Say, when did I ask thy
opinions?
Warner - World's Best Literature - v07 - Cic to Cuv
In Italy the impulse was
earlier felt, though it manifested itself chiefly in literature. Math-
ematics was not neglected, however, at the ancient University of
Bologna; and it was to Bologna that Copernicus came as a student in
1496.
The voyages of Columbus in 1492 and of Vasco da Gama in 1498
were other signs of the same impulsion which was manifest through
out the Western lands.
Nicolas Copernicus was born in 1473, in the town of Thorn in
Poland. His father was originally from Bohemia, and his mother was
the sister of the Bishop of Ermeland. The father died when the lad
was but ten years old, and left him to the care of his uncle. His
studies were prosecuted at the best schools and at the University of
Cracow, where he followed the courses in medicine, and became in
due time a doctor. Mathematics and astronomy were ardently studied
under learned professors, and the young man also became a skillful
artist in painting. At the termination of his studies he turned his
face towards Italy, entered the universities of Padua and Bologna,
and finally received the appointment of Professor of Mathematics at
Rome in 1499, at the age of twenty-seven years. Here his duties
were to expound the theories of Ptolemy as taught in the 'Almagest,'
and he became entirely familiar with their merits and with their
deficiencies.
Astronomers everywhere were asking themselves if there might
not be simpler methods of accounting for the movements of the
planets and of predicting their situations in the sky than the Ptole-
maic methods, loaded down as they were with new complexities.
## p. 4042 (#412) ###########################################
COPERNICUS
4042
We know that these questions occupied Copernicus during the seven
years of his stay in Italy, 1496 to 1502. made a few astronomical
observations then and subsequently, but he was not a born observer
like his successor Tycho Brahe. His observations were directed
towards determining the positions of the planets, as a test of the
tables by which these positions had been predicted; and they were
sufficient to show the shortcomings of the accepted Ptolemaic theory.
He was a theoretical astronomer, but his theory was controlled by
observation.
In 1502 Copernicus returned to his native land and at once entered
holy orders. In 1510 he became canon of Frauenburg, a small town
not far from Königsberg. Here he divided his time between his re-
ligious duties, the practice of medicine, and the study of astronomy
a peaceful life, one would say, and likely to be free from vexa-
tions.
-
It became necessary for the priest to leave his cloister, however,
to defend the interests of the Church in a lawsuit against the
Knights of the Teutonic Order. The lawsuit was won at last, but
Copernicus had raised up powerful enemies. His conclusions with
regard to the motion of the earth were not yet published, but it was
known that he entertained such opinions. Here was an opportunity
for his enemies to bring him to ridicule and to disgrace, which was
not neglected. Troupes of strolling players were employed to turn
himself and his conclusions into ridicule; and it requires no imagina-
tion to conceive that they were perfectly successful before the audi-
ences of the day. But these annoyances fell away in time. The
reputation of the good physician and the good priest conquered his
townsfolk, while the scholars of Europe were more and more im-
pressed with his learning.
His authority grew apace. He was consulted on practical affairs,
such as the financial conduct of the mint. In 1507 he had begun to
write a treatise on the motion of the heavenly bodies - 'De Revolu-
tionibus Orbium Cœlestium'-and he appears to have brought it to
completion about 1514. It is replete with interest to astronomers,
but there are few passages suitable for quotation in a summary like
the present. The manuscript was touched and retouched from time
to time; and finally in 1541, when he was nearly seventy years of
age, he confided it to a disciple in Nuremberg to be printed. In the
month of May, 1543, the impression was completed, and the final
sheets were sent to the author. They reached him when he was on
his death-bed, a few days before he died.
His epitaph is most humble:-"I do not ask the pardon accorded
to Paul; I do not hope for the grace given to Peter. I beg only
the favor which You have granted to the thief on the cross. " His
## p. 4043 (#413) ###########################################
COPERNICUS
4043
legacy to the world was an upright useful life, and a volume con-
taining an immortal truth:
-
The earth is not the centre of the universe; the earth is in motion
around the sun.
