Heroines in French Drama of the Romantic Period 1829–1848 9780231883566

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Heroines in French Drama of the Romantic Period, 1829-1848

Heroines in French Drama of the Romantic Period 1829-1848

GRACE PAULINE IHRIG Department

of French

The College of

Submitted

Wooster

in partial fulfillment

the requirements

Doctor of Philosophy of Philosophy,

of

for the degree of in the Faculty

Columbia

University

KING'S CROWN PRESS

Columbia University, New York 1950

Copyright 1950 by GRACE PAULINE

IHRIG

K I N G ' S C R O W N PRESS

is a subsidiary imprint of Columbia University Press established for the purpose of making certain scholarly material available at minimum cost. Toward that end, the publishers have adopted every reasonable economy except such as would interfere with a legible format. The work is presented substantially as submitted by the author, without the usual editorial and typographical attention of Columbia University Press.

PUBLISHED I N GREAT BRITAIN, CANADA, A N D INDIA BY GEOFFREY CUMBERLEGE, OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON, TORONTO, AND BOMBAY MANUFACTURED I N T H E UNITED STATES O F AMERICA

To My Mother

Acknowledgments IT IS WITH GRATITUDE that I acknowledge the encouragement given to me by Professor Jean-Albert Bédé, of Columbia University, in the preparation of this work. His concrete and stimulating criticism made it possible for me to bring the manuscript to completion. His kindly spirit made it a pleasure to work under his direction. I am grateful, too, for the helpful advice of Professor Norman L. Torrey, Professor Lawton P. G. Peckham, Dr. Howard F. Lowry, and Professor John W. Olthouse who read the manuscript. I am indebted to Professor Henri F. Muller and Professor Paul Hazard for encouraging me to embark upon this study. My gratitude is extended also to Miss Maudie L. Nesbitt, of the library of the College of Wooster, for her kind assistance in securing material. G. P. I . WOOSTER, OHIO

June, 1949

Contents INTRODUCTION

I

1 . C O N V E N T I O N A L T R A I T S OF T H E R O M A N T I C H E R O I N E

7

2. T H E

ROMANTIC

HEROINE

AND

HER

EIGHTEENTH-

C E N T U R Y ELDERS

16

3 . IDEALIZED AND S E N T I M E N T A L I Z E D H E R O I N E S

33

4. T H E U N H A P P Y VICTIM

54

5 . HISTORICAL F I G U R E S R E I N C A R N A T E D

72

6. O L D HEROINES IN N E W PLAYS

92

7. RELIGION IN THE

LIVES A N D T I M E S

OF

ROMANTIC

HEROINES

109

8 . T H E N E E D FOR SOCIAL R E F O R M AS I L L U S T R A T E D B Y ROMANTIC HEROINES

129

9. CRITICISMS OF H E R O I N E S B Y C O N T E M P O R A R I E S

148

CONCLUSION

166

CHRONOLOGICAL L I S T OF P L A Y S STUDIED

174

NOTES

196

SOURCES C I T E D

233

INDEX

241

Introduction ROMANTIC HEROINES! Repetition of that little phrase seldom fails to strike a definite chord of response. Frequently the words arouse an interest that is warmed by a tingle of excitement. Sometimes they evoke a shudder of annoyance. Since the reaction, whatever it may be, is usually spontaneous, it indicates some preconceived notion of what Romantic heroines are. That people have by no means the same conception of them is clear from the wide difference between a response of pleasure and one of irritation. Which of the prevalent notions are justifiable? The truth is that they are all justifiable to a certain extent, even those most extreme. The interesting thing about characters such as these is precisely that they both please and irritate, sometimes almost simultaneously. How they do so will be seen in the following chapters.

To avoid acquiring too unwieldy a mass of material, the present study is limited to one important section of Romantic literature in France, the drama. Romanticism, which Hugo called liberalism in literature, established itself in the French theater in 1829 and 1830 with Alexandre Dumas' Henri III et sa cour and Victor Hugo's Hernani, and flourished during the reign of Louis-Philippe. The political and social changes accompanying Louis-Philippe's abdication in 1848 brought into being a more realistic theater. Consequently the years 1829 and 1848 suggest themselves as logical terminals to this study. So brief a period can offer to one's investigation only a small number of masterpieces. For this reason masterpieces alone cannot provide an adequate answer to the problem. To find out as much as possible about heroines of the Romantic theater one must ferret out many plays long forgotten. The abundance of such works, with their consequent influence upon large numbers of people, plus the fact that they reflect a popular conception of feminine life, gives them importance in spite of their slight literary value.

1

Introduction

So great and so varied was the total dramatic production of the period in question that it becomes necessary to select a single type. The one known as drame is the most comprehensive and indicative of Romantic ideas and beliefs because most directly affected by the new liberties proclaimed (for the French Romantic school) by Hugo in his celebrated Preface to Cromwell (1827). This is the genre to be examined in the following chapters. The word covers a multitude of plays, both in verse and in prose, that bear resemblances to vaudeville, melodrama, comedy, and tragedy. So diverse are the works found under this classification that Gustave Lanson calls it a "vaste synthèse" of all literary forms.1 Prose drama of the Romantic period is similar in certain respects to that of the eighteenth century. Intended for a bourgeois or popular audience, it frequently portrays a touching or moralizing picture of bourgeois or popular life. It does not try to soar above its public either philosophically or esthetically. It defends the weak and oppressed, tries to rehabilitate girls who have gone wrong, and engages in other kinds of social propaganda.2 By these same characteristics prose drama is allied to melodrama, its more immediate forerunner. A broad way had been paved by 1828 for Romantic prose drama through a vogue for the "roman noir" and by the establishment of melodrama in most of the theaters in Paris.3 Lyric Romantic drama, on the other hand, contrasts in many ways with contemporary prose plays. In certain aspects of both form and substance it resembles tragedy. Its aim is esthetic rather than social, and it is both broader and loftier than any similar work in the eighteenth century/- This kind of drama appeals to a type of audience quite different from that which enjoyed the prose plays. It even requires a different style of acting for proper interpretation. In fact, each of the leading theaters of the time attracted its own particular type of audience by means of certain mechanical details of acting as well as of form, so that a drama at the Théâtre Français was unlike one at the Gaìté or at the Porte SaintMartin.5 The last is named by Georges Cain as the real theater of the Ro-

Introduction

3

manticists, renewed, purified, and enlarged by the remarkable talent of Marie Dorval, Frédérick Lemaître, and Paul Bocage.® Playwrights learned to depend on these three to keep Romantic drama alive.7 Mme Dorval seemed born for the express purpose of interpreting Romantic heroines and of establishing them in a primary place in the theater, making them understandable and sincerely touching. She was the missionary of Romanticism, according to François Buloz; a great fighter for the new drama, according to Jules Janin. 8 He even claims that Dumas' drama without Marie Dorval at once loses a large part of its strength and authority. Her skill in Antony was no small factor in making the rôle of Adèle not only acceptable but even sympathetic. Dumas himself praised her for bringing out effects that he had not realized were there. 9 To see her in this rôle was to see "la personnification de la passion réelle, intime et familière, la vraie femme du drame contemporain, de la vie sociale moderne." 10 To see her as Marion de Lorme was to experience for the first time actual sympathy for a courtesan.11 To see her in any rôle was to live with her through whatever situation she enacted and to thrill with a new love for the theater. In several plays different writers deliberately fashioned the heroine's part to Dorval's measurements, stressing the personality she could best portray—the personality submerged in despair. Her marvelous skill in these parts, especially as Kitty Bell in Alfred de Vigny's Chatterton, captured success for plays which might otherwise have been failures. 12 When she left the Théâtre Français for the Gymnase, the Revue de Paris protested that modern drama was thereby being excluded from France's primary stage: "C'est M. Hugo, M. Dumas, M. de Vigny qu'on exile * * # et. avec eux, tout ce que le drame compte de jeune, de fort et de viril." 13 Parisians, enthralled as by a magic spell, thronged not only the Porte Saint-Martin and the Théâtre Français, but every theater where Dorval and modern drama could be seen. The popular theaters of the Romantic period could seat from one to two thousand persons. Merchants and common people mingled in those audi-

