As to my youilg girls, an honest man would marry any of them." His own only daughter is a child all grace and sweetness, and when I first caught a glimpse of her walking under the trees at Marly, she came upon me with a strange, old-fashioned grace, with quite the manners and mien of a princess in a fairy tale ; a part of the old chateau of Marly le Roi, that superb royal demesne under whose arching trees Louis XIV. had often walked ; whose vast parks and gardens were the favourite promenade of many a '^ belle dame sans merci^^^ and now the favourite wajk of the dramatist, his family and intimate friends. 72 VICTORIEN SARDOU Sardou was determined to become the possessor of this splendid property ; and it is said that the first purchase- money, 25,000 francs, comprised the royalties from " La Famille Benoiton," played at the old Vaudeville Theatre in the Rue Vivienne. The old chateau of Marly was destroyed during the Revolution ; but there still remains the site of the fountain and an ancient column, ruins of the long-ago. It is not to be wondered at, Sardou's love for this spot, for it is one of the most truly beautiful in France. Marly is situate on a high plateau overlooking the grand sweep of the Seine valley. St. Germain, with its forest and terrace, to the left ; Bougival, with its quaint chalets and fair gardens, to the right ; with the Seine lying at its feet, cutting the meadow like a broad watered ribbon, or bubbling through the SARDOU AT HOME ' 73 fairy-like wheels that feed the aqueduct and the mysterious fountains of royal Versailles. Sardou^s house naturally is one vast treasure of art and artistic objects. Among other curios there is one of the famous Inquisition instruments of torture ; a most uncomfortable piece of furniture even to look at, the very sight of which, I am sure, would drag from me any confession regarding myself or my neighbours. The master's study is in the middle of the chateau, on the ground floor, overlooking the garden, commanding a view of the lovely vales and woods surrounding the estate. The room is filled with books and engravings, books everywhere being in the great- est profusion ; in fact, such a hetero- geneous mass of papers and copy that the master's lynx eyes alone would be able to ferret out and classify the whole. 74 VICTORIEN SARDOU The entrance to the chateau is very imposing — a pair of gates of massive bronze, with a wonderful Louis XIV. railing, and peeping through, on either side, a row of those famous stone sphynxes so admired in the Champ de Mars in 1867; and in the garden, gleaming white through the trees, a statue of Christopher Alegrain, which once belonged to Madame de Pompa- dour. The old fleur-de-lys coronets and monograms of Henry IV. and Marie de Medicis were destroyed ; but a curious column, dating from the beginning of the seventeenth century, Sardou found intact. He had the French and Florentine fleur-de-lys, with the initials of the above named sovereigns, restored, and replaced in their old positions in the garden. The new house which Sardou is building at Nice, after his own drawings SARDOU AT HOME 75 and designs, overlooks the whole of that part of the Riviere and the He de Ste. Marguerite whence Marshal Bazaine made his memorable escape. It is an immense feudal-looking pile, with its battlements and Trecento tower, and occupies so much space that I scarcely know whether to call it properly the construction of a castle or the destruction of a mountain. He spends much time in superintending the building of his last and favourite home, and, to the delight of Nice and les Nigois, promises to make it his future winter residence. SARDOU^S WORKS. M. Sardou is a product of the century. He possesses brain, nerve, fire, adapt- ability, flexibility, patience and per- severance ; add to these a will of iron, and one quality, perhaps his greatest, he is a man of progress. He moves with the times ; he is alert, concentrated, serious. And how many to-day in any walk of life are serious ? Here you have before you a man whose mind has not run in a groove, who has not cultivated one talent at the expense of all other talents, but who, on the contrary, has employed various qualities to support and prop up SARDOU'S WORKS 77 the one. A tree is not held to the earth by one root, but fastened by- many, each one in its turn shooting out the tennae, the which, widespread, sustain the superficial whole. Remen:iber that the world has known a Michel Angelo, a Cellini, a Da Vinci, and a Shakespeare. Hence, when in Sardou's plays one remarks the cleverness of certain scenes, or suggestions, or intricate mechanical technique, that the ordinary dramatist would never have dreamed of, recollect the reason of this completeness, and also recollect that if there be exception the rule can scarcely hold good. Had he so wished, the jack of all trades might have mastered at least one, and now we arrive at the great secret of dramatic art. When you see and remark certain (to you) anomalies in a stage character, do not declare this, that, or the other to 78 VICTORIEN SARDOU be unnatural. The fact is, that, on the st^ge or off, men and women are seldom natural. We attribute to them virtues, through our ideality and vices, through our indifference. But if a man whose whole life and life's study has been the cause, effect, and aftermath of humanity, holds the mirror up to nature that you yourself hold up, recollect that even this mirror shows but a bounded part, and nature alone furnishes the living quicksilver for her own indescribable limitless self. Sceptical Pilate said : " What is truth ? " And who of us may dare pre- tend to know his neighbour, even his most intimate friend } The caprice of brain, the subterfuge of circumstance, the ruse, the trick of habit, civilisation and its monstrous necessities, have aided one and all to dominate, almost nullify, original matter. On the stage, listening SARDOWS WORKS 79 to a sudden outburst or noticing an unusual situation, you may declare such or such a character would not have acted in such a way or have put him- self in such or such a position ; but, believe me, you would declare wrongly. The dramatist who evolves all, every- thing, from the magic crucible of a cultivated brain, makes up the great human whole after rule, rhythm, and natural law. Reflect and admit how much more likely it is that you in your untutored honesty should be mistaken, than he, a professed student in his native element, aided by his immense experienced art. Perhaps that is why M. Sardou occupies the first place in dramatic art to-day. One may dispute his genius, his talent, his taste, but none may dis- pute his exceptional position ; and, whatever he may be considered in 8o VICTORIEN SARDOU France, the world at large unhesitatingly places him at the head of the French dramatists to-day. In 1887 he was elected, almost unanimously, to fill the chair in the French Academy left vacant by Joseph Autran, the poet author of " Les Poemes de la Mer " and " La Fille d'Eschyle " ; and in spite of a whirlwind of opposition of talk, pro and ^