dignation, when I tell you that we think love is described with more delicacy in Harriette's Memoirs than in Walter Scott's novels? After such a proof of contrariety in our tastes and sentiments, have I not good reason to tremble for the fate of these letters? We Parisians live upon nuances, you Londoners seem to despise them. The Théatre Français, is like your East India Company. It is a kind of republic dependant on government, only that it produces intellectual pleasures instead of guineas. This republic was founded by Molière, in 1670. It flourished up to the year 1814. The legitimate government, with that spirit of niaiserie, for which it is much more remarkable than for its wickedness, ceased to compel the members of the Comedie Française to adhere to their regulations. Talma and Mademoiselle Mars, ever since 1814, have opposed the début of any actors who gave the slightest promise of talent, or who appeared likely to become their rivals in public favour. The same motives have led them to procure engagements for twelve or fourteen sticks utterly devoid of talent. From the time of Molière, the profits of the Théatre Français have been divided into twenty-four shares. Several actors have half a share, others a quarter of a share. During Napoleon's reign, a whole share gave an income of eighty pounds a month. Last month (March, 1825,) the profits of a whole share were something under seven pounds. The police is greatly alarmed at the success of the Cid of Andalusia, in which the King, Alphonso, is a perfect representation of a young Bourbon prince. He is lively, gallant and brave, incredibly weak, and a cold passionless libertine. The continual allusions which the character of this weak and profligate monarch must necessarily suggest to the audience, occasioned so much uneasiness to the police, that Desmousseaux, a poor devil who played well for the first time in his life in this piece, received orders to fall ill. This scheme of the police brought down the value of a share to between six and seven pounds. Many actors depend entirely for subsistence on a half share. This month it has yielded them only about three pounds five shillings. So striking an arithmetical truth has made some impression on the public, and it is become the fashion, all on a sudden, to reform the Théatre Français. Napoleon, in a transport of admiration, granted Talma a pension of a thousand pounds a year. A few months after, Mademoiselle Mars, who has attained much nearer the perfection of her art in comedy than Talma in tragedy, received a pension to the same amount. These pensions were eventually, I think, raised to twelve hundred a year. Napoleon would have done a much better thing if he had ordered a fee of three hundred francs to be paid to each of these celebrated performers every time they acted. The gifts were not conferred with prudence; they have, consequently, made Talma and Mademoiselle Mars lazy, and have ruined the theatre. Two illustrious noblemen, both very pleasant company, but both eminently absurd in matters of business, contend for the glory of reorganizing the Théatre Français. Under such auspices, the annihilation of the theatre is generally considered certain. All our litterateurs, and, indeed, every class and order of society, are absorbed in the consi-. deration of this momentous crisis. The only theatres in Paris which answer, are those with which government does not interfere. Hopes are entertained that after four or five hundred thousand pounds have been paid for the folly of the two afore-mentioned Seigneurs, the theatre may come to enjoy that most advantageous neglect-Messieurs, the Gentlemen of the Chamber, will leave the managers to themselves, and all will go well, especially if the Censorship happens to be grown a little less absurd. The respectable functionaries who conduct that useful branch of public business have just cut out an hundred lines, which appeared to them to furnish some probable allusions, from an unfortunate tragedy called Judith. I went to see it, out of my desire to give you an account of all our novelties, but, to say the truth, it is below criticism. Towards the end of the performance the audience could bear it no longer, and cried aloud for the head of Holofernes. The author who writes fine verse (in the style of your Dryden again), is a M. Comberousse. Are you acquainted with one of the wittiest and the most misanthropic writers of France, Chamfort? He was, like his cotemporary Délille, a natural child, but worked his way into the society of the great people of the Court of Louis XVI. M. de Vaudreuil, one of the Queen's favourites, got him a pension of eight hundred a year; when the revolution broke out, Chamfort, although in the enjoyment of an abuse so enormous, as eight hundred a year to a man of letters, had the magnanimity to declare himself hostile to abuses. He was, accordingly, denounced by good company as a monster, lost to every feeling of honour. Chamfort supported this stroke, so dreadful to every Frenchman, with a strength of mind. truly Roman. Adhering firmly to his own opinions, he saw good company cry up to the skies the Abbe Délille, Marmontel, Morellet, and other philosophers who had too just a value for the good things they enjoyed under the Ancien Regime, not to declare in favour of their system as soon as there was any serious project for putting an end to it. Chamfort furnished Mirabeau with the famous speech in favour of the suppression of the academies. A more violent party than that to which Chamfort belonged, having seized the reins of government, he gave himself twenty wounds with a razor in the region of the heart, and in the knee, in the hope of dividing an artery. He died a few months afterwards, of the consequences of these wounds. Since the fall of Napoleon has permitted the French Revolution to proceed in its course, since it has restored liberty to thought, and the public attention to philosophical discussion, a new edition of Chamfort's works is published every other year. The fifth or ixth edition is just out, and consists of five volumes instead of four. The additional volume contains eighteen letters written by Mirabeau, who being persecuted by his father (the famous Ami