Say that at morn, in the town,
The standards that hang at the gates of his halls
Will stoop, as he passes, to smite at his face.
The standards that hang at the gates of his halls
Will stoop, as he passes, to smite at his face.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v07 - Cic to Cuv
The mother died; François grew
up with his three sisters, two of whom painted for a living, while
the third kept house. Then the father died, and his son also ob-
tained employment in the government offices.
FRANÇOIS COPPÉE
François's boyhood and part of his youth were spent in sadness,
almost misery; and the shadow cast over his life by this gloomy
period of his existence is very perceptible in the poet's writings. It
did not however make him a cynic, a pessimist, or a rebel against the
existing social conditions. To be sure, his verse is not unfrequently
ironical; but it is the irony of fate that the poet makes you keenly
feel, although he touches it with a light hand. The recollection of
those joyless days filled Coppée with an immense feeling of sadness
and sympathy for all who suffer on this earth, especially for those
who struggle on, bravely concealing from all eyes their griefs and
## p. 4046 (#416) ###########################################
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FRANÇOIS COPPÉE
sorrows. His life, he tells us, was composed of desires and reveries.
His only consolation was in his literary work. He felt the inclina-
tion and the need of expressing in a way both simple and sincere
what passed under his eyes; of extracting what humble ideal there
might be in the small folk with whom he had lived, in the melan-
choly landscapes of the Parisian suburbs where his childhood had
been spent,-in short, to paint from nature. He made the attempt,
felt that he was successful, and lived then the best and noblest
hours of his life; hours in which the artist, already a master of his
instrument and having still that abundance and vivacity of sensations
of youth, writes the first work that he knows to be good, and writes
it with complete disinterestedness, without even thinking that others
will see it; working for himself alone, for the sole joy of producing,
of pouring out his whole imagination and his whole heart. Hours of
pure enthusiasm, Coppée goes on to say, and of perfect happiness,
that he will nevermore find when he shall have bitten into the
savory fruit of success, when he shall be spurred on by the feverish
desire for fame! Delightful and sacred hours, that can be compared
only to the rapture of first love!
Rising at six, Coppée would vigorously begin his battle with
words, ideas, pictures. At nine he left for his office. There, having
blackened with ink a sufficient number of government foolscap
sheets, he would find himself with two or three spare hours, which
he employed in reading and taking notes. Every night found him
up until twelve at his writing-table. The whole of Sunday was
given to his favorite occupation of writing verse. Such a continuous
effort, he says, kept up in his mind that ardor, spirit, and excite-
ment without which no poetical production is possible.
Such was Coppée's life until, his name becoming known, he
earned enough with his pen to give himself up entirely to his art.
Then came his success with 'Le Passant' (The Passer-by: 1869), a
one-act play; and the following year, the war, the siege of Paris,
through which Coppée served in the militia. "Amédée Violette" has
now become famous, and his reputation as a poet rests upon the
sincerity of his work. He is esteemed for the dignity of his life,
wholly taken up with art; and in the world of French letters his
place is in the very first rank. He lives out of the world, in the
close intimacy of those he loves, and knows nothing of the wretch-
edness of vanity and ambition. Like many writers and thinkers of
the present day, he feels the weariness of life, and finds oblivion in
the raptures of poetry and dreams. Such is the man: a wonderfully
delicate organization, of a modest shrinking nature, - notice the
name of Violette he gives himself, -sensitive to a degree of morbid-
ness.
3
E
## p. 4047 (#417) ###########################################
FRANÇOIS COPPÉE
4047
The Academy elected him a member in 1884. Let us now con-
sider the writer. The general character of Coppée's poetry is tender
and melancholy, and the greater part of his work may be summed up
as the glorification of the lowly, the weak, the ill-favored by nature
or fortune; his heroes are chosen by preference among those who
fill the humblest stations in life. One naturally associates poetry
with a higher order of things than those presented to our eyes by
the contemplation of daily events; but Coppée possesses the art of
extracting from the humblest creature, from the meanest occupation,
the beautiful, the poetic, the ideal. In the treatment in familiar
verse of these commonplace subjects, Coppée is an accomplished
master; and therein lies his originality, and there also will be found
his best work. The poems comprised in the collections called 'Les
Humbles,' 'Contes et Poésies,' and certain stanzas of Promenades et
Intérieurs,' contain the best specimens of this familiar and sympa-
thetic style of poetry.
There is another key that Coppée touches in his poems, with a
light and tender hand; a tone difficult to analyze,—the expression of
one's inner emotions, especially that of love; a yearning for an ideal
affection of woman; the feeling buried in the hearts of all who have
lived, loved, and suffered; regret in comparing what is with what
might have been: all these varied emotions more easily felt than
defined, all that the French sum up by the term vécu, have been ren-
dered by Coppée in some of the poems contained in 'Le Reliquaire,'
in 'Intimites,' 'Le Cahier Rouge' (The Red Note-Book), 'Olivier,'
under whose name the poet has portrayed himself; 'L'Exilée'; 'Les
Mois' (The Months), in the collection having for title 'Les Récits et
les Élégies'; 'Arrière-Saison' (Martinmas, or what in this country
might be called Indian Summer).
The patriotic chord resounds in several of Coppée's composi-
tions, usually straightforward, manly; here and there however with
a slight touch of chauvinism. The 'Lettre d'un Mobile Breton,' a
letter written by a Breton soldier to his parents during the siege of
Paris; 'Plus de Sang! ' (No More Blood! ) Aux Amputés de la
Guerre (To the Maimed in Battle), will serve to illustrate Coppée's
treatment of subjects inspired by the events of the war, the siege,
and the Commune.
Among the various well-known poems of this writer, the fame of
which was increased by their being recited in Parisian salons by
skilled artists, should be mentioned 'Les Aïeules' (The Grandmothers);
'La Grève des Forgerons' (The Blacksmiths' Strike); 'Le Naufragé›
(The Shipwrecked Sailor); and 'La Bénédiction,' an episode of the
taking of Saragossa by the French in 1809.
## p. 4048 (#418) ###########################################
4048
FRANÇOIS COPPÉE
one.
François Coppée has written for the stage; but he is too elegiac,
too sentimental a poet to be a first-class playwright, although some
of his plays have met with great success: 'Le Passant' (The
Passer-by: 1869), a one-act comedy whose great charm lies in the
expression of suffering love; 'Le Luthier de Crémone' (The Musical
Instrument Maker of Cremona: 1876), probably the best of his
dramatic compositions, a one-act comedy in which the leading char-
acter is again one of the humble,- Filippo the hunchback, whose
deformity covers a brave heart and a magnanimous spirit; and
'Pour la Couronne' (For the Crown: 1895), a five-act drama with
more action than is usually found in Coppée's plays. The scene is
laid in the Balkans. The character of Constantine Brancomir, who is
falsely accused of selling his country to the Turks and submits to an
ignominious punishment to save his father's memory, is a very noble
With these exceptions, Coppée's plays lack action. Remaining
titles are: 'Deux Douleurs' (Two Sorrows), a one-act drama, the
story of two women who love the same man, and from being rivals
become reconciled at his death; 'Fais ce que Dois' (Do What You
Ought), a dramatic episode in one act, of a patriotic nature, -some-
what commonplace, however; 'L'Abandonnée,' a two-act drama pre-
senting the picture of a young girl abandoned by her lover, who
meets again with him at her death-bed in a hospital ward; 'Les
Bijoux de la Déliverance' (The Jewels of Ransom, Freedom), simply a
scene, in which a lady dressed for the ball suddenly reflects that the
foreigner is still occupying the territory of France until the payment
of the ransom, and removes her glittering jewels to be used for a
nobler purpose. Still other plays are 'Le Rendezvous,' 'La Guerre
de Cent Ans' (The Hundred Years' War), 'Le Trésor (The Treas-
ure), 'Madame de Maintenon,' 'Severo Torelli,' 'Les Jacobites'; and
'Le Pater' (The Father), which was prohibited by the French
government in 1889.
In common with other modern French writers, with Daudet, Mau-
passant, and others, Coppée excels in the writing of tales.
His prose
is remarkable for the same qualities that appear in his poetical
works: sympathy, tenderness, marked predilection for the weak, the
humble, and especially a masterly treatment of subjects essentially
Parisian and modern. These contes or tales have been collected under
various titles:-Contes en Prose'; 'Vingt Contes Nouveaux' (Twenty
New Tales); 'Longues et Brèves' (Long and Short Ones); Contes
Tout Simples (Simple Stories). The following may be mentioned as
among some of the best of this writer's prose tales:-'Le Morceau
de Pain (The Piece of Bread); 'Une Mort Volontaire' (A Voluntary
Death); 'Le Pain Bénit' (The Consecrated Bread); 'La Soeur de
Lait' (The Foster-Sister); 'Un Accident'; 'Les Vices du Capitaine';
## p. 4049 (#419) ###########################################
FRANÇOIS COPPÉE
4049
'Les Sabots du Petit Wolff'; 'Mon Ami Meutrier' (My Friend Meu-
trier).