The conception that the earth might revolve about the sun was
no new thing. The ancients had considered this hypothesis among
others. Ptolemy made the earth the centre of all the celestial
motions. As the motions became more precisely known, Ptolemy's
hypothesis required new additions, and it was finally overloaded.
It is the merit of Copernicus that he reversed the ancient process of
thought and inquired what hypothesis would fit observed facts, and
not what additions must be made to an a priori assumption to repre-
sent observations. He showed clearly and beyond a doubt that the
facts were represented far better by the theory that the sun was the
centre of motion of the earth, and not only of the earth, but of all the
planets. He says:-
"By no other combination have I been able to find so admirable a sym-
metry in the separate parts of the great whole, so harmonious a union
between the motions of the celestial bodies, as by placing the torch of the
world that Sun which governs all the family of the planets in their circu-
lar revolutions—on his royal throne, in the midst of Nature's temple. »*
He did not demonstrate this arrangement to be the true one. It
was left to Galileo to prove that Venus had phases like our moon,
and hence that its light was sunlight, and that its motion was helio-
centric. The direct service of Copernicus to pure astronomy lay in
his method. What theory will best fit the facts? How shall we test
the theory by observation? Indirectly he laid the foundations for the
reformation of astronomy by Kepler and Galileo; for Newton's work-
ing out of the conception of the sun as a centre of force as well as
a centre of motion; for the modern ideas of the relations between
force and matter.
The Church, which regarded all sciences as derivatives of the-
ology, placed the work of Copernicus on the Index Expurgatorius at
Rome, 1616. The Reformation maintained an official silence the
But
mooted questions. Luther condemned the theory of Copernicus.
the service of Copernicus to mankind was immense, revolutionary,-
incalculable. For thousands of years the earth, with its inhabitants,
was the centre of a universe created for its benefit. At one step all
this was changed, and man took his modest place. He became a
creature painfully living on a small planet—one of many-revolving
*Quoted from the French of Flammarion's 'Life of Copernicus,' page 122.
## p. 4044 (#414) ###########################################
COPERNICUS
4044
around one of the smaller stars or suns; and that sun was only one of
the millions upon millions shining in the stellar vault. Man's position
in the universe was destroyed. The loss of kingship would seem to
be intolerable, were it not that it was by a man, after all, that Man
was dethroned. All our modern thought, feeling, action, is profoundly
modified by the consequences of the dictum of Copernicus-" The
earth is not the centre of the universe. " Mankind was faced in a new
direction by that pronouncement. Modern life became possible.
Modern views became inevitable. The end is not yet. When in
future ages the entire history of the race is written, many names
now dear to us will be ignored: they have no vital connection with
the progress of the race. But one name is sure of a place of honor:
Copernicus will not be forgotten by our remotest descendants.
Edward S. Holden
## p. 4045 (#415) ###########################################
4045
FRANÇOIS COPPÉE
(1842-)
BY ROBERT SANDERSON
MONG writers of the present day whose influence on French
letters is strongly felt, François Coppée occupies a foremost
rank. Indeed, poets of the new generation look up to him
as a master and take him for a model. Born in 1842, at the age of
twenty-four he first began to draw attention by the publication in 1866
of a number of poems, collected under the name of 'Le Reliquaire'
(The Reliquary or Shrine). Since then he has gone on writing poems,
plays, and novels; but it is on his work as a poet that his fame will
stand. We cannot do better than turn to
one of his books, not for his biography
alone, but also for the manner of thinking
and feeling of this author. Toute une
Jeunesse (An Entire Youth) is not strictly
an autobiography; but Coppée informs us
that the leading character in this work,
Amédée Violette, felt life as he felt it
when a child and young man.
