shakes and scales, was an art so far removed from what is natural, or even from what is considered natural on the stage, that some time elapsed before it became acceptable to French intelligence. The ballet, a more elementary form of art, where the pleasures rather than the storms of passion are represented, preceded the appearance of the opera at the Court of France. an ex To the really "lettered" minds of the seventeenth century the language of music conveyed nothing, and though Madame de Sévigné was capable of emptying her inkstand in praise of a comedy by Molière or a tragedy by Corneille, neither she nor Madame de Lafayette, Madame de Rambouillet, nor Mademoiselle de Scudéry, were capable of perceiving in a musical composition anything more than ercise' for les violons du Roi. That essentially modern and vibrative being, Konsseau, taught the eighteenth century the language of sounds in music, as he had already, and the first, turned French. admiration to the beauties of nature and to the eloquent music of wind among trees. Henceforth Musset, Stendhal, Madame Sand, and Madame d'Agoût might proclaim Beethoven's art capable of expressing all thoughts and all emotions; they would be listened to, and understood. Bichi, Mazarin, La Rovère, were the three Church dignitaries who in France became the sponsors of musical drama. As yet, however, the real public did not understand or appreciate these mixed musical comedies." Beffara,* the author of the only manuscript we have to rely on for these early statements, says that neither Armide et Renaud, nor Clorinde, nor even the Mariage d'Euridice pleased the public, who delighted then, as now, in spectacular effects such as we find in La Toison d'Or, Circé, and Psyché in particular, where Perseus ascended to the skies in the last act mounted on Pegasus! These were the pieces which found favor in the eyes of the public of 1646, just as the Poule aux Eufs d'Or and the Pied de Mouton, etc., find favor with it now. The author of the Pastorale (Perrin), the first operatic writer who succeeded with the French public, was born at Lyons in 1625. After numerous and fruitless efforts to make a mark in the world, having * MS. of Beffara, Bibl. Nationale. come to the conclusion that "money makes the man," he sought and found money by marrying Madame la Barroyre, widow of a councillor at Court. This lady, says Tallemant des Réaux (the scandalmonger of the day), was sixty-one years of age, Perrin was twenty-seven. She had not the greatest brain in the world, but before marrying that "Dada” (meaning Perrin) she might have passed muster. The Dada,' Dada," however, was disinherited when the lady awoke from her infatuation, and left as poor as before marriage. The Duc d'Orléans came to his rescue by naming him "Introducteur des Ambassadeurs.' 66 Chief among the patronesses of Perrin had stood the Duchesse d'Orléans, according to Michelet, "the most attractive woman in France,' ""la seule qui sut distinguer les hommes et personne après.” * The Duchesse loved Perrin's Pastorale, but alas! she loved Louis the Fourteenth also, and after him the Comte de Vardes; "cet homme aux tours de chat," as Michelet also characterizes him, a man who gave the Duchesse rendez-vous at the Convent of Chaillot, and failed to keep them. Il from grief and from neglected love, Madame (whom Guy Patin at her arrival in France had pronounced of "small health") having no longer the heart to protect or actively help any one, Perrin turned to the Duke, who at once obtained for him the privilege of founding the Académie Royale de Musique. The next move for Perrin, however, after becoming titulary of the privilege was to house the Académie. M. de la Haye's hospitality in giving up his house at Issy for Perrin's performance had provided but a temporary shelter. The Marquis de Sourdéac-an oddity whom Tallemant des Réaux describes as being so active that he used to make his tenants course him across his own park like a hunted stag"-offered his hôtel, but it was only a makeshift. Very soon a company was formed, of which the brother of the chronicler Tallemant became a mem *Histoire de France, vol. xv. ch. ii. The Abbesse of the Convent of Chaillot was Louise Angélique de Lafayette, the former platonic flame of Louis the Thirteenth, who d'Angleterre in 1665 for the neglect of Louis was all the more fitted to console Henriette the Fourteenth because she herself had been abandoned by Louis the Thirteenth in 1636. ber. The tennis-court of Vaugirard, close to the Hôtel la Trémoïlle, was rented, and toward 1668 the Opéra entered into its second residence, but only for a short time, as the situation was not found convenient. In 1670 it removed again, if not definitely, at least for a longer sojourn, to the Rue des Fossés de Nesles, now the Rue Mazarine. In this way the Institut de France is standing at present on the very spot where three centuries ago stood the first Académie de Musique. Lulli inaugurated the new Opéra. His Alceste was a triumph, but his Aryane, which followed, was a dead failure. 