Coppée's other prose works are 'Une Idylle Pendant le Siége,'
'Henriette,' 'Rivales,' nouvelles or novelettes; 'Toute une Jeu-
nesse'; 'Mon Franc-Parler' (Freely Spoken Words), essays on differ-
ent subjects, books, authors, celebrities, etc.
Robert Lanterns
THE PARRICIDE
From For the Crown'
The scene represents a rocky plateau in the Balkans. In the background
and centre of the stage, a ruined Roman triumphal arch. A huge
signal-pyre is prepared for firing, near the path. Beside it burns a
torch, stuck into the rock. On all sides are pine-trees and crags.
In the distance are the Balkans, with snowy summits. It is the
middle of a fine starlight night. Michael Brancomir, solus:
HAVE promised - have sworn.
I
'Tis the moment, the place —
Michael, naught is left but to hold to thy oath.
What calm! Far below there, the torrent scarce drips —
Othorgul soon will come: I shall speedily hear
On the old Roman high-road the tramp of his horse;
I shall see him approach, he, the foe, 'neath the arch
Built by Dacia's conqueror, Trajan the Great.
What matters it? Ripe for all daring am I,
Basilide! Ah, thy amorous arms, whence I come,
Have embraces to stifle and smother remorse.
Yes, thy hand have I kissed, pointing out shame's abyss;
With joy throbs my heart that I love thee to crime!
And since crime must ensue that thy pleasure be done,
I feel in such treason an awful content.
Enmeshed in the night of thy locks, I have sworn
That in place of the Turk, should the Prince of the Pit
Rise up with a sneer and stretch forth to my hand
This crown I desire, all with hell-fires aglow,
To thee, Basilide, my seared hand should it bring!
Starry night! All thy splendors undaunted I meet.
VII-254
## p. 4050 (#420) ###########################################
4050
FRANÇOIS COPPÉE
[Perceiving his son Constantine suddenly approaching over the rocks at the
right hand, exclaims, loud and harshly:-]
What's there? Do I dream? Near the crag there's a man!
Ho, prowler! stand off, 'tis forbid to approach!
The command is most strict.
Further back, and at once!
Further back there, I say!
Constantine [drawing nearer] -
Michael
Constantine
Michael-
Constantine! Thou, my son!
Constantine
Michael
What brings thee here,- say,—
To this waste at this hour of the night? Tell me, too,
Why so trembling thy lip? why so pallid thy face?
What thy errand ?
Say, rather, what doest thou here?
First, my answer! My patience thou bring'st to an end!
Say, what brings thee thus here?
Constantine -
Duty, father. I know.
Michael [starting back]—
What "knowest" thou, boy?
Fear not, father! 'Tis I.
Constantine -
That the clamor of arms
In the Balkans will rise-the Turk comes-that yon pyre
Has beside it this moment no warder of faith-
That this night, if all Christendom's world shall be saved,
I shall fire yonder signal, in spite even of — you!
Michael [aside]-
-
Michael-
Yes.
Damnation!
Constantine-
Just God! To a demon defiance I cast-
And the spirit of hell takes the shape of my son!
[Aloud. ] What madness inspires thee? What folly, what dream?
Constantine-
Nay, spare thyself, father, the shame of a lie.
Thy bargain is made-thy throne offered - the Turk
Meets thee here. I know all I have heard all, I say!
――――
-
―――
Or no! Let it be, 'tis not true!
Let it be I'm abused-that a horror I dream;
That a madness beset me; that truth is with thee;
That when such a compact of shame thou didst make,
Thy aim was deceiving the traitress, whose kiss
Thou hadst wiped from thy lips, rushing forth into night.
I divine it-thy traitorous part is a ruse!
'Tis alone for thy country, the war for the Cross,
## p. 4051 (#421) ###########################################
FRANÇOIS COPPÉE
4051
That the mask of disloyalty shadows thy face.
To fire with thine own hand yon signal thou'rt here.
Othorgul in an ambush shall fall and be crushed;
On the Balkans, the girdle of fire - our defense.
Shall flare from Iskren to remote Kilandar —
Ah, I wake! I cast from me this nightmare of shame.
Take the torch, light the pyre- let it burst to its blaze!
Michael-
So suspected I stand? So my son is a spy?
A new order, sooth! What, the heir of my name
Dares to ask to my face if a treason I work!
Since when did a father endure to be told
That his son sets his ears to the cracks of the door?
Say, when did I ask thy opinions? Since when
Does the chief take his orderly's counsels in war?
I deign no reply to thy insolent charge.
Thou hast not now to learn that my frown means «< Obey. "
Hearken then: 'tis my wish to abide here alone
This night at the post. To the fortress at once!
Choose the path the most short! Get thee hence, boy, I
say.
The signal I light when shall seem to me good.
In the weal of our land I am not to be taught.
I have spoken. Return to thy post, sir. Obey!
Constantine -
It is true, then! No hideous dream of disgrace!
The villainy ripe to its finish! I stay.
Michael-
Thou darest?
Constantine-
Ay, father, thy wrath I can brook.
It is love, yes, the last throbs of love for thyself
That have drawn me to seek thee alone on these heights,
To stand between thee and that hideous crime.
―――――
Filial duty? Obedience unto my chief?
To the winds with them both! In my heart rules one
thought-
I would save thee to God must I render account
-
Michael-
Constantine-
I must rescue my country, must pluck thee from shame.
Give place there, I say! Stand aside from that torch!
Let the mountain heights glow with their fires!
No, by God!
O father, bethink thee! O father, beware!
From above God looks down, and the eyes of the stars.
## p. 4052 (#422) ###########################################
4052
FRANÇOIS COPPÉE
Of myself I have asked, when thy treason I knew,
What by honor was set? -where lay duty from me?
Alas, it was clear! To denounce to the world
Thy plot-and thyself—and that woman most vile;
To unmask too thy spy. But for thee this means death!
(Death held in reserve through the torture's dread scenes)
It means in an instant thy glory effaced.
I have pictured thy end at the gibbet, through me.
I could not denounce thee! I held back in dread
From the part of a son who to death yields a sire.
I could not endure that thy name so renowned
Should be scorned-that thy glory should take such dark
flight.
Time is swift.
Give me place!
But at present I act as I must.
I shall kindle yon signal, I say.
Calm the woes of thy country! — appease Heaven's wrath!
Think, think, that my silence has turned from thyself
A death on a scaffold, and tortures before.
Think, think that my silence had meant for thee chains,
And the doomsman's dread hand laying clutch upon thee. . .
O father, thou wilt not that I should-regret!
Michael-
_____
Too late. Regret now to have saved thus my life.
O son too devoted, best gained were thy wish
Hadst thou told all- hadst seen me a Judas, disgraced,
Cut down by my soldiers before thine own eyes.
The worse now for thee! Thy heart questions, disputes;
That thing whereon mine is resolved, that I do.
Who has nothing foreseen, he can nothing prevent:
I permit that no hand yonder beacon shall fire.
Constantine-
Thou wouldst yield then, defenseless, our ancient frontier?
Thou wilt suffer the Turk to make Europe his prey,
To all Christendom's ruin-
Michael-
Constantine-
And thy Christ, and thy God?
Spite of God, king I would be, will be!
Michael-
Constantine-
'Tis ingrate to me.
Michael-
Has God made of me king?
Say-perhaps.
Oft a crown is too large for a traitorous head.
It can suddenly prove a garrote - for the stake.
Thou insultest! The folly is passing all bounds!
## p. 4053 (#423) ###########################################
FRANÇOIS COPPÉE
4053
Constantine [in sudden emotion] -
-
Michael
Ah yes, I am wrong! O my father, forgive! —
What I utter I know not; for aid I must call!
To my help, then, O memories great of days sped,
Ye evenings of rapture that followed fights won.
Come, turmoils of booty, flags snatched as in sheaves,
Shouts of joy and of pride when from fray I returned
And felt on my forehead, blood-scarred, his hot kiss! -
O ye visions like these, of past glory, crowd thick!
The valor of old years, of old time the deeds,
Quick, rank yourselves here, face this wretchedest man,
Bring a blush to his face at his treason so vile!
Speak, speak to him!
Say that at morn, in the town,
The standards that hang at the gates of his halls
Will stoop, as he passes, to smite at his face.
Say, oh say, to this hero become renegade,
That the soldiers long dead on his battle-fields past
In this hour know the crime unexampled he plots,-
That they whisper in dread, 'twixt themselves, 'neath the
earth,
And if passes some wanderer to-night by their graves,
Indignant the murmur is breathed through the grass.
No, no! to such falsity thou wilt not go;
Even now you repent-all unwilling to leave
A name to be cursed in the memories of all!
Seest thou not, O my father, thy victories come
Like suppliants imploring, to close round your knees?
Will you hold them in hate, will you drive them away?
The triumphs that all this West-world has acclaimed,
Will you treat them as prostitutes, bowed, to be scorned?
No, this crime so debased you will dare not commit!