4

Introduction

enees with literary folk and "belles dames" of high society. Never had any literary school so completely conquered all classes of the public. 14 The phenomenal vogue went hand in hand with enormous production. Removal of censorship after the Revolution of 1830 made it easy to have almost any kind of play produced. From 1 8 3 1 through 1845 nearly four thousand new ones found their way to some Parisian stage.15 Women, who then, as now, formed an important part of theater audiences, adored the Romantic manner.1® With their sensitive imaginations they no doubt greatly enjoyed pretending themselves in the rôles of the various stage heroines over whom they wept. Some even tried to live like Romantic heroines although the ordinary woman was usually content to experience such terrific situations in imagination only. There is nothing more bourgeois, says Professor D. O. Evans, than the passion for great adventures.17 Life as represented on the Romantic stage is no doubt quite foreign to that of the majority of individuals, yet it does have a direct relationship with the imagination of ordinary people just as life on the twentieth century screen appeals to masses of persons whose own lives are humdrum. There was enough danger in the theater's influence to evoke a spirited protest from the gifted Mme Virginie Ancelot: Pour ne parler que de ce qui a rapport aux femmes, qu'est-ce qu'on doit attendre de la mise en lumière, constamment, sur toutes les scènes de Paris, de ces vies scandaleuses · · · · Pourquoi cette apothéose des femmes dont les actions donnent un démenti formel à la rectitude de la vie * * * * On les représente comme les seules assez séduisantes pour inspirer des passions profondes * * * ou * * * des dévouements · · * puis la simple, modeste et vertueuse femme qui se contente de vivre en paix sous le toit conjugal pour y partager les peines * * * de chaque jour d'un mari pauvre · · · cette femme, qui s'impose de continuelles privations pour garder les dehors que la situation · · · exige, cette femme, qui met des robes passées de mode pour payer les maîtres de ses enfants · · · il

Introduction

5

n'y a pas assez d'expressions de dédain et de sarcasme, pour parler de ces petites bourgeoises sur le théâtre et dans les journaux élégants! Ah! si le bon sens existait en France · · · il y aurait un système tout contraire! # · · · Il faut améliorer le sort des filles et des femmes honnêtes · · · mettre en honneur leurs vertus modestes, afin qu'on soit tenté de les imiter.18 Recognizing the innate human desire to imitate spotlighted action, Mme Ancelot would have the theater take advantage of its opportunity to act as an agent for good in the lives of its spectators. The ordinary theater crowd, however, does not find "uplifting" influences exciting enough to imitate. Women could, with ease and safety, imitate the costumes of their favorite heroines, and this they did, if not in their regular wardrobe, at least at costume balls. Louis Maigron says the dream of a whole generation was to have "la physionomie romantique." 19 Each individual hoped to appear more affected and more moved than anyone else and to speak in a more exalted manner. Women asked themselves if it were possible to accomplish "oeuvre d'amour plus sublime que de donner quelques instants de bonheur à un malheureux maudit?" 20 Love became something to be struggled for; people cultivated belief in their right to love and to be loved. Excessive preoccupation with such thoughts developed melancholy and distaste for life, leading, in numerous instances, to suicide.21 On the other hand, Romanticism developed in the public mind respect for the human person and pity for the weak and disinherited. 22 In all this the drama, which touches all milieux and all forms of life, was probably the most powerful propagandizing influence. History, sociology, religion, politics, all have some place in it. Empresses, queens, courtesans, bourgeoises, petites gens, servants, slaves, anyone may be cast in a leading rôle, anyone may be a heroine. It is in that broad sense that the word heroine is used in this study. Whatever character has the most conspicuous feminine rôle

6

Introduction

in a given play is looked upon as heroine of that play. She may or may not be the protagonist; she may or may not be of heroic nature. Not only the dramatic value of her rôle will be sought out, but also her human verisimilitude and the utilitarian or literary use made of her. This involves observing her relation to other characters, motivation of her action, the style and content of her speeches, her conventionality, her humanness, the author's attitude and his use of her to preach or illustrate some social message or to express some phase of Romanticism. As one's acquaintance with Romantic drama grows, he becomes increasingly aware, in the heroines' rôles, of an amazing number of similarities so frequently repeated as to become conventional.

1. Conventional Traits of the Romantic Heroine Oh! mon Dieu, oui. . . notre histoire, à nous, c'est la lutte éternelle du coeur avec la raison. . . Malheureusement, le coeur l'emporte toujours. —Dumas, Louise Bernard (1843 ), Act I, scene 2. devote a few pages to Romantic heroines; none, so far as I know, deals exclusively with heroines of drama. The varied generalizations about them prove that no one type can be called the Romantic heroine. There are "amantes désespérées"1 like Emmanuel Théaulon's Marguita (Rafaël) and Emile Souvestre's Caroline (La Maîtresse et la Fiancée). There are "très simples femmes, qui n'ont plus rang de princesses et qui, quoique petites bourgeoises, nous intéressent, nous émeuvent."2 Such is Jenny in Dumas' Richard Darlington, a play that resembles Sir Walter Scott's The Surgeon's Daughter. A few, like Dumas' Christine, are unable to find any congenial friend because they are different, superior, and misunderstood, not so much in their intellectual qualities as in the qualities of their hearts."3 If there are "épouses adultères, filles impies, mères criminelles"4 such as Dumas' Adèle, Balzac's Pauline (La Marâtre), and Hugo's Lucrèce Borgia, there are also anges purs like Doña Sol and Kitty Bell. When Mr. F. W. M. Draper says that "with the exception of Triboulet's Blanche, the self-reliant Romantic heroines are monsters, of vice, as Marguerite de Bourgogne, of ambition and heartlessness, as Catherine Howard,"6 he caluminates Tisbe, the Maréchale d'Ancre, and half a dozen or more heroines in minor dramas. He disposes of the women of Romantic drama too easily: M A N Y STUDIES OF ROMANTICISM

Most of the anges purs are faibles femmes, slaves of passion, pure in Romantic consideration in inverse ratio to their actual purity. The rest, when not nonentities * * # are courtesans. Few of them are personalities * · · few are human.®

8

Conventional Traits of the Romantic Heroine

René Doumic is guilty of an even more undiscriminating generalization: "Dans le drame romantique, il y avait vingt héroïnes, toujours pareilles, et pas une femme." 7 Is Guanhumara just like Kitty Bell or Alfred de Musset's Camille? Is not Adèle a woman? Close acquaintance with a large number of heroines reveals variety unsuspected by the casual observer who is deceived by the prominence of conventional traits. Let us see what those traits are and how they are used. Startling youth (fifteen or sixteen years) and a certain pulchritude, as indispensable as in twentieth-century Hollywood, are perhaps meant to satisfy a comparable popular demand. Such youth, incongruously allied with dark melancholy, is inconsistent with the terrible emotional experiences portrayed; ignorance of worldly dangers and conflict with parents' wishes are the source of terrific disasters. Pulchritude is sketched in broad lines. Hugo, influenced by his wife's beauty, is especially fond of black hair and eyes, lilywhite skin, and white or black clothes. Note this portrait of Marion de Lorme: "Voilà son beau front, son oeil noir, son cou blanc." 8 Dumas depicts half a dozen Italian heroines who are presumably dark, and even gives Swedish Christine black hair. 9 White or black clothes contrast with hair or skin and have symbolical value; white for purity, black for mourning or special solemnity. A white dress, sometimes relieved by a blue bow or flowers, and a negligee, intended for charm in informal scenes or to betoken ill health, are the most universal items in a Romantic wardrobe. 10 Dazzling elegance appears in Parisian gowns, velvet, diamonds, wedding gowns, veils, flowers. Only one girl wears ridiculous clothes: "Comme te voilà fagotée. . . Dieu! quelle mise gothique! juste comme Marie Mignot!" 1 1 A few are in rags, but as in any age, the preference is for well-dressed heroines. The playgoer of the Romantic period liked to marvel at elaborate costumes and settings as much as does the cinema fan of the present. Despite the frequency of such details, one gets nothing like a photographic impression of the heroines' looks. Hugo, for instance, draws an indefinite, mystical picture of Doña Sol; her black eyes are