Here we learn that Coppée's father was
a clerk in the War Offices, earning barely
enough to keep his family. The boy was
of weakly constitution, nervous and senti-
mental. 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) ###########################################
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) ###########################################
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) ###########################################
FRANÇOIS COPPÉE
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) ###########################################
FRANÇOIS COPPÉE
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.
earlier felt, though it manifested itself chiefly in literature. Math-
ematics was not neglected, however, at the ancient University of
Bologna; and it was to Bologna that Copernicus came as a student in
1496.
The voyages of Columbus in 1492 and of Vasco da Gama in 1498
were other signs of the same impulsion which was manifest through
out the Western lands.
Nicolas Copernicus was born in 1473, in the town of Thorn in
Poland. His father was originally from Bohemia, and his mother was
the sister of the Bishop of Ermeland. The father died when the lad
was but ten years old, and left him to the care of his uncle. His
studies were prosecuted at the best schools and at the University of
Cracow, where he followed the courses in medicine, and became in
due time a doctor. Mathematics and astronomy were ardently studied
under learned professors, and the young man also became a skillful
artist in painting. At the termination of his studies he turned his
face towards Italy, entered the universities of Padua and Bologna,
and finally received the appointment of Professor of Mathematics at
Rome in 1499, at the age of twenty-seven years. Here his duties
were to expound the theories of Ptolemy as taught in the 'Almagest,'
and he became entirely familiar with their merits and with their
deficiencies.
Astronomers everywhere were asking themselves if there might
not be simpler methods of accounting for the movements of the
planets and of predicting their situations in the sky than the Ptole-
maic methods, loaded down as they were with new complexities.
## p. 4042 (#412) ###########################################
COPERNICUS
4042
We know that these questions occupied Copernicus during the seven
years of his stay in Italy, 1496 to 1502. made a few astronomical
observations then and subsequently, but he was not a born observer
like his successor Tycho Brahe. His observations were directed
towards determining the positions of the planets, as a test of the
tables by which these positions had been predicted; and they were
sufficient to show the shortcomings of the accepted Ptolemaic theory.
He was a theoretical astronomer, but his theory was controlled by
observation.
In 1502 Copernicus returned to his native land and at once entered
holy orders. In 1510 he became canon of Frauenburg, a small town
not far from Königsberg. Here he divided his time between his re-
ligious duties, the practice of medicine, and the study of astronomy
a peaceful life, one would say, and likely to be free from vexa-
tions.
-
It became necessary for the priest to leave his cloister, however,
to defend the interests of the Church in a lawsuit against the
Knights of the Teutonic Order. The lawsuit was won at last, but
Copernicus had raised up powerful enemies. His conclusions with
regard to the motion of the earth were not yet published, but it was
known that he entertained such opinions. Here was an opportunity
for his enemies to bring him to ridicule and to disgrace, which was
not neglected. Troupes of strolling players were employed to turn
himself and his conclusions into ridicule; and it requires no imagina-
tion to conceive that they were perfectly successful before the audi-
ences of the day. But these annoyances fell away in time. The
reputation of the good physician and the good priest conquered his
townsfolk, while the scholars of Europe were more and more im-
pressed with his learning.
His authority grew apace. He was consulted on practical affairs,
such as the financial conduct of the mint. In 1507 he had begun to
write a treatise on the motion of the heavenly bodies - 'De Revolu-
tionibus Orbium Cœlestium'-and he appears to have brought it to
completion about 1514. It is replete with interest to astronomers,
but there are few passages suitable for quotation in a summary like
the present. The manuscript was touched and retouched from time
to time; and finally in 1541, when he was nearly seventy years of
age, he confided it to a disciple in Nuremberg to be printed. In the
month of May, 1543, the impression was completed, and the final
sheets were sent to the author. They reached him when he was on
his death-bed, a few days before he died.
His epitaph is most humble:-"I do not ask the pardon accorded
to Paul; I do not hope for the grace given to Peter. I beg only
the favor which You have granted to the thief on the cross. " His
## p. 4043 (#413) ###########################################
COPERNICUS
4043
legacy to the world was an upright useful life, and a volume con-
taining an immortal truth:
-
The earth is not the centre of the universe; the earth is in motion
around the sun.