It cannot be, father- -it never must be!
-
See me cast at your feet, in last hope, in last prayer;
I shall find the lost hero- the father I've lost!
You will catch up the torch, you will fire yon dry pile:
With an effort supreme from your heart you will tear
This project unspeakable,- promise debased;
You will cast them away to the pyre's fiercest glow
As one burns into naught some foul herb, root and fruit:
You will stand purified as by fire, and the wind
Of the night will bear off on its wings this dark dream
In a whirlwind uproaring of sparks and of flame.
'Tis enough, I say! Up! By all devils in hell,
Of the hills and the plains of this land I'll be king!
## p. 4054 (#424) ###########################################
4054
FRANÇOIS COPPÉE
Constantine.
Ay, and crown my fair queen - be revenged on the priest.
As that sky is unstained, so shall all this be done.
Thy heroics thou wastest-thy insolence too.
Go, dispute with the lion the quarry he holds
When thou seest him tear with his talons the prey.
Of no use all thy menaces-vain sobs, vain prayers:
Be sure once for all that thy childishness fails.
While I live, no man kindles this signal to-night!
Michael-
Michael
While thou livest! What word do I catch from thy mouth?
While thou livest? O bloody and terrible thought!
In my brain is set loose worse than horror, than death!
Constantine
Michael
I guess not thy meaning. Wouldst see me a corpse?
I dream in this moment that one thou-shouldst be-
By a doom full of shame, by the traitor's own fate!
What dost mean?
Constantine.
Ah, I think, while we parley so long,
Othorgul and his Turks in the valleys approach-
Each instant that's spent makes accomplice of me!
I think of the duty that I must fulfill.
What "duty"?
Constantine [with desperate resolution]-
----
I say to myself that, unjust,
I have wished from the chastisement - death-thee to save.
Lo, thy life is a menace, escaping the axe,
A menace to all. And I have here my sword!
Michael [in horror] —
Thou! Thy sword!
Constantine-
Yes, of old, without blemish, my blade
Has known well how to stand between death and thy brow;
Still witness to that is the wound that I bear –
But since such keen envy, such ignoble love,
Have made of my hero a creature so base,
-
-
Since to scorn of all men, toward the Turk thou dost turn,
To beg at his hands for the crown thou usurp'st -
See, my sword, in its honor, leaps out from its sheath
And commands me thy judge and thy doomsman to be.
[He draws his sword. ]
Michael [drawing his sword in turn] —
My sword then behold! It is fearless of thine!
## p. 4055 (#425) ###########################################
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4055
Constantine
'Tis my land I defend Christian Europe I keep,
And my duty as soldier, the truth of my line;
But you, 'tis for treason alone that you draw.
God beholds us. He watches the lists. Let him judge!
Traitor, die!
-
[Constantine leaps at his father. The swords cross for a moment in quick
combat. Then Michael receives a stroke full in the breast, and falls. ]
Ah!
Michael
Constantine —
My God! What a deed!
Michael [on the ground expiring]-
Be cursed!
Constantine -
-
Parricide!
[He dies.
Constantine
First the signal! The fire to the pile!
[He takes the torch and sets the signal blaze burning, which soon mounts
high. Then gradually one sees far along the mountain-chain the
other signals flashing out, and alarm-guns begin to be heard below. ]
O ye stars, eyes of God! Be the witnesses, ye!
But before yonder corpse in the face of that flame,
I dare to look up and to show you my soul.
My father his country, his faith would betray.
I have killed him, O stars! Have I sinned? Ye shall say!
Unrhymed version, in the metre of the original, by E. Irenæus Stevenson.
THE SUBSTITUTE
From Ten Tales,' by François Coppée: copyright 1890, by Harper and
Brothers
HⓇ
E WAS Scarcely ten years old when he was first arrested as a
vagabond.
He spoke thus to the judge: -
"I am called Jean François Leturc, and for six months I was
with the man who sings and plays upon a cord of catgut between
the lanterns at the Place de la Bastille. I sang the refrain with
him, and after that I called, 'Here's all the new songs, ten
centimes two sous! ' He was always drunk and used to beat
me. That is why the police picked me up the other night.
Before that I was with the man who sells brushes. My mother
was a laundress; her name was Adèle. At one time she lived
## p. 4056 (#426) ###########################################
4056
FRANÇOIS COPPÉE
with a man on the ground-floor at Montmartre. She was a good
workwoman and liked me. She made money, because she had
for customers waiters in the cafés, and they use a good deal of
linen. On Sundays she used to put me to bed early, so that she
could go to the ball. On week-days she sent me to Les Frères,
where I learned to read. Well, the sergeant-de-ville whose beat
was in our street used always to stop before our windows to talk
with her a good-looking chap, with a medal from the Crimea.
They were married, and after that everything went wrong. He
didn't take to me, and turned mother against me. Every one
had a blow for me, and so to get out of the house I spent
whole days in the Place Clichy, where I knew the mountebanks.
My father-in-law lost his place, and my mother her work. She
used to go out washing to take care of him; this gave her a
cough the steam.
She is dead at Lariboisière. She
was a good woman. Since that I have lived with the seller of
brushes and the catgut scraper. Are you going to send me to
prison ? »
He said this openly, cynically, like a man. He was a little
ragged street-arab, as tall as a boot, his forehead hidden under a
queer mop of yellow hair.
Nobody claimed him, and they sent him to the Reform School.
Not very intelligent, idle, clumsy with his hands, the only
trade he could learn there was not a good one,- that of reseat-
ing straw chairs. However, he was obedient, naturally quiet and
silent, and he did not seem to be profoundly corrupted by that
school of vice. But when in his seventeenth year he was thrown
out again on the streets of Paris, he unhappily found there his
prison comrades, all great scamps, exercising their dirty pro-
fessions: teaching dogs to catch rats in the sewers, and blacking
shoes on ball nights in the passage of the Opera; amateur wres-
tlers, who permitted themselves to be thrown by the Hercules of
the booths; or fishing at noontime from rafts: all of these occu-
pations he followed to some extent, and some months after he
came out of the House of Correction, he was arrested again for
a petty theft-a pair of old shoes prigged from a shop window.
Result: a year in the prison of Sainte Pélagie, where he served
as valet to the political prisoners.
He lived in much surprise among this group of prisoners,-
all very young, negligent in dress, who talked in loud voices, and
carried their heads in a very solemn fashion. They used to meet
## p. 4057 (#427) ###########################################
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4057
in the cell of one of the oldest of them, a fellow of some thirty
years, already a long time in prison and quite a fixture at Sainte
Pélagie; a large cell, the walls covered with colored caricatures,
and from the window of which one could see all Paris - its roofs,
its spires, and its domes—and far away the distant line of hills,
blue and indistinct upon the sky. There were upon the walls
some shelves filled with volumes and all the old paraphernalia of
a fencing-room: broken masks, rusty foils, breast-plates, and
gloves that were losing their tow. It was there that the "poli-
ticians" used to dine together, adding to the everlasting "soup
and beef," fruit, cheese, and pints of wine which Jean François
went out and got by the can; a tumultuous repast, interrupted
by violent disputes, and where, during the dessert, the 'Carma-
gnole and 'Ça Ira' were sung in full chorus. They assumed,
however, an air of great dignity on those days when a new-
comer was brought in among them, at first entertaining him
gravely as a citizen, but on the morrow using him with affec-
tionate familiarity and calling him by his nickname. Great words
were used there: "Corporation," "responsibility," and phrases.
quite unintelligible to Jean François- such as this, for example,
which he once heard imperiously put forth by a frightful little
hunchback who blotted some writing-paper every night: -
"It is done. This is the composition of the Cabinet: Ray-
mond, the Bureau of Public Instruction; Martial, the Interior;
and for Foreign Affairs, myself. "
His time done, he wandered again around Paris, watched afar
by the police, after the fashion of cockchafers made by cruel
children to fly at the end of a string. He became one of those
fugitive and timid beings whom the law, with a sort of coquetry,
arrests and releases by turn; something like those platonic fish-
ers who, in order that they may not exhaust their fish-pond,
throw immediately back in the water the fish which has just
come out of the net. Without a suspicion on his part that so
much honor had been done to so sorry a subject, he had a
special bundle of memoranda in the mysterious portfolios of the
Rue de Jérusalem. His name was written in round hand on
the gray paper of the cover, and the notes and reports, carefully
classified, gave him his successive appellations: "Name, Leturc;"
"The prisoner Leturc;" and at last, "The criminal Leturc. "
He was two years out of prison, - dining where he could,
sleeping in night lodging-houses and sometimes in lime-kilns, and
## p. 4058 (#428) ###########################################
4058
FRANÇOIS COPPÉE
taking part with his fellows in interminable games of pitch-penny
on the boulevards near the barriers. He wore a greasy cap on
the back of his head, carpet slippers, and a short white blouse.
