No More Learning

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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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


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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. 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,


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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.


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"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


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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


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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! It was here yesterday in its
place, and I will tell you just what it was, so that if we find it
again nobody can accuse me of having lied. Ah, I know them,
my three beautiful gold pieces, and I can see them as plainly as
I see you! One piece was more worn than the others; it was
of greenish gold, with a portrait of the great emperor. The
other was a great old fellow with a queue and epaulettes; and
the third, which had on it a Philippe with whiskers, I had
marked with my teeth. They don't trick me. Do you know
that I only wanted two more like that to pay for my vineyard?
Come, search these fellows' things with me, or I will call the
police! Hurry up! "
"All right," said the voice of the landlord; "we will go and
search with Maria. So much the worse for you if we find noth-
ing, and the masons get angry. You have forced me to it. "
Jean François's soul was full of fright. He remembered the
embarrassed circumstances and the small loans of Savinien, and
how sober he had seemed for some days. And yet he could not
believe that he was a thief. He heard the Auvergnat panting in
his eager search, and he pressed his closed fists against his breast
as if to still the furious beating of his heart.
"Here they are! " suddenly shouted the victorious miser.
"Here they are, my louis, my dear treasure; and in the Sunday
vest of that little hypocrite of Limousin! Look, landlord, they


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4063
are just as I told you. Here is the Napoleon, the man with a
queue, and the Philippe that I have bitten. See the dents? Ah,
the little beggar with the sanctified air! I should have much
sooner suspected the other. Ah, the wretch! Well, he must go
to the convict prison. "
At this moment Jean François heard the well-known step of
Savinien coming slowly up the stairs.
"He is going to his destruction," thought he.
I have time! "
"Three stories.
And pushing open the door he entered the room, pale as
death, where he saw the landlord and the servant stupefied in
a corner, while the Auvergnat, on his knees in the disordered
heap of clothes, was kissing the pieces of gold.
"Enough of this," he said, in a thick voice; "I took the
money and put it in my comrade's trunk. But that is too bad.
I am a thief, but not a Judas. Call the police; I will not try to
escape, only I must say a word to Savinien in private. Here
he is. "
In fact, the little Limousin had just arrived; and seeing his
crime discovered, believing himself lost, he stood there, his eyes
fixed, his arms hanging.
Jean François seized him forcibly by the neck, as if to
embrace him; he put his mouth close to Savinien's ear, and said
to him in a low supplicating voice:-
"Keep quiet. "
Then turning towards the others:
"Leave me alone with him. I tell you I won't go away.
Lock us in if you wish, but leave us alone. "
With a commanding gesture he showed them the door. They
-
went out.
Savinien, broken by grief, was sitting on the bed, and low-
ered his eyes without understanding anything.
"Listen," said Jean François, who came and took him by the
hands, "I understand! You have stolen three gold pieces to
buy some trifle for a girl. That costs six months in prison.
But one only comes out from there to go back again, and you
will become a pillar of police courts and tribunals. I understand
it. I have been seven years at the Reform School, a year at
Sainte Pélagie, three years at Poissy, five years at Toulon.
Now, don't be afraid. Everything is arranged. I have taken it
on my shoulders. "


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"It is dreadful," said Savinien; but hope was springing up
again in his cowardly heart.
"When the elder brother is under the flag, the younger one
does not go," replied Jean François. "I am your substitute,
that's all. You care for me a little, do you not? I am paid.
Don't be childish-don't refuse. They would have taken me
again one of these days, for I am a runaway from exile. And
then, do you see, that life will be less hard for me than for you.
I know it all, and I shall not complain if I have not done you
this service for nothing, and if you swear to me that you will
never do it again. Savinien, I have loved you well, and your
friendship has made me happy. It is through it that since I
have known you I have been honest and pure, as I might always
have been, perhaps if I had had, like you, a father to put a
tool in my hands, a mother to teach me my prayers.
It was my
sole regret that I was useless to you, and that I deceived you
concerning myself. To-day I have unmasked in saving you.
It is all right. Do not cry, and embrace me, for already I hear
heavy boots on the stairs. They are coming with the posse, and
we must not seem to know each other so well before those
chaps. "
―
He pressed Savinien quickly to his breast, then pushed him
from him, when the door was thrown wide open.
It was the landlord and the Auvergnat, who brought the
police. Jean François sprang forward to the landing-place, held
out his hands for the handcuffs, and said, laughing, "Forward,
bad lot! "
To-day he is at Cayenne, condemned for life as an incor-
rigible.