The conception that the earth might revolve about the sun was
no new thing. The ancients had considered this hypothesis among
others. Ptolemy made the earth the centre of all the celestial
motions. As the motions became more precisely known, Ptolemy's
hypothesis required new additions, and it was finally overloaded.
It is the merit of Copernicus that he reversed the ancient process of
thought and inquired what hypothesis would fit observed facts, and
not what additions must be made to an a priori assumption to repre-
sent observations. He showed clearly and beyond a doubt that the
facts were represented far better by the theory that the sun was the
centre of motion of the earth, and not only of the earth, but of all the
planets. He says:-
"By no other combination have I been able to find so admirable a sym-
metry in the separate parts of the great whole, so harmonious a union
between the motions of the celestial bodies, as by placing the torch of the
world that Sun which governs all the family of the planets in their circu-
lar revolutions—on his royal throne, in the midst of Nature's temple. »*
He did not demonstrate this arrangement to be the true one. It
was left to Galileo to prove that Venus had phases like our moon,
and hence that its light was sunlight, and that its motion was helio-
centric. The direct service of Copernicus to pure astronomy lay in
his method. What theory will best fit the facts? How shall we test
the theory by observation? Indirectly he laid the foundations for the
reformation of astronomy by Kepler and Galileo; for Newton's work-
ing out of the conception of the sun as a centre of force as well as
a centre of motion; for the modern ideas of the relations between
force and matter.
The Church, which regarded all sciences as derivatives of the-
ology, placed the work of Copernicus on the Index Expurgatorius at
Rome, 1616. The Reformation maintained an official silence the
But
mooted questions. Luther condemned the theory of Copernicus.
the service of Copernicus to mankind was immense, revolutionary,-
incalculable. For thousands of years the earth, with its inhabitants,
was the centre of a universe created for its benefit. At one step all
this was changed, and man took his modest place. He became a
creature painfully living on a small planet—one of many-revolving
*Quoted from the French of Flammarion's 'Life of Copernicus,' page 122.
## p. 4044 (#414) ###########################################
COPERNICUS
4044
around one of the smaller stars or suns; and that sun was only one of
the millions upon millions shining in the stellar vault. Man's position
in the universe was destroyed. The loss of kingship would seem to
be intolerable, were it not that it was by a man, after all, that Man
was dethroned. All our modern thought, feeling, action, is profoundly
modified by the consequences of the dictum of Copernicus-" The
earth is not the centre of the universe. " Mankind was faced in a new
direction by that pronouncement. Modern life became possible.
Modern views became inevitable. The end is not yet. When in
future ages the entire history of the race is written, many names
now dear to us will be ignored: they have no vital connection with
the progress of the race. But one name is sure of a place of honor:
Copernicus will not be forgotten by our remotest descendants.
Edward S. Holden
## p. 4045 (#415) ###########################################
4045
FRANÇOIS COPPÉE
(1842-)
BY ROBERT SANDERSON
MONG writers of the present day whose influence on French
letters is strongly felt, François Coppée occupies a foremost
rank. Indeed, poets of the new generation look up to him
as a master and take him for a model. Born in 1842, at the age of
twenty-four he first began to draw attention by the publication in 1866
of a number of poems, collected under the name of 'Le Reliquaire'
(The Reliquary or Shrine). Since then he has gone on writing poems,
plays, and novels; but it is on his work as a poet that his fame will
stand. We cannot do better than turn to
one of his books, not for his biography
alone, but also for the manner of thinking
and feeling of this author. Toute une
Jeunesse (An Entire Youth) is not strictly
an autobiography; but Coppée informs us
that the leading character in this work,
Amédée Violette, felt life as he felt it
when a child and young man.
Here we learn that Coppée's father was
a clerk in the War Offices, earning barely
enough to keep his family. The boy was
of weakly constitution, nervous and senti-
mental. 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) ###########################################
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
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[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,
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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.
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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!
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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!
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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!
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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
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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
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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
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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.