When he had five sous he had his hair curled. He danced at
Constant's at Montparnasse; bought for two sous to sell for four
at the door of Bobino, the jack of hearts or the ace of clubs
serving as a countermark; sometimes opened the door of a car-
riage; led horses to the horse-market. From the lottery of all
sorts of miserable employments he drew a goodly number. Who
can say if the atmosphere of honor which one breathes as a
soldier, if military discipline might not have saved him? Taken
in a cast of the net with some young loafers who robbed drunk-
ards sleeping on the streets, he denied very earnestly having
taken part in their expeditions. Perhaps he told the truth, but
his antecedents were accepted in lieu of proof, and he was sent
for three years to Poissy. There he made coarse playthings for
children, was tattooed on the chest, learned thieves' slang and
the penal code. A new liberation, and a new plunge into the
sink of Paris; but very short. this time, for at the end of six
months at the most he was again compromised in a night rob-
bery, aggravated by climbing and breaking,- a serious affair, in
which he played an obscure rôle, half dupe and half fence. On
the whole, his complicity was evident, and he was sent for five
years at hard labor. His grief in this adventure was above all
in being separated from an old dog which he had found on a
dung-heap and cured of the mange. The beast loved him.
Toulon, the ball and chain, the work in the harbor, the blows
from a stick, wooden shoes on bare feet, soup of black beans
dating from Trafalgar, no tobacco money, and the terrible sleep
in a camp swarming with convicts: that was what he experienced
for five broiling summers and five winters raw with the Medi-
terranean wind. He came out from there stunned, was sent
under surveillance to Vernon, where he worked some time on
the river. Then, an incorrigible vagabond, he broke his exile
and came again to Paris. He had his savings,- fifty-six francs,
that is to say, time enough for reflection. During his absence.
his former wretched companions had dispersed. He was well
hidden, and slept in a loft at an old woman's, to whom he
represented himself as a sailor, tired of the sea, who had lost his
papers in a recent shipwreck, and who wanted to try his hand
at something else. His tanned face and his calloused hands,
## p. 4059 (#429) ###########################################
FRANÇOIS COPPÉE
4059
together with some sea phrases which he dropped from time to
time, made his tale seem probable enough.
One day when he risked a saunter in the streets, and when
chance had led him as far as Montmartre, where he was born,
an unexpected memory stopped him before the door of Les
Frères, where he had learned to read. As it was very warm,
the door was open, and by a single glance the passing outcast
was able to recognize the peaceable school-room. Nothing was
changed: neither the bright light shining in at the great win-
dows, nor the crucifix over the desk, nor th rows of benches
with the tables furnished with inkstands and pencils, nor the
table of weights and measures, nor the map where pins stuck in
still indicated the operations of some ancient war. Heedlessly
and without thinking, Jean François read on the blackboard the
words of the Evangelist which had been set there as a copy:
"Joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more
than over ninety-and-nine just persons which need no repent-
ance. »
――
It was undoubtedly the hour for recreation, for the Brother
Professor had left his chair, and sitting on the edge of a table,
he was telling a story to the boys who surrounded him with
eager and attentive eyes. What a bright and innocent face he
had, that beardless young man, in his long black gown, and a
white necktie, and great ugly shoes, and his badly cut brown
hair streaming out behind! All the simple figures of the children
of the people who were watching him seemed scarcely less child-
like than his; above all when, delighted with some of his own
simple and priestly pleasantries, he broke out in an open and
frank peal of laughter which showed his white and regular teeth,
a peal so contagious that all the scholars laughed loudly in
their turn. It was such a sweet simple group in the bright sun-
light, which lighted their dear eyes and their blond curls.
Jean François looked at them for some time in silence, and
for the first time in that savage nature, all instinct and appetite,
there awoke a mysterious, a tender emotion. His heart, that
seared and hardened heart, unmoved when the convict's cudgel
or the heavy whip of the watchman fell on his shoulders, beat
oppressively. In that sight he saw again his infancy; and closing
his eyes sadly, the prey to torturing regret, he walked quickly
away.
Then the words written on the blackboard came back to his
mind.
## p. 4060 (#430) ###########################################
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FRANÇOIS COPPÉE
"If it wasn't too late, after all! " he murmured; "if I could
again, like others, eat honestly my brown bread, and sleep my
fill without nightmare! The spy must be sharp who recognizes
me. My beard, which I shaved off down there, has grown out
thick and strong. One can burrow somewhere in the great ant-
hill, and work can be found. Whoever is not worked to death
in the hell of the galleys comes out agile and robust, and I
learned there to climb ropes with loads upon my back. Building
is going on everywhere here, and the masons need helpers.
Three francs a day! I never earned so much. Let me be for-
gotten, and that is all I ask. "
He followed his courageous resolution; he was faithful to it,
and after three months he was another man. The master for
whom he worked called him his best workman. After a long
day upon the scaffolding in the hot sun and the dust, constantly
bending and raising his back to take the hod from the man at
his feet and pass it to the man over his head, he went for his
soup to the cook-shop, tired out, his legs aching, his hands burn-
ing, his eyelids stuck with plaster, but content with himself and
carrying his well-earned money in a knot in his handkerchief.
He went out now without fear, since he could not be recognized
in his white mask, and since he had noticed that the suspicious
glances of the policeman were seldom turned on the tired work-
man. He was quiet and sober. He slept the sound sleep of
fatigue. He was free.
At last-oh supreme recompense! - he had a friend!
He was a fellow-workman like himself, named Savinien, a
little peasant with red lips who had come to Paris with his stick
over his shoulder and a bundle on the end of it, fleeing from
the wine-shops and going to mass every Sunday. Jean Fran-
çois loved him for his piety, for his candor, for his honesty, for
all that he himself had lost, and so long ago.
It was a pas-
sion, profound and unrestrained, which transformed him by
fatherly cares and attentions. Savinien, himself of a weak and
egotistical nature, let things take their course, satisfied only in
finding a companion who shared his horror of the wine-shop.
The two friends lived together in a fairly comfortable lodging,
but their resources were very limited. They were obliged to
take into their room a third companion, an old Auvergnat,
gloomy and rapacious, who found it possible out of his meagre
salary to save something with which to buy a place in his own
country. Jean François and Savinien were always together. On
## p. 4061 (#431) ###########################################
FRANÇOIS COPPÉE
4061
holidays they together took long walks in the environs of Paris,
and dined under an arbor in one of those small country inns
where there are a great many mushrooms in the sauces and
innocent rebuses on the napkins. There Jean François learned
from his friend all that lore of which they who are born in the
city are ignorant: learned the names of the trees, the flowers
and the plants; the various seasons for harvesting; he heard
eagerly the thousand details of a laborious country life,— the
autumn sowing, the winter chores, the splendid celebrations of
harvest and vintage days, the sound of the mills at the water-
side and the flails striking the ground, the tired horses led to
water and the hunting in the morning mist, and above all the
long evenings, shortened by marvelous stories, around the fire of
vine-shoots. He discovered in himself a source of imagination
before unknown, and found a singular delight in the recital of
events so placid, so calm, so monotonous.
One thing troubled him, however: it was the fear lest Savinien
might learn something of his past. Sometimes there escaped
from him some low word of thieves' slang, a vulgar gesture,-
vestiges of his former horrible existence, and he felt the pain
one feels when old wounds reopen; the more because he fancied
that he sometimes saw in Savinien the awakening of an un-
healthy curiosity. When the young man, aiready tempted by
the pleasures which Paris offers to the poorest, asked him about
the mysteries of the great city, Jean François feigned ignorance
and turned the subject; but he felt a vague inquietude for the
future of his friend.
――――
His uneasiness was not without foundation. Savinien could
not long remain the simple rustic that he was on his arrival in
Paris. If the gross and noisy pleasures of the wine-shop always
repelled him, he was profoundly troubled by other temptations,
full of danger for the inexperience of his twenty years. When
spring came he began to go off alone, and at first he wandered
about the brilliant entrance of some dancing-hall, watching the
young girls who went in with their arms around each others'
waists, talking in low tones. Then one evening, when lilacs
perfumed the air and the call to quadrilles was most captivating,
he crossed the threshold, and from that time Jean François
observed a change, little by little, in his manners and his vis-
age. He became more frivolous, more extravagant. He often
borrowed from his friend his scanty savings, and he forgot to
## p. 4062 (#432) ###########################################
4062
FRANÇOIS COPPÉE
repay. Jean François, feeling that he was abandoned, jealous
and forgiving at the same time, suffered and was silent. He felt
that he had no right to reproach him, but with the foresight of
affection he indulged in cruel and inevitable presentiments.
One evening, as he was mounting the stairs to his room,
absorbed in his thoughts, he heard, as he was about to enter,
the sound of angry voices, and he recognized that of the old
Auvergnat who lodged with Savinien and himself. An old habit
of suspicion made him stop at the landing-place and listen to
learn the cause of the trouble.