Conventional Traits of the Romantic Heroine

9

captivating, doux, flashing, "deux miroirs! deux rayons! deux flambeaux!"12 Her sweet voice is bewitching: Ah! qui n'oublierait tout à cette voix céleste? Ta parole est un chant où rien d'humain ne reste.13 Such description suggests character or situation, aids in plot development, or influences emotions. The many beaux yeux reflect an honest, sparkling, tender, or fiery nature. Graceful carriage, poise, and noble dignity merit emulation. Sweet voices are an asset sometimes necessary to the intrigue. 14 A trembling voice and disheveled hair are the hackneyed signs of perturbation that help the crowd to follow the emotional trend of the play. Occasional homely touches lend reality as when one girl, after a glance in the mirror, decides to have her hair curled before her suitor's arrival. 15 Would you not guess that the author was a woman? Obviously these young girls are not intended to be, like Classical figures, universal and superior to trivialities, but individual and natural in spite of their extraordinary experiences. To indicate emotional disturbance many writers suggest disordered clothes16 and altered features. Blushes symbolizing timidity, innocence, or humiliation alternate, for greater effect, with pallor; rare indeed are those who never turn pale. The rosy cheeks of health and happiness are seldom seen. Even normal complexion is unusual. In that sentimental age women and even men cultivated pallor, the ideal on and off the stage.17 Occasionally it is justified by deep emotional conflict, terror, illness, and approaching death. Predominating among the rather wide variety of personal qualities are those deemed most likely to attract sympathy to the heroine. Character is more often weak than strong; courage, gaiety, joy, defiance are temporary, while ambition, envy, jealousy, loyalty, pride, and patriotism are more permanent. Purity and innocence, dishonor and shame are the aspects most stressed. Even such sinners as Adèle and Teresa (Dumas, Antony, Teresa) are called pure just as nearly every heroine, whether of good or bad char-

io

Conventional Traits of the Romantic

Heroine

acter, is an ange. In Bourgeois and Francis' Le Spectre et l'Orpheline the question of purity is the basis of suspense, in Jacques Ancelot's Léontine an excuse for moralizing. It is inaccurate to suppose that most heroines are slaves of passion, "pure in * · · inverse ratio to their actual purity." 18 There are many who are thoroughly good. One does find in a number of plays a girl of sweet, sincere soul, the model of virtue in her sweetheart's eyes, threatened or overpowered by the villain. Her ignorance and helplessness outweigh her passion. As her heart does not change, the blame for her fall, if she falls, rests upon the villain and upon those who ought to have protected her; the humiliation and remorse that she undergoes should be adequate atonement for her sin. Such is the argument of some plays. Where the heroine voluntarily loses her virtue, extenuating circumstances are frequently set up. Despite the extraordinary power attributed to love, most writers uphold virtue and condemn wickedness, making twenty years of repentance the usual penalty for an illegitimate son, even if the mother was not intentionally guilty.19 The worry and anguish of Louise, Léonie, Elise, and others prove that willful loss of virtue was considered wrong.20 Louise, whose weakness is necessary to the development of Raymond, is, by exception, an unsympathetic character. She is not a monster, however, but only a stupid, narrow-souled woman disfigured by self-interest and lack of perspicacity. Her story neither supports free love nor sanctions the unrelenting attitude of parents who force their children to marry for money. The stern father who compels his motherless daughter to marry someone she does not love is a favorite means of achieving pathos, as is the helpless girl bereft of both parents.21 In tearful need for sympathetic guidance she pours out her heart to her longed-for mother, of whom she has only a memory or, in rare cases, a portrait. Her speeches are directed to the softest spots in the audience's heart. Listen to Adélaïde: "Ma mère . . . vous que je n'ai plus auprès de moi pour m'édairer et me protéger . . . du sein de l'éternelle félicité où vos vertus ont dû vous faire par-

Conventional Traits of the Romantic Heroine

11

venir * * * ma bonne mère, n'abandonnez pas votre malheureuse enfant!" 22 Thus is sentiment degraded into sentimentality. When distance deprives the heroine of her parents her unhappiness is no less painful. Witness Marie-Louise (despite her princely status) : Mon malheur, à moi, n'est pas seulement d'être éloignée de la France, privée des sourires et du bienveillant regard de mes proches, je suis en butte ici à la défiance de tous et à une haine qui aura peut-être commencé par la différence si simple de mes goûts et des leurs · # · · ils m'ont bien souvent déjà fait souvenir que j'étais la fille d'Henriette d'Angleterre et que ma mère mourut empoisonée à vingt-sept ans! 28 The last sentence has little to do with her present situation, nor is the poisoning of Henriette a definite fact. It is obviously included here to touch the heart. Several dramas beseech one's sympathy for a girl who sacrifices herself on the marriage altar to save the fortune or life of a parent. Other heroines suffer because the wishes of their parents regarding their marriage are not carried out. Sophie's situation is odd for her wretchedness is due to bad, radical advice from her mother. 24 Physical weakness, manifested in fainting by well over half the heroines, parallels their helplessness. In one play not only the heroine but all her convent companions faint. 25 Often the swoon is only an inartistic, theatrical display of weakness or an excuse to release the heroine from the need to speak. It may serve a purpose in the plot, as when Adèle collapses before her rival who can then recognize her as the model of a certain portrait. 26 These stage swoons are preceded and followed by rivers of tears that doubtless inspired mass weeping in the audience, just as touching scenes on the screen draw forth the handkerchiefs of a present-day cinema crowd. Heroines weep in reaction to dishonor, fear, or shame, and in dread of death or of exile to a convent, equivalent of a tomb. An

12

Conventional Traits of the Romantic

Heroine

inner voice convinces the girl that she was born for misfortune; vague, horrible presentiments afflict her: " J eprouve là . . . au coeur . . . des élancemens . . . des palpitations . . . mes jambes fléchissent sous moi . . . ma poitrine est oppressée . . . je le sens, mon dernier moment approche!"27 In this crude way she forewarns the audience of impending disaster and begs for sympathy. At times she welcomes death to save a loved one or to pass with him into the next life. Angéla, fearing her lover dead, wishes to go and sit upon the ruins of his house: "Que Dieu m'accorde la grâce d'y mourir!"28 A touching sentiment but impractical. Certain heroines look to the tomb as a refuge from all evils; their despair results in threatened or attempted suicide in a score of cases. Jeannette's complaint is typical: Ah! que ne suis-je tombée morte en touchant le seuil de cette demeure! Morte! il y aurait eu pour moi indulgence, pitié, pardon peut-être. . . . Vivante, je n'ai droit qu'à la haine de ma famille. . . . Ah! mourir, mourir, voilà tout mon voeu, tout mon espoir. . . . Le ciel m'inspire. . . . Oui . . . mon père, vous ne vendrez pas votre ferme . . . vous serez tous heureux encore . . . ma mort vous purifiera. . . . Oui . . . la honte finit au tombeau. . . . 29 To be killed by the man one loves is more desirable to some than life without him. With Tisbe many would cry: "Mourir de ta main! oh! c'est plus que je n'aurais osé espérer!"30 The thought comes from Rousseau: "C'est un moindre malheur de périr par la main de son amant que d'en être médiocrement aimée."31 A heart truly sensible will understand and feel no horror at this, says Jean-Jacques. An immature death is in keeping with the idea of woman's frailty and accords with the Romantic conception of love, since it exalts the heroine to a degree of perfection unattainable in this life. Death joins Doña Sol to Hernani in a union far better than any earthly one could be for it means unmarred culmination of happiness and marks the triumph of love over youth's usual dread

Conventional Traits of the Romantic Heroine

13

of death. To be forced to die without one's lover is different and brings laments: "Si jeune, si jeune mourir!" 32 Real fear sometimes prevails. The horror of her sacrifice overcomes even Blanche for an instant: Mourir avant seize ans, c'est affreux! Je ne puis! O Dieu! sentir le fer entrer dans ma poitrine!33 Catarina, under Angelo's threat, begs touchingly for mercy and for time to prepare herself.34 When a heroine is murdered, the authors usually remind us that she died "si jeune et si malheureuse!"35 Yet even very young girls may regard death with resignation. Marie-Rose is one of these. She piously believes that "Dieu · * * ne nous charge jamais au-delà de nos forces, et que quand il en sera temps il m'ôtera le fardeau qui m'accable."3® Every writer is acutely conscious of the emotional effect of frequent allusions to death and sprinkles them liberally throughout his drama. As most heroines are shown under stress that reveals only their impulsive emotional nature, not only their swoons and tears, but their very language is an important source of pathos. Little opportunity exists for unexcited, reasoned dialogue; high feeling pours out in a conventional vocabulary or in a gush of theatrical declamation. La Baronne's review of her life illustrates the melodramatic quality of such speeches: Ce fils, mis au monde dans une nuit de douleur et de joie . . . qu'on avait enlevé à mon amour . . . cet ange qui a emporté avec lui les restes d'une raison que le malheur avait presque éteinte . . . lui que je redemandais, pâle, chancelante . . . que j'appelais dans mes nuits d'insomnie, dans mes rêves brûlants, dans mes courses vagabondes . . . quand les enfans, parmi lesquels je le cherchais, me répondaient par un rire moqueur . . . par ce cri affreux, la folle! la folle!™ As it appears taken for granted that heroines should talk thus, audiences must have responded sympathetically. Along with the