66 Campra, who succeeded Lulli as the organizer of Court festivities and manager of the Opéra, was not more fortunate with his Carnaval de Venise nor with his Tancredi. The moment was a bad one for art. Louis the Fourteenth hit upon a practical idea which saved it from bankruptcy. He invented the bals de l'Opéra, where each person paid an entrance fee of six écus, contributing thus to his own pleasure as well as to the general expenses. Still it was only at the arrival of the Regent in 1716 that these balls attained the apogee of their success. Mademoiselle Aïssé refers to them in her correspondence with Madame de Calandrini, and particularly mentions that the company was most select on Fridays," as it has remained. Brought into France in 1710 by the Comte de Fériol, Ambassador at Constantinople, who had bought her at a sale of slaves, Mademoiselle Aïssé met the Regent at Madame de Parabère's, his favorite, about 1720. The novelty of an adventure with a woman of Mussulman faith, Mademoiselle Aïssé's enchanting grace, and, above all, the irksomeness of the now too regular irregularity of his relations with Madame de Parabère, helped to involve the Regent with the Greek girl. Mademoiselle Aïssé resisted, as she loved the Chevalier d'Aydie, and never loved but him, though she refused to become his wife. We will here quote a fragment of the Chevalier's portrait drawn by Madame du Deffand: or the most passionate of men. He is stirred by too many sentiments to be deeply moved by one, and his sensitiveness is distributed among all the faculties of his soul. In a word, the Chevalier seems more sentimental than loving. The freer a man's soul is, the easier it is to move it, and therefore those who are endowed with good qualities may expect to excite the feelings of the Chevalier. Morose and yet not sad, misanthropic and yet not uncouth, always true and natural in his changeableness, his very defects are pleasing and one would be sorry if he were more perfect. The real reason of Mademoiselle Aïssé's * reserve, and the motive for her persistent refusal to marry her lover, the faithful and touching devotion of the Chevalier, to whom Voltaire applies the name of "Bayard," remain among the curious secrets and the mysterious sentimental delicacies of the eighteenth century. The bals de l'Opéra became so fashionable that the stage was soon found too small, whence the intervention of the monk Nicolas Bourgeois, the clever mechanician to whom we referred on our opening page. By a device so skilful and rapid that it is still in use, Nicolas Bourgeois placed the stage on a level with the floor of the pit, doubling the space for the promenaders. The theatre was an octagon, formed of the boxes and the salon or foyer. As to the actual stage, during the performances it was precisely the same as in the Maison de Molière, where the public sat mingled with the actors. greatest extravagance the Opéra indulged in was a chandelier of three hundred tallow candles, for which wax lights were substi tuted, thanks to the munificence of Law,t the Scotch financier, who made a special allowance to this purpose. The The orchestra was then composed of thirty instruments, fifteen being grouped The at the two extremities of the salle. Regent, who delighted in enterprise and was full of intelligence, which he owed. quite as much to his wonderful mother the Princess Palatine as to his paternal ancestry; the Regent, whom innovations found ever ready (he had proved it in *Mademoiselle Aïssè, by Sainte Beuve, p. 23. "M. Law," writes Dangeau, pays a monthly sum, so that wax candles may be substituted for tallow." See the letters and memoirs of the Princess Palatine, that German who murders our language so mercilessly, and yet who writes powerfully and generously. adopting Law's schemes), wanted Paris to be gay, bright, artistic. His worst error was to die: "Le pire des défauts est d'être mort," according to Montalembert's saying. Used up by work and by pleasure, the rest which he scorned came to him uninvited. He fell asleep one day in the arms of lovely Madame de Phalaris, and never woke again, 1723. His death was a loss to art, as he thoroughly knew how to encourage it. It was above all due to the Regent that the Opéra was enabled to survive the competition of the Bouffons Italiens, who carried on a smart opposition in Paris in 1720. When Rameau appeared in 1730, he found the French public prepared to appreciate a fuller orchestration than Lulli's, and making steady progress on the road to Gluck and to Mozart; and, moreover, the ballet, which we have seen helping to introduce the opera, began now to be employed only as an intermezzo, forming a kind of compromise between the grand opéra and the opéra bouffe. The Italian ballets came in after the Regent, between the Euridices, the Aryanes, the Proserpines, the Edipes, and other mythological operas. Dupré made his appearance in 1730. He was the ancestor of the Vestris dynasty, the model and master of Mademoiselle Camargo. This speaks volumes, as ballets were composed for Dupré, but more especially for his pupil. A dazzling, bewildering being if ever there was one, this pupil so gifted that her mental capacities equalled her physical charms, and that her gallant episodes even after centuries have not effaced the memory of her talents! To produce such a prodigy, no less had been required than a Duc d'Albe and a Philippe the Second, as, without the will of the latter and the ability of the former, the Spaniards would not have remained long enough in Flanders