"Yes," said the Auvergnat angrily, "I am sure that some
one has opened my trunk and stolen from it the three louis that
I had hidden in a little box; and he who has done this thing.
must be one of the two companions who sleep here, if it were
not the servant Maria. It concerns you as much as it does me,
since you are the master of the house, and I will drag you to
the courts if you do not let me at once break open the valises of
the two masons. My poor gold!
up with his three sisters, two of whom painted for a living, while
the third kept house. Then the father died, and his son also ob-
tained employment in the government offices.
FRANÇOIS COPPÉE
François's boyhood and part of his youth were spent in sadness,
almost misery; and the shadow cast over his life by this gloomy
period of his existence is very perceptible in the poet's writings. It
did not however make him a cynic, a pessimist, or a rebel against the
existing social conditions. To be sure, his verse is not unfrequently
ironical; but it is the irony of fate that the poet makes you keenly
feel, although he touches it with a light hand. The recollection of
those joyless days filled Coppée with an immense feeling of sadness
and sympathy for all who suffer on this earth, especially for those
who struggle on, bravely concealing from all eyes their griefs and
## p. 4046 (#416) ###########################################
4046
FRANÇOIS COPPÉE
sorrows. His life, he tells us, was composed of desires and reveries.
His only consolation was in his literary work. He felt the inclina-
tion and the need of expressing in a way both simple and sincere
what passed under his eyes; of extracting what humble ideal there
might be in the small folk with whom he had lived, in the melan-
choly landscapes of the Parisian suburbs where his childhood had
been spent,-in short, to paint from nature. He made the attempt,
felt that he was successful, and lived then the best and noblest
hours of his life; hours in which the artist, already a master of his
instrument and having still that abundance and vivacity of sensations
of youth, writes the first work that he knows to be good, and writes
it with complete disinterestedness, without even thinking that others
will see it; working for himself alone, for the sole joy of producing,
of pouring out his whole imagination and his whole heart. Hours of
pure enthusiasm, Coppée goes on to say, and of perfect happiness,
that he will nevermore find when he shall have bitten into the
savory fruit of success, when he shall be spurred on by the feverish
desire for fame! Delightful and sacred hours, that can be compared
only to the rapture of first love!
Rising at six, Coppée would vigorously begin his battle with
words, ideas, pictures. At nine he left for his office. There, having
blackened with ink a sufficient number of government foolscap
sheets, he would find himself with two or three spare hours, which
he employed in reading and taking notes. Every night found him
up until twelve at his writing-table. The whole of Sunday was
given to his favorite occupation of writing verse. Such a continuous
effort, he says, kept up in his mind that ardor, spirit, and excite-
ment without which no poetical production is possible.
Such was Coppée's life until, his name becoming known, he
earned enough with his pen to give himself up entirely to his art.
Then came his success with 'Le Passant' (The Passer-by: 1869), a
one-act play; and the following year, the war, the siege of Paris,
through which Coppée served in the militia. "Amédée Violette" has
now become famous, and his reputation as a poet rests upon the
sincerity of his work. He is esteemed for the dignity of his life,
wholly taken up with art; and in the world of French letters his
place is in the very first rank. He lives out of the world, in the
close intimacy of those he loves, and knows nothing of the wretch-
edness of vanity and ambition. Like many writers and thinkers of
the present day, he feels the weariness of life, and finds oblivion in
the raptures of poetry and dreams. Such is the man: a wonderfully
delicate organization, of a modest shrinking nature, - notice the
name of Violette he gives himself, -sensitive to a degree of morbid-
ness.
3
E
## p. 4047 (#417) ###########################################
FRANÇOIS COPPÉE
4047
The Academy elected him a member in 1884. Let us now con-
sider the writer. The general character of Coppée's poetry is tender
and melancholy, and the greater part of his work may be summed up
as the glorification of the lowly, the weak, the ill-favored by nature
or fortune; his heroes are chosen by preference among those who
fill the humblest stations in life. One naturally associates poetry
with a higher order of things than those presented to our eyes by
the contemplation of daily events; but Coppée possesses the art of
extracting from the humblest creature, from the meanest occupation,
the beautiful, the poetic, the ideal. In the treatment in familiar
verse of these commonplace subjects, Coppée is an accomplished
master; and therein lies his originality, and there also will be found
his best work. The poems comprised in the collections called 'Les
Humbles,' 'Contes et Poésies,' and certain stanzas of Promenades et
Intérieurs,' contain the best specimens of this familiar and sympa-
thetic style of poetry.
There is another key that Coppée touches in his poems, with a
light and tender hand; a tone difficult to analyze,—the expression of
one's inner emotions, especially that of love; a yearning for an ideal
affection of woman; the feeling buried in the hearts of all who have
lived, loved, and suffered; regret in comparing what is with what
might have been: all these varied emotions more easily felt than
defined, all that the French sum up by the term vécu, have been ren-
dered by Coppée in some of the poems contained in 'Le Reliquaire,'
in 'Intimites,' 'Le Cahier Rouge' (The Red Note-Book), 'Olivier,'
under whose name the poet has portrayed himself; 'L'Exilée'; 'Les
Mois' (The Months), in the collection having for title 'Les Récits et
les Élégies'; 'Arrière-Saison' (Martinmas, or what in this country
might be called Indian Summer).
The patriotic chord resounds in several of Coppée's composi-
tions, usually straightforward, manly; here and there however with
a slight touch of chauvinism. The 'Lettre d'un Mobile Breton,' a
letter written by a Breton soldier to his parents during the siege of
Paris; 'Plus de Sang! ' (No More Blood! ) Aux Amputés de la
Guerre (To the Maimed in Battle), will serve to illustrate Coppée's
treatment of subjects inspired by the events of the war, the siege,
and the Commune.
Among the various well-known poems of this writer, the fame of
which was increased by their being recited in Parisian salons by
skilled artists, should be mentioned 'Les Aïeules' (The Grandmothers);
'La Grève des Forgerons' (The Blacksmiths' Strike); 'Le Naufragé›
(The Shipwrecked Sailor); and 'La Bénédiction,' an episode of the
taking of Saragossa by the French in 1809.
## p. 4048 (#418) ###########################################
4048
FRANÇOIS COPPÉE
one.
François Coppée has written for the stage; but he is too elegiac,
too sentimental a poet to be a first-class playwright, although some
of his plays have met with great success: 'Le Passant' (The
Passer-by: 1869), a one-act comedy whose great charm lies in the
expression of suffering love; 'Le Luthier de Crémone' (The Musical
Instrument Maker of Cremona: 1876), probably the best of his
dramatic compositions, a one-act comedy in which the leading char-
acter is again one of the humble,- Filippo the hunchback, whose
deformity covers a brave heart and a magnanimous spirit; and
'Pour la Couronne' (For the Crown: 1895), a five-act drama with
more action than is usually found in Coppée's plays. The scene is
laid in the Balkans. The character of Constantine Brancomir, who is
falsely accused of selling his country to the Turks and submits to an
ignominious punishment to save his father's memory, is a very noble
With these exceptions, Coppée's plays lack action. Remaining
titles are: 'Deux Douleurs' (Two Sorrows), a one-act drama, the
story of two women who love the same man, and from being rivals
become reconciled at his death; 'Fais ce que Dois' (Do What You
Ought), a dramatic episode in one act, of a patriotic nature, -some-
what commonplace, however; 'L'Abandonnée,' a two-act drama pre-
senting the picture of a young girl abandoned by her lover, who
meets again with him at her death-bed in a hospital ward; 'Les
Bijoux de la Déliverance' (The Jewels of Ransom, Freedom), simply a
scene, in which a lady dressed for the ball suddenly reflects that the
foreigner is still occupying the territory of France until the payment
of the ransom, and removes her glittering jewels to be used for a
nobler purpose. Still other plays are 'Le Rendezvous,' 'La Guerre
de Cent Ans' (The Hundred Years' War), 'Le Trésor (The Treas-
ure), 'Madame de Maintenon,' 'Severo Torelli,' 'Les Jacobites'; and
'Le Pater' (The Father), which was prohibited by the French
government in 1889.
In common with other modern French writers, with Daudet, Mau-
passant, and others, Coppée excels in the writing of tales.
His prose
is remarkable for the same qualities that appear in his poetical
works: sympathy, tenderness, marked predilection for the weak, the
humble, and especially a masterly treatment of subjects essentially
Parisian and modern. These contes or tales have been collected under
various titles:-Contes en Prose'; 'Vingt Contes Nouveaux' (Twenty
New Tales); 'Longues et Brèves' (Long and Short Ones); Contes
Tout Simples (Simple Stories). The following may be mentioned as
among some of the best of this writer's prose tales:-'Le Morceau
de Pain (The Piece of Bread); 'Une Mort Volontaire' (A Voluntary
Death); 'Le Pain Bénit' (The Consecrated Bread); 'La Soeur de
Lait' (The Foster-Sister); 'Un Accident'; 'Les Vices du Capitaine';
## p. 4049 (#419) ###########################################
FRANÇOIS COPPÉE
4049
'Les Sabots du Petit Wolff'; 'Mon Ami Meutrier' (My Friend Meu-
trier).