des Hommes, mentioned by Madame du Hausset), went to London, where he endeavoured to gain a miserable livelihood by working for booksellers. Chamfort undertook a work, tending to expose the evils of civilization, such as he beheld it, and of society such as it existed in France about the year 1780. The anecdotes of his time, which he collected as proofs and illustrations of his system of misanthropy, are what render his works popular. Nobody reads a bad tragedy, written to flatter Louis XVI. which first procured him the favour of the court. His eulogies on La Fontaine and Molière are delightful. They are among the most exquisite specimens of French writing. His two articles on the charming Me moirs of Duclos, and on the private life of the Duke de Richelieu, are here generally esteemed perfect productions. In short, Í strongly advise you to buy the last edition of Chamfort's works. On Sunday, 10th of April, M. Paul Louis Courier, the cleverest man in France, was assassinated as he was walking in a wood belonging to him at Veretz, near Tours. His body was found on the following day, pierced with three balls. French literature could not have sustained a greater loss. M. Courier was only fifty-two. He had served with distinction in his youth, and had refused his vote to Napoleon when he raised himself to the Imperial throne. At that period, M. Courier left the army, and applied himself to the study of Greek. It is said that, in his knowledge of this language, he was only equalled by two men in France. Be that as it may, it is certain that since Voltaire's time no writer has equalled M. Courier in prose satire,-no other man has written such delightful pamphlets. His petition in favour of "The Peasants who were Forbidden to Dance" is one of the master pieces of our language. His pamphlets are but little known out of Paris. The public prints scarcely ever dared to announce them, besides which, most of the editors of journals were jealous of his superior wit and talent. At the time of his assassination he had gone to Tours to sell all his property. He had just had some disagreement with his wife, in consequence of which he had determined to shut himself up in a cheerful sunny room in Paris, and there to pass his life in writing. His death is a great happiness to the Jesuits. M. Courier would have been the Pascal of the nineteenth century. It is confidently reported that he has left Memoirs of his Life, and particularly of the two or three years he spent in Calabria. These memoirs, if ever they see the light, will materially affect the place held in public estimation by several celebrated generals. M. Courier was a decided enemy to the absurd emphasis and affectation of the intense, with which M. de Chateaubriand has corrupted French literature. The style of his pamphlets, and of a specimen of a Translation of Herodotus, frequently reminds us of the naiveté and vigour of Montaigne. The war between the Classiques and the Romantiques, which must be extremely uninteresting to you, has this month given birth to a very amusing satire in verse, the author of which is a man of sense and wit, named de la Touche; and to two pamphlets, by M. de Stendhal and M. Artoud. The question at issue is, whether future writers of tragedy are to imitate Racine or Shakspeare. Lord Byron's tragedies, and those which have been acted with any success in London for the last five or six years, seem to us quite after the manner of Racine. The persons of the drama do little and talk eloquently. The Romantiques speak very highly of a comedy called Les Espagnols in Dannemark, which will shortly appear in print; as it is pretty certain that the Censorship would not suffer it to be acted. The author is said to be a young man of eighteen. A draft of an anonymous letter, addressed to Louis XIV. by Fenelon, has just been sold at a very high price at public sale. The original, which consists of twenty-four pages, is in the hand-writing of that illustrious man. It is a master-piece of reasoning. If Louis XIV. ever received this letter, I should think he could hardly avoid recognising the style of its author. L'honnet Homme et le Niais is a novel from the pen of M. Picard. It is rather sillily written, but it gives a faithful picture of the manners of Paris from 1800 to 1820. It is of a very different depth from M. de Jouy's Ermite de la Chaussée d'Antin. M. Picard has much less wit, much fewer striking expressions at command. The Jesuits having done him the favour to persecute his book; it has reached a second edition. It will be very interesting to foreigners. In 1800 you believed us to be monsters on the faith of a few writers in the pay of Pitt. You will see that we were then what we have always been, frivolous, consummately vain, running after the pleasure of the latest fashion, and indifferent to the opinion of other nations. Yours always, Lond. Mag.] THE CORONATION AT RHEIMS. KING-CROWNING City of Rheims, rejoice! And the trumpet, the drum, and the cymbal make Kings in the Cross and the Gospels right, Let a Moor, and a Turk, and a Christian knight, From each as a pledge be present; P. N. D. C For when monarchs are crown'd, ye should all combine, Bishops and priests, in your mitred array, By the cardinal legate recruited, Nobles and chiefs, whom your monarchs have made For your pride to your fellows will better accord Thy brother was such-yet they cut off his head- Learn from his fate that "legitimate" might Who see in this act an additional hope That the world may be held at defiance, Such were your prayers, and your oaths, and your toil, The God ye dishonour your mockery loaths, When ye consecrate kings with such prostitute oaths. And took back the brother to reign in his stead, This is a Bourbon, a brother:-beware! And uncrown him at once if his oath he forswear. Ye chosen of chivalry, noble and great, Ye beauties, whose splendour confers on the fête Ye numberless crowds, who are hailing your king, The head ye have crown'd in the sod shall fie, And all that is left of this proud array, Shall be dust and ashes, and bones and clay! [New Monthly Mag Ir peradventure, Reader, it has been thy lot to waste the golden years of thy life-thy shining youth-in the irksome confinement |