for the violinist Cupis to marry the Spaniard Mademoiselle Camargo and become father to our danseuse. The Castilian had prevailed. She presented her daughter with the spiciness and diablerie she threw into her capers. In 1720 the little Camargo was dancing at an obscure theatre in Brussels. The child was only ten years old, but possessed such spirit that she soon pushed her way to Paris, where with a single bound of her elastic figure she turned people from their money preoccu teurs are enabled from ocular demonstration to form an opinion of the legs of the dancer. Mademoiselle de Camargo has, however, created a schism, as the Jansenists in the parterre are shocked. The Molinists maintain that this change is only a revival of a primitive custom of the Church, but it will be some time before the Sorbonne of the Opéra is able to insist on the adoption of this wholesome doctrine. This idea is excellent [he says], as the ama Fired with enthusiasm, prone to love, but free from cupidity, Mademoiselle de Camargo, t as she insisted on being called, thus sinking her paternal obscurity in her maternal descent, ended a life spent in a systematic round of pleasure by becoming profoundly pious. 66 "At her death," writes Grimm, she exacted white hangings as a symbol of her purity." (It is a custom in France for unmarried women to have the church draped with white at their interment.) She spent her later years in retirement in a corner of old Paris, when her dogs were henceforth her only admirers ;" accord 66 *It will be remembered that, at the death of the Regent, Paris was ruined by the financial schemes of Law, and extreme distress took had been carried to such a pitch, that one of the place of former extravagance. Luxury Law's last fancies was to have a hand-rail of his staircase made of silver. (Law, André Cochut, 1 vol. Hachette.) Mademoiselle de Camargo had a maternal thanks to whom she replaced the name of great uncle a cardinal and a papal legate, Cupis by that of De Camargo. ing to her, contrasting favorably with those that had preceded them. Feminine influence was indeed so great during the first half of the eighteenth century, that the age might truly be called that of the éclosion des femmes. We see grace and wit everywhere. Not only do we find such social stars as Mademoiselle Aïssé, Madame du Deffand, the exquisite Madame Helvétius, whose house at Auteuil was later the rendez-vous of Morellet, Condorcet, and tutti quanti; but women as well distinguished in all arts-in painting, in music-Mademoiselle Duval, for instance, leading her own opera, Les Génies; Mademoiselle Valayer obtaining the highest praise from Diderot for her painting. That king of critics declares her work "bon, viril, et l'égal des meilleurs." Still, music remained yet far from what it would rise to. About 1740 Rameau brought out Hippolyte et Aricie, a failure, soon followed by the outburst against him of a cabal as strong as that which the French school of music got up against Wagner in 1866. Patience, genius, and above all Rameau's connections, enabled him to surmount obstacles and that systematic opposition which is always raised against any new form of merit. The four Paris-Duvernet brothers, who came from Savoy with their sabots slung over their shoulders-those industrious and enterprising men, who, when they despatched Beaumarchais to Spain with money in his pocket to defray the costs of his mission, supplied him as well with materials for the Barbier de Séville and the Mariage de Figaro-these brothers who furnished Voltaire with funds, lent their moral credit and social influence to Rameau, and, playing the same part for him that the Princesse de Metternich did for Wagner in 1866, brought him at last before the Parisian public. Nothing daunted by his first failure, for as Rameau said of himself, "Genius is superior to science!" his implicit faith in self led him to attain success in Castor et Pollux. He even made a convert of La Harpe, that pompous utterer of dictums, whom the Marquise du Deffand pertly speaks of as a sot académique! From the days of the Regency to the end of the reign of Louis the Fifteenththat is, from the time when the pursuit of pleasure was paramount, and love found a place in every play-we shall find only such titles as Les Caprices de l'Amour, Les Voyages de l'Amour, L'École des Amans, Diane et Endymion, Anacréon, L'Amour Timide, L'Amour Discret, L'Amour Généreux, L'Amour Enjoué, L'Amour et Psyché-in fact, love everywhere! Love was painted on porcelain, depicted on hangings, embroidered in tapestry. The Gobelins, that had formerly represented Biblical subjects only, substituted for these Boucher's Anacreontic conceptions. A little later still, toward 1760, after the publication of the Lettres Persanes of Montesquieu, exotic names appear and replace love in ballets-Les Incas du Pérou, Les Indes Galantes, La Vénitienne, etc. Then comes the sentimental period-Trianon, Bergeries, Lucas et Colinette, La Fête du Village. With the Reign of Terror all titles are antique, and taken from ancient history-L'Enlèvement des Sabines, Miltiade. The Empire introduces Les Fêtes Militaires. The Restoration brings in neo-feodality-Le Nouveau Seigneur, Le Droit du Seigneur, Jean de Paris; in fact, a return to the conventional mediæval type, which is followed by the period of Romanticism" in 1830. 