Coppée's other prose works are 'Une Idylle Pendant le Siége,'
'Henriette,' 'Rivales,' nouvelles or novelettes; 'Toute une Jeu-
nesse'; 'Mon Franc-Parler' (Freely Spoken Words), essays on differ-
ent subjects, books, authors, celebrities, etc.
Robert Lanterns
THE PARRICIDE
From For the Crown'
The scene represents a rocky plateau in the Balkans. In the background
and centre of the stage, a ruined Roman triumphal arch. A huge
signal-pyre is prepared for firing, near the path. Beside it burns a
torch, stuck into the rock. On all sides are pine-trees and crags.
In the distance are the Balkans, with snowy summits. It is the
middle of a fine starlight night. Michael Brancomir, solus:
HAVE promised - have sworn.
I
'Tis the moment, the place —
Michael, naught is left but to hold to thy oath.
What calm! Far below there, the torrent scarce drips —
Othorgul soon will come: I shall speedily hear
On the old Roman high-road the tramp of his horse;
I shall see him approach, he, the foe, 'neath the arch
Built by Dacia's conqueror, Trajan the Great.
What matters it? Ripe for all daring am I,
Basilide! Ah, thy amorous arms, whence I come,
Have embraces to stifle and smother remorse.
Yes, thy hand have I kissed, pointing out shame's abyss;
With joy throbs my heart that I love thee to crime!
And since crime must ensue that thy pleasure be done,
I feel in such treason an awful content.
Enmeshed in the night of thy locks, I have sworn
That in place of the Turk, should the Prince of the Pit
Rise up with a sneer and stretch forth to my hand
This crown I desire, all with hell-fires aglow,
To thee, Basilide, my seared hand should it bring!
Starry night! All thy splendors undaunted I meet.
VII-254
## p. 4050 (#420) ###########################################
4050
FRANÇOIS COPPÉE
[Perceiving his son Constantine suddenly approaching over the rocks at the
right hand, exclaims, loud and harshly:-]
What's there? Do I dream? Near the crag there's a man!
Ho, prowler! stand off, 'tis forbid to approach!
The command is most strict.
Further back, and at once!
Further back there, I say!
Constantine [drawing nearer] -
Michael
Constantine
Michael-
Constantine! Thou, my son!
Constantine
Michael
What brings thee here,- say,—
To this waste at this hour of the night? Tell me, too,
Why so trembling thy lip? why so pallid thy face?
What thy errand ?
Say, rather, what doest thou here?
First, my answer! My patience thou bring'st to an end!
Say, what brings thee thus here?
Constantine -
Duty, father. I know.
Michael [starting back]—
What "knowest" thou, boy?
Fear not, father! 'Tis I.
Constantine -
That the clamor of arms
In the Balkans will rise-the Turk comes-that yon pyre
Has beside it this moment no warder of faith-
That this night, if all Christendom's world shall be saved,
I shall fire yonder signal, in spite even of — you!
Michael [aside]-
-
Michael-
Yes.
Damnation!
Constantine-
Just God! To a demon defiance I cast-
And the spirit of hell takes the shape of my son!
[Aloud. ] What madness inspires thee? What folly, what dream?
Constantine-
Nay, spare thyself, father, the shame of a lie.
Thy bargain is made-thy throne offered - the Turk
Meets thee here. I know all I have heard all, I say!
――――
-
―――
Or no! Let it be, 'tis not true!
Let it be I'm abused-that a horror I dream;
That a madness beset me; that truth is with thee;
That when such a compact of shame thou didst make,
Thy aim was deceiving the traitress, whose kiss
Thou hadst wiped from thy lips, rushing forth into night.
I divine it-thy traitorous part is a ruse!
'Tis alone for thy country, the war for the Cross,
## p. 4051 (#421) ###########################################
FRANÇOIS COPPÉE
4051
That the mask of disloyalty shadows thy face.
To fire with thine own hand yon signal thou'rt here.
Othorgul in an ambush shall fall and be crushed;
On the Balkans, the girdle of fire - our defense.
Shall flare from Iskren to remote Kilandar —
Ah, I wake! I cast from me this nightmare of shame.
Take the torch, light the pyre- let it burst to its blaze!
Michael-
So suspected I stand? So my son is a spy?
A new order, sooth! What, the heir of my name
Dares to ask to my face if a treason I work!
Since when did a father endure to be told
That his son sets his ears to the cracks of the door?
Say, when did I ask thy opinions? Since when
Does the chief take his orderly's counsels in war?
I deign no reply to thy insolent charge.
Thou hast not now to learn that my frown means «< Obey. "
Hearken then: 'tis my wish to abide here alone
This night at the post. To the fortress at once!
Choose the path the most short! Get thee hence, boy, I
say.
The signal I light when shall seem to me good.
In the weal of our land I am not to be taught.
I have spoken. Return to thy post, sir. Obey!
Constantine -
It is true, then! No hideous dream of disgrace!
The villainy ripe to its finish! I stay.
Michael-
Thou darest?
Constantine-
Ay, father, thy wrath I can brook.
It is love, yes, the last throbs of love for thyself
That have drawn me to seek thee alone on these heights,
To stand between thee and that hideous crime.
―――――
Filial duty? Obedience unto my chief?
To the winds with them both! In my heart rules one
thought-
I would save thee to God must I render account
-
Michael-
Constantine-
I must rescue my country, must pluck thee from shame.
Give place there, I say! Stand aside from that torch!
Let the mountain heights glow with their fires!
No, by God!
O father, bethink thee! O father, beware!
From above God looks down, and the eyes of the stars.
## p. 4052 (#422) ###########################################
4052
FRANÇOIS COPPÉE
Of myself I have asked, when thy treason I knew,
What by honor was set? -where lay duty from me?
Alas, it was clear! To denounce to the world
Thy plot-and thyself—and that woman most vile;
To unmask too thy spy. But for thee this means death!
(Death held in reserve through the torture's dread scenes)
It means in an instant thy glory effaced.
I have pictured thy end at the gibbet, through me.
I could not denounce thee! I held back in dread
From the part of a son who to death yields a sire.
I could not endure that thy name so renowned
Should be scorned-that thy glory should take such dark
flight.
Time is swift.
Give me place!
But at present I act as I must.
I shall kindle yon signal, I say.
Calm the woes of thy country! — appease Heaven's wrath!
Think, think, that my silence has turned from thyself
A death on a scaffold, and tortures before.
Think, think that my silence had meant for thee chains,
And the doomsman's dread hand laying clutch upon thee. . .
O father, thou wilt not that I should-regret!
Michael-
_____
Too late. Regret now to have saved thus my life.
O son too devoted, best gained were thy wish
Hadst thou told all- hadst seen me a Judas, disgraced,
Cut down by my soldiers before thine own eyes.
The worse now for thee! Thy heart questions, disputes;
That thing whereon mine is resolved, that I do.
Who has nothing foreseen, he can nothing prevent:
I permit that no hand yonder beacon shall fire.
Constantine-
Thou wouldst yield then, defenseless, our ancient frontier?
Thou wilt suffer the Turk to make Europe his prey,
To all Christendom's ruin-
Michael-
Constantine-
And thy Christ, and thy God?
Spite of God, king I would be, will be!
Michael-
Constantine-
'Tis ingrate to me.
Michael-
Has God made of me king?
Say-perhaps.
Oft a crown is too large for a traitorous head.
It can suddenly prove a garrote - for the stake.
Thou insultest! The folly is passing all bounds!
## p. 4053 (#423) ###########################################
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4053
Constantine [in sudden emotion] -
-
Michael
Ah yes, I am wrong! O my father, forgive! —
What I utter I know not; for aid I must call!
To my help, then, O memories great of days sped,
Ye evenings of rapture that followed fights won.
Come, turmoils of booty, flags snatched as in sheaves,
Shouts of joy and of pride when from fray I returned
And felt on my forehead, blood-scarred, his hot kiss! -
O ye visions like these, of past glory, crowd thick!
The valor of old years, of old time the deeds,
Quick, rank yourselves here, face this wretchedest man,
Bring a blush to his face at his treason so vile!
Speak, speak to him!
Say that at morn, in the town,
The standards that hang at the gates of his halls
Will stoop, as he passes, to smite at his face.
Say, oh say, to this hero become renegade,
That the soldiers long dead on his battle-fields past
In this hour know the crime unexampled he plots,-
That they whisper in dread, 'twixt themselves, 'neath the
earth,
And if passes some wanderer to-night by their graves,
Indignant the murmur is breathed through the grass.
No, no! to such falsity thou wilt not go;
Even now you repent-all unwilling to leave
A name to be cursed in the memories of all!
Seest thou not, O my father, thy victories come
Like suppliants imploring, to close round your knees?
Will you hold them in hate, will you drive them away?
The triumphs that all this West-world has acclaimed,
Will you treat them as prostitutes, bowed, to be scorned?
No, this crime so debased you will dare not commit!
It cannot be, father- -it never must be!
-
See me cast at your feet, in last hope, in last prayer;
I shall find the lost hero- the father I've lost!