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m
P. CORNEILLE.


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Overa
And

P. CORNEILLE.


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4065
PIERRE CORNEILLE
(1606-1684)
BY FREDERICK MORRIS WARREN
ORNEILLE'S life, apart from the performance and publication
of his works, is but imperfectly known, owing to the lack
of contemporaneous records and allusions. He was born
at Rouen, capital of the old province of Normandy, on June 6th,
1606. At his christening on June 9th he received the name of
Pierre, after his father and godfather. He was educated in the
Jesuit college (academy) at Rouen, and obtained in 1620 a prize for
excellence. Choosing his father's profession, he studied law, and
was admitted to the bar on June 18th, 1624. The office of attorney-
general in the department of waters and forests was purchased by
him on December 16th, 1628. The year following, Mondory, who
with a company of actors was probably playing at Rouen, persuaded
him to give his (Mondory's) troupe a comedy he had already written;
and the season of 1629-30 saw the play produced in Paris, at the
newly established Marais Theatre.
The success of this comedy, 'Mélite,' confirmed Corneille in his
purpose of writing for the stage and led him to study the principles
of dramatic art. While he continued to discharge his legal duties at
Rouen, he would frequently visit Paris in order to offer some new
play to Mondory, or mingle in the literary society of the capital. So
'Mélite,' made up entirely of conversations where nothing happened,
was followed by 'Clitandre,' a tragi-comedy of the popular type, full
of bloody episodes. Like 'Mélite,' it was in twelve-syllable verse
(Alexandrine) and contained five acts. It also showed Corneille's first
attempt to observe unity of time. When it was published in March
1632, a selection of Corneille's poetry, a part of which antedated
'Mélite,' was put with it.
The next two years saw the publication of occasional poems by
him in French, and some Latin verse in honor of the King and
Richelieu. Before March 1634 he also composed four more comedies:
'The Widow,' a character study, noticeable for the attempt to com-
promise on unity of time by allowing a day to each act; 'The
Gallery of the Palace,' where the action takes place in the fashion-
able shops of the day, and in which the modern character of the
soubrette displaces the traditional nurse of Renaissance comedy,
taken by a man in disguise; The Lady's Maid,' a study of this
VII-255


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4066
PIERRE CORNEILLE
successful substitute, where finally Corneille observes both the unities
of time and place, and makes his five acts equal, line for line; and
'The Palais Royal,' another topical comedy for Parisians. These four
plays are much like their predecessors in lack of action and super-
fluity of complimentary talk. The same may be said of Corneille's
collaboration on Richelieu's 'Comedy of The Tuileries' (1635). His
superiority to his colleagues at this time consisted mainly in his
poetic talent and common-sense.
In the season of 1634-35 he tried a tragedy, 'Medea,' patterned
after Seneca's Latin drama of that name. It shows an advance on
his previous efforts, yet did not come up to his high standard; and
he sought a diversion for his disappointment by eulogizing the theat-
rical profession in a play within a play, The Dramatic Illusion,›
which he gave to the actors of the Hôtel of Burgundy, probably
in 1635.
About this time Corneille's attention was drawn to the Spanish
drama, then at its highest point. The storied deeds of Spain's na-
tional hero especially appealed to his temperament, and he selected
Guillen de Castro's 'First Exploits of the Cid' as a model for his
imitation. A year or more he may have been busy in adapting its
complexity of scene and character to the orderly, simple require-
ments of the French stage. For it was not till the last days of 1636,
after unusual preparations in rehearsals and costuming, that Mon-
dory's company brought out The Cid. ' Its success was instantane-
ous. The theatre was crowded for many nights. The stage even
was filled in with seats for the nobility, to the great annoyance of
the actors and the detriment of the scenery. And sixteen years
later, Pellisson, the historian of the Academy, could still write:-
:- "It
is difficult to conceive the approbation with which this play was re-
ceived by the Court and public. People never tired of going to it;
you could hear nothing else talked about; everybody knew some part
of it by heart; children were made to learn it, and in several places
in France it gave rise to the proverb, That is as beautiful as The
Cid. '»
The history of modern French drama dates from the first perform-
ance of The Cid. ' The theme here selected became the typical one.
It shows the struggle between love and honor on the part of the
hero, love and duty on the part of the heroine. Jimena's father has
insulted Rodrigo's, enfeebled by his advanced years. He calls upon
his son to avenge his honor. In spite of his love for Jimena, Rodrigo
shows no hesitation. He challenges the Count and kills him. In the
lovers' interview which follows, Jimena is more distracted from her
duty by her love than Rodrigo was, but yet resolves on vengeance.
She demands a champion of the king, who objects that Rodrigo