66 Though Rameau soared so high in 1760, his position was not gained without a struggle. Even La Harpe's laudatory comments did not present a lively competition between Rameau's company and the "Bouffons." Rousseau in his Confessions], and though their Although the Bouffons are detestable [says musicians are very ignorant and murder their parts, they do much injury to the French opera. To compare these two musical companies in the same day opens one's ears, and no one would care to listen to the drawling of the French opera-singers after the crisp and marked accent of the Italians. no On the topic of music as well as on that of education, Rousseau admits of rivalry; he mentions a pamphlet of his on the subject as a state event.* The amazing effect produced by my pamphlet on Italian music is worthy of Tacitus [writes the author of the Nouvelle Héloïse]. Parliament had just been exiled, the fermenta tion was at its height, and a rising seemed imminent; but all this was forgotten in a moment, nothing was thought of but the danger to French music; so great was the * Confessions, p. 77. animosity against me that the nation has never quite recovered, and the Court hesitated whether to send me to the Bastille or into exile ! However offensive it might sound to Rousseau, it must be noted that the burning of the Opera House so entirely diverted attention from his Tacitean writings that for a short while at least his recriminations were drowned in fire. This event was to afford a new and again favorable intervention of the Church on behalf of the Opéra. Three Cardinals had formed the Académie. The monk Bourgeois had assisted the organization of its balls. Two "fathers" now saved it from utter destruction; and Favart, who records the matter, so far contributed to the heavenly glorification of these monks, by tending to their humility, that he fails even to name them. "Nous sommes quittes de tout," writes Favart, "pour un Récollet et un Capucin !" 66 The Opéra now made its sixth move. It was installed in the Tuileries by the architect Soufflot, the designer of the Pantheon. The Mercure Galant declares that the grand vestibule is beautifully proportioned, and that cafés and shops are placed all round the Opera House in a way which will be fully appreciated during summer, when the spectators will be able to come out of the Opéra into the most beautiful garden in the world!" The management of the Opéra in the Tuileries started with twofold luck-luck in the shape of an incomparable dancer and an exquisite tenor, Legros. The dancer, whose pirouettes simply took men like a whirlwind, was Mademoiselle Guimard. Thin, delicate, too tall, marked with small-pox, and gifted with a deep, hollow man's voice, Mademoiselle Guimard owed all her success to her wit and undaunted spirit. The suppers she gave were famous; her sallies and her repartees formed their chief attraction. Her début was made in La Chercheuse d'Esprit, where she introduced boldly a realistic peasant costume. Two years after the burning of the Opéra, 1765, Rameau died, and if any thing can prove the small notoriety of the musical art even at this time, it will be the fact that at Ferney neither Mademoiselle Clairon, who was then acting Electre, nor Voltaire thought the matter of Rameau's death worth more than a mere sixain: Nous avons vu mourir Vanloo, Monsieur Fréron! [a very indifferent critic of the day]. Those who can recall the era of Romanticism know to what extent Rossini, Meyerbeer, Halévy were associated with it; how the new departure of thought in France found completion in music. The philosophy of music would, however, come to us from Germany. Beethoven later revealed it; in 1765 the training of the French ear was to be achieved by Gluck. The passion contained in his works found its way to French hearts. Till music had learned to speak the language of love, of agony, of despair, as Gluck's Orphée does, it was to a French audience but a mere combination of sounds. The Austrian composer had arrived in Paris in 1760, when he nearly died of hunger while his Pyrame et Thisbé was being played to empty houses. He returned to Vienna, where the Empress Maria Theresa assisted him to bring out his operas. On the arrival of the Dauphine in France, he followed her, and, thanks to her support and his own genius, he soon rose to the heights of fame, and even after his death was a more dangerous rival to Piccinni than the living Rameau had been to the defunct Lulli. The seventh move of the Opéra was taking place. The theatre at the Tuileries had proved inadequate, and it was in the theatre of the Palais Royal that Gluck gave the French public a grand entertainment with the performance of Iphigénie in 1774. All the entrances to the new theatre were blocked on that memorable night. "Cordons-bleus et porteurs d'eau," as Beaumarchais picturesquely says, kicked, hustled, and abused one another, for the crowd contained some of Piccinni's partisans, who thought of promoting the success of his Roland by creating a disturbance in the Gluck camp. Gluck's victory was tremendous. With generals such as Marie Antoinette, Mmes. de Bourbon and de Lamballe, a victory was to be expected. In the theatre that same night, sparkling with diamonds and |