You will catch up the torch, you will fire yon dry pile:
With an effort supreme from your heart you will tear
This project unspeakable,- promise debased;
You will cast them away to the pyre's fiercest glow
As one burns into naught some foul herb, root and fruit:
You will stand purified as by fire, and the wind
Of the night will bear off on its wings this dark dream
In a whirlwind uproaring of sparks and of flame.
'Tis enough, I say! Up! By all devils in hell,
Of the hills and the plains of this land I'll be king!
## p. 4054 (#424) ###########################################
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Constantine.
Ay, and crown my fair queen - be revenged on the priest.
As that sky is unstained, so shall all this be done.
Thy heroics thou wastest-thy insolence too.
Go, dispute with the lion the quarry he holds
When thou seest him tear with his talons the prey.
Of no use all thy menaces-vain sobs, vain prayers:
Be sure once for all that thy childishness fails.
While I live, no man kindles this signal to-night!
Michael-
Michael
While thou livest! What word do I catch from thy mouth?
While thou livest? O bloody and terrible thought!
In my brain is set loose worse than horror, than death!
Constantine
Michael
I guess not thy meaning. Wouldst see me a corpse?
I dream in this moment that one thou-shouldst be-
By a doom full of shame, by the traitor's own fate!
What dost mean?
Constantine.
Ah, I think, while we parley so long,
Othorgul and his Turks in the valleys approach-
Each instant that's spent makes accomplice of me!
I think of the duty that I must fulfill.
What "duty"?
Constantine [with desperate resolution]-
----
I say to myself that, unjust,
I have wished from the chastisement - death-thee to save.
Lo, thy life is a menace, escaping the axe,
A menace to all. And I have here my sword!
Michael [in horror] —
Thou! Thy sword!
Constantine-
Yes, of old, without blemish, my blade
Has known well how to stand between death and thy brow;
Still witness to that is the wound that I bear –
But since such keen envy, such ignoble love,
Have made of my hero a creature so base,
-
-
Since to scorn of all men, toward the Turk thou dost turn,
To beg at his hands for the crown thou usurp'st -
See, my sword, in its honor, leaps out from its sheath
And commands me thy judge and thy doomsman to be.
[He draws his sword. ]
Michael [drawing his sword in turn] —
My sword then behold! It is fearless of thine!
## p. 4055 (#425) ###########################################
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4055
Constantine
'Tis my land I defend Christian Europe I keep,
And my duty as soldier, the truth of my line;
But you, 'tis for treason alone that you draw.
God beholds us. He watches the lists. Let him judge!
Traitor, die!
-
[Constantine leaps at his father. The swords cross for a moment in quick
combat. Then Michael receives a stroke full in the breast, and falls. ]
Ah!
Michael
Constantine —
My God! What a deed!
Michael [on the ground expiring]-
Be cursed!
Constantine -
-
Parricide!
[He dies.
Constantine
First the signal! The fire to the pile!
[He takes the torch and sets the signal blaze burning, which soon mounts
high. Then gradually one sees far along the mountain-chain the
other signals flashing out, and alarm-guns begin to be heard below. ]
O ye stars, eyes of God! Be the witnesses, ye!
But before yonder corpse in the face of that flame,
I dare to look up and to show you my soul.
My father his country, his faith would betray.
I have killed him, O stars! Have I sinned? Ye shall say!
Unrhymed version, in the metre of the original, by E. Irenæus Stevenson.
THE SUBSTITUTE
From Ten Tales,' by François Coppée: copyright 1890, by Harper and
Brothers
HⓇ
E WAS Scarcely ten years old when he was first arrested as a
vagabond.
He spoke thus to the judge: -
"I am called Jean François Leturc, and for six months I was
with the man who sings and plays upon a cord of catgut between
the lanterns at the Place de la Bastille. I sang the refrain with
him, and after that I called, 'Here's all the new songs, ten
centimes two sous! ' He was always drunk and used to beat
me. That is why the police picked me up the other night.
Before that I was with the man who sells brushes. My mother
was a laundress; her name was Adèle. At one time she lived
## p. 4056 (#426) ###########################################
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FRANÇOIS COPPÉE
with a man on the ground-floor at Montmartre. She was a good
workwoman and liked me. She made money, because she had
for customers waiters in the cafés, and they use a good deal of
linen. On Sundays she used to put me to bed early, so that she
could go to the ball. On week-days she sent me to Les Frères,
where I learned to read. Well, the sergeant-de-ville whose beat
was in our street used always to stop before our windows to talk
with her a good-looking chap, with a medal from the Crimea.
They were married, and after that everything went wrong. He
didn't take to me, and turned mother against me. Every one
had a blow for me, and so to get out of the house I spent
whole days in the Place Clichy, where I knew the mountebanks.
My father-in-law lost his place, and my mother her work. She
used to go out washing to take care of him; this gave her a
cough the steam.
She is dead at Lariboisière. She
was a good woman. Since that I have lived with the seller of
brushes and the catgut scraper. Are you going to send me to
prison ? »
He said this openly, cynically, like a man. He was a little
ragged street-arab, as tall as a boot, his forehead hidden under a
queer mop of yellow hair.
Nobody claimed him, and they sent him to the Reform School.
Not very intelligent, idle, clumsy with his hands, the only
trade he could learn there was not a good one,- that of reseat-
ing straw chairs. However, he was obedient, naturally quiet and
silent, and he did not seem to be profoundly corrupted by that
school of vice. But when in his seventeenth year he was thrown
out again on the streets of Paris, he unhappily found there his
prison comrades, all great scamps, exercising their dirty pro-
fessions: teaching dogs to catch rats in the sewers, and blacking
shoes on ball nights in the passage of the Opera; amateur wres-
tlers, who permitted themselves to be thrown by the Hercules of
the booths; or fishing at noontime from rafts: all of these occu-
pations he followed to some extent, and some months after he
came out of the House of Correction, he was arrested again for
a petty theft-a pair of old shoes prigged from a shop window.
Result: a year in the prison of Sainte Pélagie, where he served
as valet to the political prisoners.
He lived in much surprise among this group of prisoners,-
all very young, negligent in dress, who talked in loud voices, and
carried their heads in a very solemn fashion. They used to meet
## p. 4057 (#427) ###########################################
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4057
in the cell of one of the oldest of them, a fellow of some thirty
years, already a long time in prison and quite a fixture at Sainte
Pélagie; a large cell, the walls covered with colored caricatures,
and from the window of which one could see all Paris - its roofs,
its spires, and its domes—and far away the distant line of hills,
blue and indistinct upon the sky. There were upon the walls
some shelves filled with volumes and all the old paraphernalia of
a fencing-room: broken masks, rusty foils, breast-plates, and
gloves that were losing their tow. It was there that the "poli-
ticians" used to dine together, adding to the everlasting "soup
and beef," fruit, cheese, and pints of wine which Jean François
went out and got by the can; a tumultuous repast, interrupted
by violent disputes, and where, during the dessert, the 'Carma-
gnole and 'Ça Ira' were sung in full chorus. They assumed,
however, an air of great dignity on those days when a new-
comer was brought in among them, at first entertaining him
gravely as a citizen, but on the morrow using him with affec-
tionate familiarity and calling him by his nickname. Great words
were used there: "Corporation," "responsibility," and phrases.
quite unintelligible to Jean François- such as this, for example,
which he once heard imperiously put forth by a frightful little
hunchback who blotted some writing-paper every night: -
"It is done. This is the composition of the Cabinet: Ray-
mond, the Bureau of Public Instruction; Martial, the Interior;
and for Foreign Affairs, myself. "
His time done, he wandered again around Paris, watched afar
by the police, after the fashion of cockchafers made by cruel
children to fly at the end of a string. He became one of those
fugitive and timid beings whom the law, with a sort of coquetry,
arrests and releases by turn; something like those platonic fish-
ers who, in order that they may not exhaust their fish-pond,
throw immediately back in the water the fish which has just
come out of the net. Without a suspicion on his part that so
much honor had been done to so sorry a subject, he had a
special bundle of memoranda in the mysterious portfolios of the
Rue de Jérusalem. His name was written in round hand on
the gray paper of the cover, and the notes and reports, carefully
classified, gave him his successive appellations: "Name, Leturc;"
"The prisoner Leturc;" and at last, "The criminal Leturc. "
He was two years out of prison, - dining where he could,
sleeping in night lodging-houses and sometimes in lime-kilns, and
## p. 4058 (#428) ###########################################
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FRANÇOIS COPPÉE
taking part with his fellows in interminable games of pitch-penny
on the boulevards near the barriers. He wore a greasy cap on
the back of his head, carpet slippers, and a short white blouse.