14

Conventional Traits of the Romantic Heroine

agitated words goes abundant gesturing, also indicative of an unsophisticated public. Many writers, with their public always in mind, are no more discriminating in style than the people. There is only bathos in the following volubility: Perdue! . . . perdue! . . . où fuir? . . . où me cacher? . . . Dans la tombe . . . La mort, la mort, maintenant que j'ai la honte! . . . je ne peux plus contenir le remords qui me tue! . . . S'il allait être éternel! . . . Ah! il faut que je parle, que je respire, que j'avoue . . . 38 Mort, tombe, honte are commonplaces on Romantic lips. Certain other words occur so frequently that they have almost no force. More than half the heroines, for instance, are malheureuses, either in the sense of unhappy, unlucky, or imprudent.39 Supplice and tourment are worn thin. When the situation is especially dreadful something more drastic is called for, such as: "Je me sens prête à mourir;" "Je me sens mourir;" and even "Je me meurs!"40 Such words are the conventional, spontaneous expression of sudden fear or some other strong emotion; they arouse little more anxiety than we say of an embarrassing experience: "I thought I'd die!" The well-known Romantic love of epithets appears in the abundant use of mon ange, ma vie, and mon amour. A wide variety of other terms occurs, especially in Hugo where they often suggest a mingled spiritual and material conception of woman. The following speech referring to Catarina illustrates the point: "une chose pure, sainte, chaste, sacrée, une femme qui est un autel, ma vie, mon sang, mon trésor, ma consolation, ma pensée, la lumière de mes yeux." 41 As sainte, chaste, and sacrée, Catarina is something spiritual, unattainable; as mon sang, mon trésor, she is a vital, material possession. To the Romantic mind she is a mortal woman of superhumanly beautiful character. The most extravagant of the above epithets is no worse than what one finds in personal correspondence of the Romantic era. A letter written to Musset by George Sand during the winter of 1834-1835 closes thus: "mon

Conventional Traits of the Romantic Heroine

15

seul amour, ma vie, mes entrailles, mon frère, mon sang, allezvous-en, mais tuez-moi en partant."42 A closer inspection of individual heroines will show more clearly how they illustrate Romantic social problems, manners, and philosophy. A more minute examination of the playwright's attitude and of the tone and mood that he creates is necessary in order to judge with what degree of seriousness one should look upon the heroine. To observe the kind of person she is and the use made of her rôle helps one attain fuller understanding of the Romantic period. Before entering upon the study of individual heroines, however, it will be well to glance at the theater of the eighteenth century to discover the gradual evolution of Romantic traits and to become acquainted with the immediate background of Romantic heroines.

2. The Romantic Heroine and Her Eighteenth-Century Elders O Julie ! que c'est un fatal présent du ciel qu'une âme sensible! —Rousseau, La Nouvelle Héloise, 1™ Partie, Lettre X X V I . IT WOULD BE surprising indeed to discover that a complete portrait entitled " T h e Romantic Heroine"

suggested itself

with

abrupt simultaneity to French writers of the 1 8 3 0 - 1 8 4 0 decade. What is more probable is that different Romantic traits were born in the heroines of a variety of plays over a period of time. If this is so, a glance backward in search of early appearances of such traits should help one understand why heroines of the Romantic period are fashioned as they are. T h e following pages are based largely upon the studies of several eighteenth-century authorities wherein are recorded factors that show both resemblances and differences existing between heroines of the Romantic period and those of the preceding century. Embryonic preromanticism,

according to A n d r é

Monglond,

exists in a thousand mediocre eighteenth-century writers. Since they, for the most part, just repeat what they have read in Prévost, Rousseau, and Diderot, 1 it seems logical to note here the leading preromantic elements in the work of these three men. Prévost was the first writer to use sensibility (indulgence in emotion f o r its own sake) to produce major effects. 2 H e portrays sensitive beings who were born to love some heart designated in advance by an unknown power. 3 Love, for such characters, is a serious thing, a tragic force that stirs the depths of the heart, imposed by Fate with sometimes overwhelming brutality. It remains incomprehensible, shrouded in mystery, mastered by fatality. Prévost's characters, like those of Racine in the preceding century, are slaves of love, yielding to passion as to Fate. 4 They allow their passion to consume

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17

them even unto crime and death, for their hearts seem joined in so sweet a union that they would no more resist the attraction than a fervent believer would resist God. Life without passion emulates death's nullity.5 The conception of love, in the Romantic theater, is very much in the same vein, as will be seen in later chapters. The cult of suffering and death thrives in the Romantic theater for the heroines are so frequently presented as victims. Environment and other people are often more to blame for their fall than they themselves, whereas in Prévost the right of society to enforce its laws and to exact retribution from offenders is recognized.® His characters are endowed with a quick imagination that Romantic characters usually lack. His heroines have the gentle, sad, and tender look of Romantic faces, but their nature is complex. They remain enigmas to Prévost himself, 7 while Romantic heroines commonly seem to have little beneath the surface. In Manon, for instance, variety of mood reflects the many nuances of a feminine heart. She is not only attractive but dangerous; her delight in sensual love is no stronger than her delight in riches and the pleasures they bring. For the majority of Romantic heroines the one joy worth mentioning is to be loved. Finally, Manon's suffering, like theirs, aims to stir our hearts with pity.8 Diderot, also, holds up women as objects of pity. Physically disinherited, unprotected by civil laws, their life is wretched. Guided by vanity and personal interest, they can have only a superficial idea of goodness or evil. Although they excel in love, live on love, and willingly incur its dangers, they are disappointed by both physical and moral pleasure, and unsatisfied by imagination or spirit. Most of Diderot's dramatic characters speak an exalted language; some alternate between exaltation and logic.9 The way they can prate about virtue, frigidly and hypocritically, makes them as unlifelike as does intolerable weeping. Sometimes their speeches seem general remarks addressed to the audience rather than individual remarks drawn from themselves. They show Diderot's opposition to fanaticism, social prejudices, imaginary virtues and vices that tend to separate the sexes. Diderot advocates

i8

The Romantic Heroine and Her i8th-Century Elders

respect for what is natural to mankind, such as union of the sexes, and avoidance of whatever is irksome to nature, such as constancy or jealousy. Passion is legitimate and excellent because man is naturally good, that is, sensitive, beneficent, fond of others, and zealous for virtue; it is society that makes him corrupt. Virtue in the eighteenth century, however, meant conformity of one's acts with one's natural emotions.10 The Romantic theater follows Diderot in considering women as worthy of pity and as made to live on love. Some Romantic heroines speak an exalted language; almost none have any sense of logic or talk philosophically about virtue or any other subject. Most Romantic heroines are constant and faithful to the love dictated by their hearts. If they sin, the guilt often falls upon society. One finds in the work of a less known eighteenth-century writer, Duelos, evidence of circumstances in which even the most virtuous woman may be forced to sacrifice her virtue, but without being dishonored.11 If one inquires how a woman truly virtuous could be so sinful, Duelos avoids the issue by replying: How could she, with so many misfortunes, remain innocent? This is precisely the point of view of numberless Romantic dramatists. Rousseau influenced subsequent dramatists by developing a sentimental type of heroine and by accenting passion as a force that nothing can stop and that makes it impossible to see anything but the beloved. Because passion is a divine right, God's most precious gift, it has regenerative power.12 There are several attempts in the Romantic theater to show this power at work in the life of heroines. Rousseau's Julie (La Nouvelle Hélo'ise), however, after being conquered by passion, then forced to put passion aside to submit to an undesired marriage, seems to become a new woman by the very fact that she does her duty, and develops into an admirable wife who would be a worthy companion to the best of men. Special education aims to make Sophie (Emile) a similarly worthy mate. Women in the Romantic theater are seldom so affected either by pursuit of duty or by education.

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19

The women of Marivaux's invention, deserving of mention here because of the importance of his theater, stand in no need of education to learn how to make men their devoted subjects.13 They rarely need to be pitied or to have excuses made for them for they are clever, changeable, "plusieurs femmes en une," endowed with lightness, delicacy, and sensibility, with hearts just opening to love.14 Their qualities and the situations in which they are placed do not lend themselves well to the usual Romantic treatment. Musset's Camille is almost the only Romantic heroine at all like them; yet Camille is finally caught in the Romantic web of love. To the general characterization of eighteenth-century heroines in the preceding pages it seems appropriate to add a more detailed account of a few individuals chosen from both important and popular plays that appeared between 1730 and 1829. The eighteenth-century theater includes tragedy, tearful comedy, serious comedy, bourgeois drama, Revolutionary drama, and melodrama, the latter flourishing particularly just before the Romantic period. In heroines of plays in each category can be found a surprisingly large total of traits and conditions that are perpetuated in the Romantic theater. The most notable of these are as follows. Absence of parental care or sympathy darkens the lives of half of the selected group of heroines. Only Le Père de famille, Régulus, and Lénore15 stress an understanding father. The plea of Lénore's father is outstanding as an unusually broad-minded view of her misfortune. She was alone and unadvised when the king made advances: La mort impitoyable avait frappé sa mère; Son époux habitait une terre étrangère. J'étais allé poursuivre en de lointains climats Le vain espoir de biens que je n'y trouvai pas; Elle était seule au monde; et, sans conseil, sans guide, Du vice elle éprouva l'influence perfide. Et comment repousser l'hommage dangereux D'un séducteur, d'un roi galant, jeune, amoureux?1®