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PIERRE CORNEILLE
4067
should be pardoned, having just saved the city from the invading
Moors. Jimena insists: a champion appears, is overthrown, and is
spared by Rodrigo, whereupon the king intervenes and orders the
betrothal of the lovers.
Since The Cid' ends happily, so far as the hero and heroine are
concerned, Corneille first called it a tragi-comedy, but later substi-
tuted the title of tragedy. Its general structure is the same as that
of his other plays,-five fairly equal acts, subdivided into scenes,
with rhymed Alexandrine couplets, excepting in a few lyric strophes.
The time of the action is limited to twenty-four hours, but the scene
of the action is restricted only by the boundaries of the town
(Seville), the different places being marked by a fixed scenery, which
presented several localities to the audience at the same time.
His dramatic form and stage properties Corneille had obtained
from his French predecessors of the classical school. The mediæval
Miracle Plays had practically fallen out of favor nearly a century
before 'Mélite,' and had been prohibited in Paris in 1548. But the
Fraternity of the Passion still occupied the only theatre in the city,
and had a monopoly of all the performances in the city and suburbs.
Into its theatre of the Hôtel of Burgundy it had put as much of its
old multiplex scenery as it could fit into the new and narrow stage.
And while it could no longer act the old Mysteries, still it clung to
dramatic stories which knew neither unity of time, place, nor even
action.
Outside of these playwrights, however, the Renaissance had created
a set of men who looked towards classical antiquity for their literary
standards. In 1552 Jodelle and his friends of the Pléiade had ap-
pealed to this class by acting in Boncourt College a tragedy modeled
on Seneca's Latin dramas. This example was subsequently followed
by many writers, who however rarely got their pieces acted, and
therefore fell into the way of writing without having the necessities
of stage effects in view. Consequently for nearly half a century the
best dramatists of France were strangers to the public of the Hôtel
of Burgundy, and were drifting more and more from a dramatic con-
ception of the theatre into a lyric one. Long declamatory mono-
logues, acts varying greatly in length and separated by elaborate
choruses, were the chief features of this school. Nothing happened
on the stage; all was told by messengers.
Yet these dramas, by their very lack of action and scenery, were
suited to the limited means of strolling companies of actors; and
modifications of them were being played more and more to provin-
cial audiences. Finally in 1599 one of these companies came to
Paris, leased the Hôtel of Burgundy from the Fraternity, now tired
of its avocation, and laid there the foundations of modern French


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4068
PIERRE CORNEILLE
drama. The purveyor to this troupe was Alexandre Hardy, a man of
some education, of considerable theatrical endowments, but lacking
in literary taste. True to his classical models so far as the unlettered
public of the Hôtel and its scenery would allow, he managed by
cutting down the monologues, equalizing the acts, restricting or
suppressing the choruses, and leading the dialogue to some climax
visible to his audience, to effect a compromise between the partisans
of the two schools and educate a new body of theatre-goers. His
scenery he could not change, and it still remained a constant temp-
tation to diversity of place and multiplication of episodes. Hardy
labored for more than thirty years. It is to his dramatic form,
audience, and stage that Corneille succeeded, continuing his work
while avoiding his excesses. And aided by the growing taste and
intelligence of his public, Corneille could further simplify and refine
the style of play in vogue.
Now De Castro's 'Cid' had enjoyed the freedom of the Miracle
Plays. It numbered three acts, divided into fifty-three scenes.