When he had five sous he had his hair curled. He danced at
Constant's at Montparnasse; bought for two sous to sell for four
at the door of Bobino, the jack of hearts or the ace of clubs
serving as a countermark; sometimes opened the door of a car-
riage; led horses to the horse-market. From the lottery of all
sorts of miserable employments he drew a goodly number. Who
can say if the atmosphere of honor which one breathes as a
soldier, if military discipline might not have saved him? Taken
in a cast of the net with some young loafers who robbed drunk-
ards sleeping on the streets, he denied very earnestly having
taken part in their expeditions. Perhaps he told the truth, but
his antecedents were accepted in lieu of proof, and he was sent
for three years to Poissy. There he made coarse playthings for
children, was tattooed on the chest, learned thieves' slang and
the penal code. A new liberation, and a new plunge into the
sink of Paris; but very short. this time, for at the end of six
months at the most he was again compromised in a night rob-
bery, aggravated by climbing and breaking,- a serious affair, in
which he played an obscure rôle, half dupe and half fence. On
the whole, his complicity was evident, and he was sent for five
years at hard labor. His grief in this adventure was above all
in being separated from an old dog which he had found on a
dung-heap and cured of the mange. The beast loved him.
Toulon, the ball and chain, the work in the harbor, the blows
from a stick, wooden shoes on bare feet, soup of black beans
dating from Trafalgar, no tobacco money, and the terrible sleep
in a camp swarming with convicts: that was what he experienced
for five broiling summers and five winters raw with the Medi-
terranean wind. He came out from there stunned, was sent
under surveillance to Vernon, where he worked some time on
the river. Then, an incorrigible vagabond, he broke his exile
and came again to Paris. He had his savings,- fifty-six francs,
that is to say, time enough for reflection. During his absence.
his former wretched companions had dispersed. He was well
hidden, and slept in a loft at an old woman's, to whom he
represented himself as a sailor, tired of the sea, who had lost his
papers in a recent shipwreck, and who wanted to try his hand
at something else. His tanned face and his calloused hands,
## p. 4059 (#429) ###########################################
FRANÇOIS COPPÉE
4059
together with some sea phrases which he dropped from time to
time, made his tale seem probable enough.
One day when he risked a saunter in the streets, and when
chance had led him as far as Montmartre, where he was born,
an unexpected memory stopped him before the door of Les
Frères, where he had learned to read. As it was very warm,
the door was open, and by a single glance the passing outcast
was able to recognize the peaceable school-room. Nothing was
changed: neither the bright light shining in at the great win-
dows, nor the crucifix over the desk, nor th rows of benches
with the tables furnished with inkstands and pencils, nor the
table of weights and measures, nor the map where pins stuck in
still indicated the operations of some ancient war. Heedlessly
and without thinking, Jean François read on the blackboard the
words of the Evangelist which had been set there as a copy:
"Joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more
than over ninety-and-nine just persons which need no repent-
ance. »
――
It was undoubtedly the hour for recreation, for the Brother
Professor had left his chair, and sitting on the edge of a table,
he was telling a story to the boys who surrounded him with
eager and attentive eyes. What a bright and innocent face he
had, that beardless young man, in his long black gown, and a
white necktie, and great ugly shoes, and his badly cut brown
hair streaming out behind! All the simple figures of the children
of the people who were watching him seemed scarcely less child-
like than his; above all when, delighted with some of his own
simple and priestly pleasantries, he broke out in an open and
frank peal of laughter which showed his white and regular teeth,
a peal so contagious that all the scholars laughed loudly in
their turn. It was such a sweet simple group in the bright sun-
light, which lighted their dear eyes and their blond curls.
Jean François looked at them for some time in silence, and
for the first time in that savage nature, all instinct and appetite,
there awoke a mysterious, a tender emotion. His heart, that
seared and hardened heart, unmoved when the convict's cudgel
or the heavy whip of the watchman fell on his shoulders, beat
oppressively. In that sight he saw again his infancy; and closing
his eyes sadly, the prey to torturing regret, he walked quickly
away.
Then the words written on the blackboard came back to his
mind.
## p. 4060 (#430) ###########################################
4060
FRANÇOIS COPPÉE
"If it wasn't too late, after all! " he murmured; "if I could
again, like others, eat honestly my brown bread, and sleep my
fill without nightmare! The spy must be sharp who recognizes
me. My beard, which I shaved off down there, has grown out
thick and strong. One can burrow somewhere in the great ant-
hill, and work can be found. Whoever is not worked to death
in the hell of the galleys comes out agile and robust, and I
learned there to climb ropes with loads upon my back. Building
is going on everywhere here, and the masons need helpers.
Three francs a day! I never earned so much. Let me be for-
gotten, and that is all I ask. "
He followed his courageous resolution; he was faithful to it,
and after three months he was another man. The master for
whom he worked called him his best workman. After a long
day upon the scaffolding in the hot sun and the dust, constantly
bending and raising his back to take the hod from the man at
his feet and pass it to the man over his head, he went for his
soup to the cook-shop, tired out, his legs aching, his hands burn-
ing, his eyelids stuck with plaster, but content with himself and
carrying his well-earned money in a knot in his handkerchief.
He went out now without fear, since he could not be recognized
in his white mask, and since he had noticed that the suspicious
glances of the policeman were seldom turned on the tired work-
man. He was quiet and sober. He slept the sound sleep of
fatigue. He was free.
At last-oh supreme recompense! - he had a friend!
He was a fellow-workman like himself, named Savinien, a
little peasant with red lips who had come to Paris with his stick
over his shoulder and a bundle on the end of it, fleeing from
the wine-shops and going to mass every Sunday. Jean Fran-
çois loved him for his piety, for his candor, for his honesty, for
all that he himself had lost, and so long ago.
It was a pas-
sion, profound and unrestrained, which transformed him by
fatherly cares and attentions. Savinien, himself of a weak and
egotistical nature, let things take their course, satisfied only in
finding a companion who shared his horror of the wine-shop.
The two friends lived together in a fairly comfortable lodging,
but their resources were very limited. They were obliged to
take into their room a third companion, an old Auvergnat,
gloomy and rapacious, who found it possible out of his meagre
salary to save something with which to buy a place in his own
country. Jean François and Savinien were always together. On
## p. 4061 (#431) ###########################################
FRANÇOIS COPPÉE
4061
holidays they together took long walks in the environs of Paris,
and dined under an arbor in one of those small country inns
where there are a great many mushrooms in the sauces and
innocent rebuses on the napkins. There Jean François learned
from his friend all that lore of which they who are born in the
city are ignorant: learned the names of the trees, the flowers
and the plants; the various seasons for harvesting; he heard
eagerly the thousand details of a laborious country life,— the
autumn sowing, the winter chores, the splendid celebrations of
harvest and vintage days, the sound of the mills at the water-
side and the flails striking the ground, the tired horses led to
water and the hunting in the morning mist, and above all the
long evenings, shortened by marvelous stories, around the fire of
vine-shoots. He discovered in himself a source of imagination
before unknown, and found a singular delight in the recital of
events so placid, so calm, so monotonous.
One thing troubled him, however: it was the fear lest Savinien
might learn something of his past. Sometimes there escaped
from him some low word of thieves' slang, a vulgar gesture,-
vestiges of his former horrible existence, and he felt the pain
one feels when old wounds reopen; the more because he fancied
that he sometimes saw in Savinien the awakening of an un-
healthy curiosity. When the young man, aiready tempted by
the pleasures which Paris offers to the poorest, asked him about
the mysteries of the great city, Jean François feigned ignorance
and turned the subject; but he felt a vague inquietude for the
future of his friend.
――――
His uneasiness was not without foundation. Savinien could
not long remain the simple rustic that he was on his arrival in
Paris. If the gross and noisy pleasures of the wine-shop always
repelled him, he was profoundly troubled by other temptations,
full of danger for the inexperience of his twenty years. When
spring came he began to go off alone, and at first he wandered
about the brilliant entrance of some dancing-hall, watching the
young girls who went in with their arms around each others'
waists, talking in low tones. Then one evening, when lilacs
perfumed the air and the call to quadrilles was most captivating,
he crossed the threshold, and from that time Jean François
observed a change, little by little, in his manners and his vis-
age. He became more frivolous, more extravagant. He often
borrowed from his friend his scanty savings, and he forgot to
## p. 4062 (#432) ###########################################
4062
FRANÇOIS COPPÉE
repay. Jean François, feeling that he was abandoned, jealous
and forgiving at the same time, suffered and was silent. He felt
that he had no right to reproach him, but with the foresight of
affection he indulged in cruel and inevitable presentiments.
One evening, as he was mounting the stairs to his room,
absorbed in his thoughts, he heard, as he was about to enter,
the sound of angry voices, and he recognized that of the old
Auvergnat who lodged with Savinien and himself. An old habit
of suspicion made him stop at the landing-place and listen to
learn the cause of the trouble.
"Yes," said the Auvergnat angrily, "I am sure that some
one has opened my trunk and stolen from it the three louis that
I had hidden in a little box; and he who has done this thing.
must be one of the two companions who sleep here, if it were
not the servant Maria. It concerns you as much as it does me,
since you are the master of the house, and I will drag you to
the courts if you do not let me at once break open the valises of
the two masons. My poor gold!