2o

The Romantic Heroine and Her i8th-Century Elders

What outsider, Andrieux seems to ask, dare blame Lénore when her own father excuses her so easily? The distinction between shocking weakness of character and real sin is very slender, but Andrieux insists upon it several times over: [Lénore] Est digne de pitié bien plus que de courroux: • · · · Et son coeur égaré, sans être corrompu, Oublia ses devoirs, mais chérit la vertu. 17 He can solicit sympathy for her if she is merely weak but not for deliberate adultery: " O mon Dieu! . . . je fus faible, et non pas criminelle." 18 Andrieux leaves no word unsaid that might touch the heart. Lénore is "une femme souffrante et livrée aux douleurs."; her life is triste, she suffers douloureux chagrins and remords; she is only a humble reed, infortunée and malheureuse.1β Death stares her in the face, releasing her only after awful physical and mental torture. Thus, Andrieux makes her punishment seem far out of proportion to her guilt. This attitude towards woman continues into the Romantic period where writers developed a special fondness for the suffering of the guiltless sinner and helpless victim, whether victim of only a misunderstanding, of man, or of fate. Lénore is by no means the only forerunner of that type of Romantic heroine. She is much more guilty than Gabrielle de Vergy or Zaïre or even Léocadie20 but for all of them and half a dozen more the main emphasis is on the heart-rending misery of a beautiful young woman who has involuntarily wandered from the straight and narrow path or who has been suspected of so doing. The popular vindication of the sinner is partly valid; an untaught and unprotected individual cannot be entirely blameworthy in yielding to temptation, but most persons of average intelligence have some instinctive ability to differentiate between right and wrong. Heroines like Lénore seldom do. It is one of their most unacceptable traits that, although living

The Romantic Heroine and Her i8tb-Century Elders

21

the life of an adult, they behave as utterly thoughtless and untrained children. To behave thus and to suffer to the full a woman must be unusually weak and helpless. Many Romantic heroines are like their predecessors in being passive recipients of misfortune, acted upon rather than acting. Writers exploit their helplessness for its pathetic value. Note, for example, this description of Eugénie, one of the Victimes cloîtrées: "pâle, exténuée, mourante; sa tête est nue, ses cheveux sont épars; elle est vêtue d'une robe blanche, déchirée, et qui tombe en lambeaux; elle est couchée sur une natte, une pierre sous sa tête." 21 She no longer has even black bread to eat or dirty water to drink: "Rien . . . rien . . . ma mère! oh! ma mère! Ah! ah! . . . j'ai froid . . . Si je pouvais mourir . . . mon Dieu! si je pouvais mourir . . ." 22 The more incoherent her speech the more pitiful she is intended to be. The more reasons she has for longing for death, the more she is expected to rend the heart. That she does not always do so is because of the too obvious manifestation of her grief, for any passion indulged in to excess tends to nullify itself. In this connection M. Trahard's criticism of Nivelle de La Chaussée's characters is of interest; they express their suffering by external signs that are disproportionate to the situations, and those signs move the spectator more than their words that are taken from the conventional language of tragedy.23 La Chaussée's characters are at a median point between Classical and Romantic figures. Compared with Chimène or Racine's heroines his Constance is negative, too much given to self-pity. Compared with Adèle Renal, Louise Doucet, or Jeannette (each of whom loses her husband's affections), her situation seems very moderate, her expression of suffering restrained. 24 Numerous later heroines who wish for death in order to be with their lover, or to spare him, or because life without him appears impossible, or to expiate a crime resemble Alzire.25 Doña Sol's reaction to news of Hemani's death echoes Alzire's cry: "Quoi!

22

The Romantic Heroine and Her i8tb-Century EElders

Zamore n'est plus, et je n'ai que des fers!" 2 ® Wretchedness fforces Gabrielle de Vergy also to anticipate death. She is malheurreuse, like Romantic heroines, because of an unhappy marriage arraanged by her father, inability to forget her lover, fear of her husbamd, ill health, and a feeling of guilt.27 Besides all this she undergoees the horrible experience of receiving from her husband her lcover's heart. No Romantic disaster can exceed that shock. Gabriielle's helplessness is reiterated in her faded beauty, her tears,, her swoons, her cry: Je me meurs. At times intense fear, often aroused by evil omens, accenttuates helplessness. Fear in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,, tracing back to the literature of the ancients, is a definite appeail for sympathy. After Alzire, dozens of heroines moan: Un noir pressentiment m'afflige et me saisit: Ce jour, ce jour pour moi ne peut être qu'horrible.28 Fear and bad omens have high pathetic value, making happiness as impossible to the heroines before 1830 as to those after. Constance, in 1735, believes herself doomed to know nothing but grief just as sincerely as Léocadie in 1824 or Indiana in 1833,. 29 One variant of the idea of the impossibility of happiness grows out of social inequality. Angiolina is persecuted because oif her lowly birth.30 Diderot's Sophie and Cécile both love outside their class, and even Léocadie's troubles are related to class distinction. Sophie, one of the earliest working-girl heroines, is as much un ange as any girl of noble rank. Her experiences, like those of Cécile, Léocadie, and many Romantic heroines, demonstrate that kindness brings its own recompense, for virtue, however sorely tried, is rewarded in the end. In a few cases before 1830 as well as after, religious differences obstruct love's course. The heroine worries and suffers, usually sacrificing religion to love as does Néala, daughter of a Brahmin priest and betrothed to the Ganges.31 While Zaire's and Alzire's problems of religious affiliation form part of Voltaire's campaign against intolerance, the conflict between religion and love is a di-

The Romantic Heroine and Her i8th-Century Elders

23

rect means of establishing pathos. Néala's naïveté in religious matters parallels that of some Romantic heroines.82 Instead of developing the struggle that surely takes place between Néala's religious beliefs and her desire to marry the outcast Idamore, Casimir Delavigne merely suggests it by a few moments of fear and tears after which she weakly rationalizes in Romantic fashion: Mon coeur, se détournant d'une fausse clarté, Connaît, respecte encore et fuit la vérité: Au penchant qui l'entraîne, esclave, il s'abandonne; Il n'est pas convaincu, mais il aime, il se donne. Un Dieu qui vous repousse en vain me tend les bras. Comment serais-je heureuse où vous ne serez pas?83 A real debate of conscience would make the scene more vivid and dramatic. But it is more Romantic to sacrifice everything indisputably to love. That love is overpowering, not to be trifled with, worth forsaking everything for, is seen throughout the Romantic theater. Those ideas are apparent in many earlier plays; love is overpowering to Zaïre, Gabrielle, Lénore, Amélie, not to be trifled with by Eléna or Christine, worthy of sacrifice by Néala, Marianne, Attilie, and others. It may be overpowering, as in Zaïre, because of the young woman's sensibilité, gratitude, or kindness of heart or because of weak character and sexual attraction, as in Lénore. In choosing to represent historical personages the dramatist is, of course, somewhat limited by known facts. Nevertheless, when the desire to create pathos is strong enough, he may sacrifice facts and consistency. Attilie, for instance, firm and brave in her filial and patriotic love, is clearly used to establish pathos.34 Worries and tears stressed for their moving effect upon the spectator fill her rôle. Historical accuracy- prevails in the rôles of the wicked queens who dominate Népomucène Lemercier's Démence de Charles VI (1820) and Frêdégonde et Brunéhaut (sic) ( 1 8 2 1 ) . These queens have nothing in common with Romantic heroines save in

24

The Romantic Heroine and Her i8th-Century Elders

being extraordinary historical personages. Isabelle in the former tragedy resembles Dumas' Catherine de Medici or Messalina in her scheming for power and Marguerite de Bourgogne in her cruelty. Frédégonde leaves corpses in her wake as heartlessly as the Empress Zoé, Marguerite de Bourgogne, or Lucrèce Borgia. Her duel with Brunéhaut is a forerunner of the one in Balzac's Marâtre although Gertrude and Pauline, in the latter play are infinitely more human. There are multiple instances of a parallel between certain scenes or characteristics in plays before 1830 and those after that date. Gabrielle de Belle-Isle (Dumas), in going secretly to see her father, provokes an accusation of disloyalty from her lover just as does Zaïre in a similar situation. Each could clear up the misunderstanding in a word but neither will break a promise in order to do so. The two situations are entirely different in their other elements but that one point of similarity is prominent. In Balzac's Vautrin the Duchess of Montsorel reminds one of Mérope and Sémiramis. Each of the three is instinctively attracted to the young man who later proves to be her son. Mérope's feeling soon turns to hate, and she is unaware of the man's true identity until she is about to slay him.35 In Balzac's drama one's emotions correspond to those of the Duchess who steadfastly believes that Raoul is her son. The center of interest is Vautrin's ability to solve the mystery surrounding Raoul. In Mérope the interest is in the struggle between Mérope and Polyphonte, a struggle that the son makes more intense and dramatic. Sémiramis (1748) presents the unlikely situation of a mother planning to marry her own son. He is important to the plot as avenger of his father's death of which Sémiramis is partly guilty. So, for her, the discovery of her son has to mean death; for the Duchess it means the beginning of a new life after two decades of tearful suffering. The Voltaire tragedy forecasts Dumas' Paul Jones where but for Paul's magnanimity his return would bring revelation of his mother's guilt. Change Ninias to Don Carlos and the following lines might be spoken by Doña Sol:

The Romantic Heroine and Her i8th-Century Elders

25

S'il me donnait son coeur avec le rang supreme, J'en atteste l'amour, j'en jure par vous-même, Ninias me verrait préférer aujourd'hui Un exil avec vous, à ce trône avec lui.88 Marion de Lorme claims to know no feminine weapons but tears and cries, just as Constance knows only sighs and tears.87 But the remark, so natural and sincere in Constance, is from Marion's lips incredible and almost laughable. A reference to Constance's daughter, made obviously for the touching effect, seems to be imitated by Dumas in L'Alchimiste, Act III, scene 4, and Act V, scene 9. In particular scenes Gabrielle de Vergy is strongly reminiscent of two of Hugo's heroines. To think of surviving her beloved is as abhorrent to Gabrielle as it is to Doña Sol. Consequently, when Raoul appears, alive, her joy overflows in a spontaneous avowal of love similar to that of Maria de Neubourg in Ruy Blas 88 Hugo, of course, makes no case for Maria's loyalty to the king. In Gabrielle's heart love is a burning fire, a fatal poison as it is to Teresa (Dumas) or Gertrude (Balzac). She contrasts notably with Adèle (Dumas) and that type of heroine because her deepest suffering comes from having, for a moment, involuntarily betrayed her husband. Adèle's chief worry concerns what people will think of her.39 Her self-respect is scarcely affected for she believes it right to obey the demands of love. Gabrielle has a sense of honor that makes her urge Raoul to triumph over his love, to sublimate it that they may continue to love each other without shame or remorse.40 Léontine (Le Monomane) is the only Romantic heroine I know who does anything similar. The others, in like circumstances, believe that the rights of love come first. A little prayer of self-pity reveals Gabrielle's feeling that since love is a Heaven-sent gift, Heaven surely has compassion upon those who suffer because of love.41 Her words paraphrase a celebrated remark of Ninon de Lendos: Hélas! un coeur sensible est un présent céleste, Pourquoi de tous vos dons est-il le plus funeste?42

26

The Romantic Heroine and Her 18th-century Elders

Néala's cloistered life "cachée à l'ombre des autels" reminds one of Hugo's Blanche "cachée avec des fleurs."43 Like Doña Sol, Néala is ready to give up everything for her hero, preferring to live in a desert with him than to sit alone on the throne of Delhi.44 Since she is guided implicitly by her heart, she questions his identity no more than Doña Sol questions Hernani or Adèle Antony. That he is a pariah shocks her into even firmer devotion. Léonor is like Gérard de Nerval's Marguerite Burckart in her dread that her husband's ambition will destroy their repose and break up their home.45 Both these women and others as well ask for nothing more than a quiet life based upon love, unaware that a man cannot live that way. Conventional appeals for sympathy, inability to understand others, subjection to love, and other traits mentioned above are taken up by dramatists of the Romantic period and used sometimes even to excess. Let it not be thought, however, that Romantic heroines continue all the characteristics of their predecessors. There are noteworthy differences. Heroines such as Zaïre, Alzire, Constance, and Gabrielle stand widely removed from many Romantic ladies in their profound consciousness and pursuit of duty and in their restrained and rather stilted language. Note the methodical form and Classical vocabulary of this speech: Qui percera ce coeur que l'on arrache à lui? Toujours infortunée et toujours criminelle, Perfide envers Zamore, à Gusman infidèle, Qui me délivrera, par un trépas heureux, De la nécessité de vous trahir tous deux?46 Romantic dramatists favor infortunée less than malheureuse; trépas becomes old-fashioned. Criminelle and perfide are rare in comparison with ange and trésor. The deliberately even balance of the lines is more obvious here than in many Romantic speeches except, perhaps, in Hugo's antithetical lines. In prose dramas the heroine is able to speak more freely, with less concern for restraint and formality, and usually avoids this sort of affectation:

The Romantic Heroine and Her i8th-Century Elders

27

Hymen, cruel hymen, sous quel astre odieux Mon père a-t-il formé tes redoutables noeuds?47 However, the farther removed from formal literary style the language is, the more it is likely to be marred by too great unrestraint. The three following passages illustrate the point. In the first, chosen from an eighteenth-century play, the language is kept carefully within bounds, is colored by consciousness of guilt: O terrible réveil d'une ardeur si puissante! Isaure, ce n'est plus cette douce langueur, Qui nourrissait ensemble & consumait mon coeur; C'est un feu dévorant que rien ne peut contraindre, Irrité des efforts que j'ai faits pour l'éteindre: C'est lui qui me soutint, & son fatal poison A ranimé mes sens, en troublant ma raison. Si je pouvais bannir Raoul de ma mémoire, Je sens que j'en mourrais en pleurant ma victoire; Je maudis les vertus que je veux embrasser Je déteste mon crime, & n'y puis renoncer.48 In the second, likewise an avowal of love, taken from one of Hugo's prose dramas, the words rush out, uncontrolled by dignity, reason, or sense of guilt, to culminate in a scream of rage: Eh bien! · * · est-ce qu'il faut tout vous dire, et qu'une femme mette son coeur à nu devant vous, parce qu'elle est reine, la malheureuse, et que vous représentez ici le prince d'Espagne, mon futur mari? * * * · En bien, oui, puisque vous faites semblant de ne rien comprendre, oui, je remets tous les jours l'exécution de Fabiani * * · parce que chaque matin · · · la force me manque à l'idée que la cloche * * * va sonner la mort de cet homme, parce que je me sens mourir de songer qu'on va clouer une bière pour cet homme, parce que je suis femme, parce que je suis faible, parce que je suis folle, parce que j'aime cet homme, pardieu!—En avez-vous assez? êtes-vous satisfait? Comprenez-vous?49

28

The Romantic Heroine and Her i8th-Century Elders

The third passage comes from an eighteenth-century prose drama and is so free an expression of excessive emotion that, were it transferred bodily to the lips of a Romantic character, scarcely a word would be out of place. It opens with almost the exact words so commonly associated with Hernani: Je ne sais où je suis . . . Je ne sais où je vais . . . Il me semble que je marche dans les ténèbres . . . Ne rencontrerai-]'e personne qui me conduise? . . . O ciel! ne m'abandonnez pas! • · * · Je ne puis . . .

la force m'abandonne . . . • · · ·

Je succombe

Voyez ma peine; elle est au-dessus de mes forces . . . Je suis à vos pieds; et il faut que j'y meure ou que je vous [Cécile] doive tout . . . Je suis une infortunée qui cherche un asile • · · Ils ne savent pas ce que peut oser celle qui craint le déshonneur et qu'on réduit à la nécessité de haïr la vie.80 Such similarity between the language of eighteenth and nineteenth-century plays is exceptional, however. Most heroines of the eighteenth-century theater avoid ranting. On the other hand, by no means all Romantic heroines indulge in it. There are those who speak simply, with a natural beauty of phrase. The following excerpts are typical of the contrast in the more literary language of the two theaters. Both passages are expressions of sincere but nonviolent emotion: Gabrielle: Je renais avec toi dans ce jour plein de charmes, Et mes yeux épuisés trouvent encor des larmes: • · · * Mon coeur, séché d'ennuis, flétri par la tristesse, S'épanouit enfin dans sa pure allégresse.51

The Romantic Heroine and Her iSth-Century Elders Doña Sol :

29

Quand le bruit de vos pas S'efface, alors je crois que mon coeur ne bat pas, Vous me manquez, je suis absente de moi-même; Mais dès qu'enfin ce pas que j'attends et que j'aime Vient frapper mon oreille, alors il me souvient Que je vis, et je sens mon âme qui revient!52

