第118章 FRENCH DRAMAS AND MELODRAMAS(6)

Now the Duke, in running away with the lady, intended to dispense altogether with ceremony, and make of Julie anything but his wife;but Georges, her father, and one Morisseau, a notary, discovered him in his dastardly act, and pursued him to the very feet of the Regent, who compelled the pair to marry and make it up.

Julie complies; but though she becomes a Duchess, her heart remains faithful to her old flame, Adrian, the doctor; and she declares that, beyond the ceremony, no sort of intimacy shall take place between her husband and herself.

Then the Duke begins to treat her in the most ungentleman-like manner: he abuses her in every possible way; he introduces improper characters into her house; and, finally, becomes so disgusted with her, that he determines to make away with her altogether.

For this purpose, he sends forth into the highways and seizes a doctor, bidding him, on pain of death, to write a poisonous prescription for Madame la Duchesse.She swallows the potion; and O horror! the doctor turns out to be Dr.Adrian; whose woe may be imagined, upon finding that he has been thus committing murder on his true love!

Let not the reader, however, be alarmed as to the fate of the heroine; no heroine of a tragedy ever yet died in the third act;and, accordingly, the Duchess gets up perfectly well again in the fourth, through the instrumentality of Morisseau, the good lawyer.

And now it is that vice begins to be really punished.The Duke, who, after killing his wife, thinks it necessary to retreat, and take refuge in Spain, is tracked to the borders of that country by the virtuous notary, and there receives such a lesson as he will never forget to his dying day.

Morisseau, in the first instance, produces a deed (signed by his Holiness the Pope), which annuls the marriage of the Duke de la Vauballiere; then another deed, by which it is proved that he was not the eldest son of old La Vauballiere, the former Duke; then another deed, by which he shows that old La Vauballiere (who seems to have been a disreputable old fellow) was a bigamist, and that, in consequence, the present man, styling himself Duke, is illegitimate; and finally, Morisseau brings forward another document, which proves that the REG'LAR Duke is no other than Adrian, the doctor!

Thus it is that love, law, and physic combined, triumph over the horrid machinations of this star-and-gartered libertine.

"Hermann l'Ivrogne" is another piece of the same order; and though not very refined, yet possesses considerable merit.As in the case of the celebrated Captain Smith of Halifax, who "took to drinking ratafia, and thought of poor Miss Bailey,"--a woman and the bottle have been the cause of Hermann's ruin.Deserted by his mistress, who has been seduced from him by a base Italian Count, Hermann, a German artist, gives himself entirely up to liquor and revenge: but when he finds that force, and not infidelity, have been the cause of his mistress's ruin, the reader can fancy the indignant ferocity with which he pursues the infame ravisseur.A scene, which is really full of spirit, and excellently well acted, here ensues!

Hermann proposes to the Count, on the eve of their duel, that the survivor should bind himself to espouse the unhappy Marie; but the Count declares himself to be already married, and the student, finding a duel impossible (for his object was to restore, at all events, the honor of Marie), now only thinks of his revenge, and murders the Count.Presently, two parties of men enter Hermann's apartment: one is a company of students, who bring him the news that he has obtained the prize of painting; the other the policemen, who carry him to prison, to suffer the penalty of murder.

I could mention many more plays in which the popular morality is similiarly expressed.The seducer, or rascal of the piece, is always an aristocrat,--a wicked count, or licentious marquis, who is brought to condign punishment just before the fall of the curtain.And too good reason have the French people had to lay such crimes to the charge of the aristocracy, who are expiating now, on the stage, the wrongs which they did a hundred years since.

The aristocracy is dead now; but the theatre lives upon traditions:

and don't let us be too scornful at such simple legends as are handed down by the people from race to race.Vulgar prejudice against the great it may be; but prejudice against the great is only a rude expression of sympathy with the poor; long, therefore, may fat epiciers blubber over mimic woes, and honest proletaires shake their fists, shouting--"Gredin, scelerat, monstre de marquis!" and such republican cries.

Remark, too, another development of this same popular feeling of dislike against men in power.What a number of plays and legends have we (the writer has submitted to the public, in the preeeding pages, a couple of specimens; one of French, and the other of Polish origin,) in which that great and powerful aristocrat, the Devil, is made to be miserably tricked, humiliated, and disappointed? A play of this class, which, in the midst of all its absurdities and claptraps, had much of good in it, was called "Le Maudit des Mers." Le Maudit is a Dutch captain, who, in the midst of a storm, while his crew were on their knees at prayers, blasphemed and drank punch; but what was his astonishment at beholding an archangel with a sword all covered with flaming resin, who told him that as he, in this hour of danger, was too daring, or too wicked, to utter a prayer, he never should cease roaming the seas until he could find some being who would pray to heaven for him!