How much more beautiful is the simple naturalness of the latter passage! It is the speech of a living person, while Gabrielle's sedate lines belong only to the stage. Self-control and good sense are non-Romantic qualities. The ability of Constance, for example, to maintain an appearance of calm happiness and to refrain from complaints and harrowing scenes would not even be desired by many Romantic heroines who must rely largely upon outward show of emotion for any effect they make. 53 Nevertheless, eighteenth-century heroines shed floods of tears and emit heart-rending cries of je me meurs, je me sens mourir!M Twice Sophie's tears so drown her power of speech that she can say only: "Pauvre Sergi! Malheureuse Sophie!" 65 Nowadays such an exclamation seems as unnatural as a very flowery speech but the eighteenth century considered it a kind of duty to vibrate with exaltation, to feel an excess of emotion. Girls were taught to be moved by almost nothing, to shed tears, to show great enthusiasm over banality, and to manifest pity. 58 Rosine, however, never plunges into such excesses of passion. Her Romantic traits are superficial. She uses stock phrases: malheureuse, je meurs d'inquiétude, vous me faites mourir de frayeur, je suis au supplice.57 She has a sentimental interest in a handsome young man obviously attracted to her; her reasoning is illogical —since the man loves her, he deserves her love. She knows no more about this man than Doña Sol does of Hernani; although she asks him point-blank his name, condition, and intentions, a vague reply satisfies her. Her ready tongue and cleverness make her more interesting than some Romantic girls. Through her own initiative she gets into communication with Lindor to whom she daringly

30

The Romantic Heroine and Her i8th-Century Elders

admits her love.58 (Did Doña Sol meet Hernani in some such way?) Real unhappiness does not afflict Rosine until after her marriage and then only because she cherishes her husband to the point of monotonous satiety. Witness the Count's reaction: Nos femmes croient tout accomplir en nous aimant. Cela dit une fois, elles nous aiment, nous aiment! (quand elles nous aiment) et sont si complaisantes et si constamment obligeantes, et toujours, et sans relâche, qu'on est tout surpris un beau soir de trouver la satiété où l'on recherchait le bonheur.69 This phase of Rosine's history links her to Romantic heroines who suppose that love alone can fill life. Reared as they were, such ignorance is understandable. Beaumarchais, like Diderot, believes woman to be ardent but timid, incapable of anything but love, too weak to defend herself against seductors and enemies.60 Numerous Romantic heroines prove how long that conception of woman was to last. As "mère coupable" Rosine by an exemplary life covers up her fault for twenty years, much as Dumas' Marquise does.61 The latter's life of expiation is more sensational and her character more desperate than Rosine' s, for Rosine supposes her secret her own while the Marquise knows that her sin is the cause of her husband's insanity, and she must keep him insane to prevent the children from learning the truth! Coelina, like Rosine, is much less extreme than most Romantic figures. She is the heroine par excellence of melodrama, "une femme malheureuse ornée de toutes les vertus."62 She suffers less extreme persecution than many and indulges in less verbal display of her emotions, portraying her suffering more by pantomime and allowing the sincerity of her love to be taken pretty much for granted. Never does she speak at length; never does she rant or poetize. This unelaborate style with its many conventions such as warning of the imminence of sorrow whenever happiness appears, 63 and its carefully maintained moral tone is one of the biggest distinctions between Pixerécourt and Romantic dramatists. The self-control of eighteenth-century heroines, their awareness

The Romantic Heroine and Her i8th-Century Elders

31

and performance of duty, their good sense, cleverness, and their manner of speaking are particularly significant of the difference between themselves and their Romantic descendants because those qualities are allied to the very essence of character. The more numerous points of similarity between the two groups of heroines are of less importance because they nearly all are found in external details that influence character without being a living part of it. Most of them add up to the fact that woman is a remarkably pitiful creature to whom the most dreadful things happen because she is weak in body and character and yields instinctively to love. The earlier heroine is most like the Romantic when her fraility is taken for granted and used as the excuse for the calamities that beset her. Once the habit of appealing almost solely to the emotions was formed it was long-lived. The uneducated, unsophisticated crowds drawn to the fifty-one theaters doing business in Paris during and after the Revolution loved the least intellectual of plays. As their own emotions were always near the surface they enjoyed seeing passionate creatures and sentimental complications behind the footlights. Nor were the most naïve the only ones so entertained: Ce ne sont pas seulement les bonnes d'enfants et les cuisinières qui vont à l'Ambigu [c. 1 8 0 7 ] se convaincre que la Providence veille sur l'innocence opprimée et qu'elle ne l'abandonne jamais; des individus d'une classe plus élevée vont en foule entendre, non sans plaisir, des phrases sentimentales et boursouflées, où la langue, le goût et la raison sont indignement outragés.64 The passions of a Romantic heroine are no more baneful than those of her seventeenth or eighteenth-century predecessors. It is the attitude towards them that differs. Where Phèdre is consumed by her sense of guilt and was seen by the seventeenth century as a soul fallen from grace, a Romantic heroine is inclined to feel that she has a divine right to love as she does, that she will enjoy her passion to the full as long as possible, come what may afterwards, and the Romantic generation believed her to be a virtuous soul forced into sin and who is, therefore, guiltless.

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Elders

The heritage of the women in Romantic drama, combined with the ideas and desires of the time, gives them the qualities and faults that we now admire or deplore. The following chapters present some of the most colorful and some of the most somber of these women.

3. Idealized and Sentimentalized Heroines But I have loved with such transcendent passion, I soard, at first, quite out of reasons view, And now am lost above it. —Dryden, All for Love (1678), Act II, scene 1. THE GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS of heroines in nineteenth-century

drama need to be amplified by a closer view of certain types. A glance through popular and famous plays falls often upon idealized or sentimentalized characters. The conception of love as divine rapture, sacred and most natural of passions, sublimely superior to human law and convention, produced unbelievably "pure and innocent" stage heroines whose lovers speak of them in effusive transports, and whose sheer perfection should melt one's heart. Ideal and sentimental perfection prevails in Romantic characters of different walks of life. One meets, in the dramas, women whose family relationships are marked by exceptional devotion. There are carefully sheltered ingénues, poor working-girls, self-sacrificing martyrs. Some stand on a lofty pedestal; not a few are on the plane of everyday life. As the purity of intimate family relationships is a natural subject for idealization, a number of Romantic plays feature an unusually fine mother or wife or daughter. Elisabeth in Casimir Delavigne's Les Enfants d'Edouard (1833) is an excellent representative of the idealized mother. Since her fate is unjustified by anything in her past or present, she is more pathetic than tragic. Blows are dealt her by a brother-in-law, not by Destiny. Glocester, spirit of Evil, easily ensnares one so good. Her pitiful efforts to escape form the heart of the drama. Those efforts are not exciting,

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for she does not match her wit against Glocester's as in a comedy of intrigue. They are not tinged with tragically hopeless despair as if she were guilty and deserving of punishment. They are dramatically effective because of her character, and of her delayed realization of Glocester's villainy, and because they are eloquently expressed. There is interesting variety in her character. Glocester's insulting suggestion abruptly lashes the gentle, affectionate, trusting Elisabeth of the preceding scenes into indignation.1 Her spontaneous outburst seems a prelude to courageous action. But the time is not yet ripe for action. Delavigne wishes to make Glocester's character pass through many shades of gray into deepest black so as to give Elisabeth every opportunity to win our sympathy. What is more logical at first than that she accept Glocester as her defender? He is her husband's own brother. Why should she doubt his word that he loves the princes? Every true mother supposes her children beloved by others. It is not until Act II, scene 10, that Elisabeth becomes thoroughly conscious of enveloping evil. Delavigne applies a fine dramatic touch to this scene, beginning with Elisabeth's thanks to Glocester for his protestation and her assurance that she accepts his word rather than another's. Before the words have left her lips she realizes that he is untrustworthy. The variety and force of her emotions are striking. Fear illuminates the truth for her, while anger braves the enemy: "Je n'ai pas peur de vous." Frenzied grief casts her before Glocester in supplication; in despair her mind gropes for the nearest straw: the awful declaration of adultery. She abases herself before Glocester, calling him king. All this is against a background of stony silence on his part. Nothing could make her pleas seem more futile nor her fears more certain to be realized. In addition to the stirring clash with Glocester there are two excellent scenes with her children, for whom her love is deep and enduring, freely expressed without pomp or artificiality. In the first scene she is the anxious mother, in turn joyful, worried, proud, and frightened. Later, with the princes in the Tower, her

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courage lifts its head above the abyss of despair to admonish them to be worthy of their race.2 One's first impression is confirmed in the final picture; here is a true mother whose sons are her whole life. What does she do to save her precious sons? After showing such promise of action by her indignation at Glocester's insult,8 Elisabeth fails to accomplish anything. The bold front assumed before him is soon washed away by tears. For Elisabeth is not a supernatural being, she is human, a woman, in whom any excessive emotion is likely to seek relief in tears. These tears contrast with a lighter bit of femininity that colors the opening scene; Elisabeth is vain, unable to forget that her beauty captured a king. Elisabeth's rôle illustrates Delavigne's middle-of-the-road course. Like heroines of tragedy she is a noble lady faced with a major crisis, whose attempt to avoid catastrophe is as hopeless as if she were clutched by the hand of Fate. Yet she has no tragic flaw; she is not responsible for what happens to her. Like heroines of melodrama she is persecuted, innocent, beautiful, and good, trampled upon by an ugly villain. However, no handsome hero dashes to her rescue; nor is she unreal or fantastic. Like many heroines of Romantic drama Elisabeth is an historical personage, yet without the abnormality of so many others. Neither is she placed in a showy setting; local color is of slight importance in her rôle. She is one of several queens in Roipantic drama whose feminine helplessness is emphasized.4 Her energy of resolution as queen and as mother dies away in woman's weakness. Tears quench the fire of her brave words. Her courage is enshrined in beautiful, moving verse. The following speeches to Glocester express her strong reaction against a public confession of infidelity: Le signer! qu'à ce point la terreur m'avilisse! Que de mon lâche coeur cette main soit complice! Pour flétrir mes enfants, pour les déshériter, Pour abdiquer ces droits qu'on leur vient disputer;

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Idealized and Sentimentalized

Heroines

Droits augustes, milord, certains, incontestables, Et dont j'écraserai tous ces bruits misérables! • · · · Qu'ils m'insultent en face; ils me verront alors, Entre mes deux enfants, faire tête à l'orage. La lionne qu'on blesse aurait moins de courage, Moins de fureur que moi, si jamais je défends, Les jours, les droits sacrés, l'honneur de mes enfants. 5 The high poetic level of those lines is not consistently maintained. Elisabeth shrieks her defiance of Glocester in stumbling phrases: Je n'ai pas peur de vous. Buckingham vit; il s'arme, il soulève pour nous Ses partisans, les miens, le peuple, Londre entière; Il viendra, nous viendrons, lui, tous, moi la première, Les sauver, vous punir.® A t times she speaks in antitheses as if inspired by Hugo: Il fut bien généreux; mais moi, j'étais bien belle * · Je suis heureuse mère et femme infortunée ·

·

*T

·«

Shakespeare does not focus attention upon his Elizabeth as a femme infortunée.

Gloucester dominates Richard III. Elizabeth,

who openly suspects him, is only one of several women whom he mistreats. One's sympathy for her suffering at his hands does not eclipse the less kindly feeling that is aroused against her. Shakespeare does not present a scene between Elizabeth and her sons in the Tower; he shows only her grief after their death.9 It is grief embittered by fierce hatred for Gloucester whose ruthless ambition is the center of interest in the drama. In Les

Enfants

d'Edouard, according to the trend of the period, interest is concentrated in the helpless suffering of Elizabeth. Through the human, dramatic, and literary beauty of her rôle, she is idealized as a woman most deserving of happiness, and sentimentalized as a mother most brutally trampled upon.

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An idealized wife is the most interesting character in Charles Duveyrier's Le Monomane ( 1 8 3 5 ) . Léontine's perfection derives from an understanding heart. Her first reaction to an unusually difficult domestic problem (her husband is a criminal somnambulist) is sacrificial resignation; later, active endeavor to prevent the sleep-walking spells. She combats her husband's evil tendencies with sincerity, loyalty, and fearless gentleness. With these means she tries to cultivate the good elements in his nature so as to submerge the cruel and evil. There is dramatic progression of a sort in the development of her character. Throughout Act I she is afraid of her husband, very hesitant to mention in his presence anything that might irritate him. His complete indifference to the misery of the wretched is at the opposite pole from her greathearted sympathy. Here is the beginning of conflict. Léontine's first attempt to intervene for a prisoner fails miserably: "j'ai compromis à jamais le charme et l'union de notre intérieur, et je n'ai rien obtenu, rien!" 10 She tries, in Act II, to restore that charm and union by keeping from Balthazar every source of agitation and by making herself helpful and necessary to him: "Les femmes sont si fières qu'on ait besoin d'elles! si heureuses du bonheur qu'elles font éprouver!" 11 This attempt fails like the other. In order that she make a third trial to arouse a feeling of mercy in Balthazar, Duveyrier places a member of her own family in danger. Instead of having a strong, climactic scene here, with Léontine pleading for her brother, Duveyrier resorts to melodramatic artificiality, temporarily saving the brother himself, leaving Léontine nothing to do but sink to her knees before Balthazar and moan: "Si je vous ai fait du mal, pardonnez-le-moi! je ne vous demanderai plus rien! mais je prierai Dieu, qui n'abandonne pas les malheureux."12 So weak a reaction is poor preparation for her conduct in Act IV. Strengthened by a letter from Balthazar's father and by firsthand experience with his desire for murder, she renews the attempt made in Act II. Here she shows woman's instinctive, maternal desire to shelter and protect the wretched, to ward off blows that hurt, and to be all things to those nearest her. She speaks with an

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impressively unaffected sincerity that indicates real love. That is a surprise. When did she begin to love her husband? There has been no hint of it. As a girl she was in love with Claudet; she married Balthazar in obedience to her mother, selecting him from many suitors because he was "celui qui me parlait sans cesse de [Claudet]. . . ." 1 S Her loyalty to Balthazar is clear from the beginning of the drama, but it does not come from love. Yet she now speaks with the accent of love: Ah! c'est dans mes bras, sur mon sein, que vous viendrez chercher du courage, de la patience! . . Il n'est pas de souffrance que l'on ne guérisse à force de soins et de tendresse . . . et l'amour d'une femme triomphe de tout! •

·

·

·

Ah! croyez-en mon amour! vous êtes bon, tendre, bienveillant! C'est ainsi que je vous aime! mais vous n'avez pas cessé de l'être. Est-ce que mon coeur et mes yeux ne vous le disent pas? Ne voyez dans cet écrit [letter from his father} que la liberté de vivre enfin en famille . . . plus d'ennuis, de fatigues! tout à votre enfant, à ma tendresse, au bonheur!14 The vous suggests that Léontine is still a little afraid of her husband. She does not completely overcome her reserve until Act V. There her concern over Balthazar is so deep that she unrestrainedly opens her heart to save him. See how she uses her feminine skill to assist him over the difficult break with the past: As-tu besoin de cela? ma confiance, n'y as-tu pas droit toujours? et maintenant surtout! . . . Je suis si heureuse! Que veux-tu que je te dise, voyons? je ne veux avoir rien de caché pour toi . . . je veux que tu lises dans mes yeux, que tu devines aux battemens de mon coeur tout ce que je pense . . . tout ce que j'éprouve! (Elle se place devant lui, et met la main sur son coeur.) —Que j'aime à te voir ainsi! le regard doux et tendre! le

Idealized and Sentimentalized Heroines

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sourire sur les lèvres! . . . heureux . . . bon . . . et caressant!15 If she is to save him her love must be unquestionable; she must convince Balthazar that he is her entire world, and prove that she can fill the blank of his professional life with love. She talks rapidly to prevent his thinking of his present situation; she reviews their life together, unconsciously slipping for a moment into the use of vous, telling how she had accused herself of not loving him enough, how she envied his business interests and whatever robbed her of his tenderness. Duveyrier tries in this way to work up to an exciting climax where Balthazar's cure seems possible and imminent, so as to finish off with a spectacular suicide. He places Léontine in a state of Romantic exaltation where she hardly knows what she is saying, making her repeat, like so many others overwhelmed by sudden passion: "Je sais que je t'aime . . . et que si, pour te rendre heureux, il fallait faire le sacrifice de ma vie . . . eh bien! j'aurais ce courage-là . . . je mourrais avec joie!" 15 Not content with mere verbal proof of her devotion, Duveyrier puts her to another test. She must prove by an act that she does not fear death. As Balthazar in one of his attacks starts to wind her hair around her neck, she forces her way into his arms, hoping to restore his reason by talking as if the situation were a dream: "Ah! dans tes bras! . . . c'est là que j'aurais cherché mon refuge! Il aurait vu mes caresses, mon amour, ce méchant qui me menaçait. . . . Des larmes seraient tombées de ses yeux! . . . il m'aurait fait grâce . . . il ne m'aurait pas tuée! . . ." 1 β Such a scene leaves one incredulous. Léontine is not real, after all; she reacts just as Duveyrier makes her. A woman as much afraid of her husband as Léontine seemed to be through the first three acts would be terrified when he tries to murder her. The intimacy of her speech disappears at the moment when Balthazar is dying. Then, if ever, a devoted wife would speak in terms of closest intimacy. Léontine calls awkwardly through his locked door:

4