In the Mostellaria of Plautus, Philematium, a musician, has for waiting-woman a certain Scapha, who converses with her in terms very similar to those in which Diamantine converses with Aurelia, or Columbine with Isabella. In the following scene we are permitted to be present at the toilet of a woman of antiquity.
Philematium. See, I beg you, Scaphe, whether this gown suits me. For it is my aim to please Philolaches, who is at once my lover and my master.
Scapha. Why do you not seek to acquire provoking ways, since in yourself you are entirely lovely? Lovers do not care for a woman’s gowns, but for what they contain.
Philematium. And now what do you say?
Scapha. Concerning what?
Philematium. Look at me closely and you will agree that this gown improves my beauty.
Scapha. The force of your beauty is greater and carries more influence than your raiment. All that you put on borrows grace and value from yourself.
Philematium. I do not want you to flatter me.
Scapha. If I dared, my dear mistress, I should say that you are very foolish, since you prefer to be wrongly criticised rather than to be justly praised. Strange taste! As for myself—by Pollux! I would rather receive praise which I do not deserve than reproaches for faults of which I am aware.
Philematium. I detest people who seek to please me by falsehood. If you find me wanting in anything, have the goodness to correct me.
Scapha. I certainly think that you act grossly against your interests when you give yourself entirely to Philolaches. You count upon none but him; you are so submissive, complaisant and obedient to this young man that all other lovers count for nothing with you; it does not become a courtesan to have but one intrigue; she should leave that to ladies of high degree.
Philematium. Since my dear lover has delivered me from shameful bondage I do no more than my duty in showing him a hundred times more tenderness than when I flattered him to obtain what he has done for me.
Scapha. In that case consider him as a husband in conscience and in honour as well as in tenderness and, upon that footing, allow your hair to grow like that of a married woman.[5]
Philematium. See whether my headdress is well arranged. Give me my white.
Scapha. What for?
Philematium. To rub it into my cheeks to beautify me.
Scapha. It is like whitening ivory with soot.
Philematium. Give me also my rouge (purpurismum).
Scapha. With these colours you are about to spoil the most beautiful work of nature. Confine yourself to the bright tints of your youth. You require no white-lead nor rouge of Melos nor any other sort of plaster.
Philematium. Do you not think that I should do well to rub myself with scent, and to perfume myself?
Scapha. Beware of doing it! A woman smells best when she smells of nothing, for what can be thought of those women who perfume themselves, and proclaim themselves by their scents? They are treated as toothless hags, who seek to disguise themselves under paint and perfume.
Philematium. Consider well my long robe and my jewels. Do you find me well adorned? Does everything suit me?
Scapha. It is not for me to judge; it is Philolache’s taste alone that is to be consulted on that subject. Purple is convenient for dissembling age, and as for gold, it suits no woman.
ii
From the flattering, cynical and corrupted slave was born in the Italian theatre the servetta or fantesca, a confidential waiting-maid, known later in France as the soubrette, a character confounded with that of sophisticated and malicious village girls. As early as 1528 we find women playing this rôle in the lively and noteworthy comedies of Angelo Beolco (Ruzzante) performed at the theatre of Padua. She is called Betta and Bettia (for Elisabetta), Gnua (for Genoveffa), Gitta (for Gianetta), Nina, Besa, etc. Usually these are peasant women, who betray their husbands or their lovers for very little, “a piece of bread or a ribbon,” or even, very often, merely out of a spirit of mischief. Thus Bettia is enclosed with her lover Tonin, a man-at-arms, and speaks from the window to Ruzzante, her husband, who bids her open the door and return home with him, in which case he will forgive her fault.
“I care nothing about your forgiveness; I do not need it. At home it is I who have to labour and I am sick of it. Whilst you are glued to a chair and never do anything I must set my hands to everything. Go and seek another servant to clean your pots and pans, and to do your house-work. Do you think that I, who am as fresh and lively as a fish, shall submit to having no society but yours? I am here, and here I remain. I am sorry about your honour; but you have brought this upon yourself.”
In 1530 we find waiting-women in the troupe of the Intronati under the names of Columbina, Oliva, Fiametta, Pasquella, Nespola and Spinetta. But the most famous actress in this line was Silvia Roncagli, born at Bergamo, who, under the name of Franceschina, went to France in the troupe of the Gelosi in 1578. She returned to Italy with that company and played in Florence the rôles of waiting-woman to Isabella (Isabella Andreini). She spoke French perfectly, and at times permitted herself entirely French improvisations. The soubrette in the troupe of the Fedeli, which went to Paris with G. B. Andreini, still bore the name of Franceschina.
The wife of Tabarin, who improvised on the trestles of the Place Dauphine, assumed also the same nom de guerre. L’Etoile claims that she was Italian; he is certainly confusing her with Silvia Roncagli. Her real name was Anne Begot, and her reputation was much better than was supposed, for the stupid people of Paris took the farces and the follies which she uttered literally as being expressions of herself.
iii
Patricia Adami, born at Rome in 1635, was known under the name of Diamantina. She played first in Italy and later in France. In 1600, after the decease of her husband, Adami, a comedian who died young, she made her first appearance in Paris, and her versatile talents caused the public very quickly to forget the actress who had preceded her in 1653, summoned to France by Cardinal Mazarin. Of the latter no more than her theatre-name of Beatrix is known, and this from the quatrain of Foret:
Patricia Adami was of slight stature and rather brown of skin, but extremely pretty, and of a great vivacity on the stage. Agostino Lolli, who played the parts of Doctor, fell in love with her and they were married. She continued her successes and persevered in her employment until a younger star rose to eclipse her—that is to say, until the début of Caterina Biancolelli (Columbine). In 1683, Diamantina, having grown old, withdrew altogether from the theatre.
iv
The type of soubrette remains always the same. From the days of Plautus to those of Gherardi, and from those of Gherardi down to our own, it has undergone but little variation; but the soubrette became personified in the character of Columbine by Teresa, Caterina and the second Teresa Biancolelli—grandmother, granddaughter and great-granddaughter. The most remarkable of the three by her versatile talent and her numerous creation is Caterina Biancolelli, daughter of the famous Domenico, and wife of Pierre Lenoir de la Thorillière, a pupil of Molière’s and a distinguished actor in his company.
She is sometimes soubrette, sometimes mistress, advocate, dancer, singer and swaggering gallant. It is said of her that she filled with equal ease all rôles, and that she spoke fluently several languages, dialects and jargons. She appears to have been a very well-educated woman of real talent. “She was small and brunette, but of a very comely countenance. She had more than beauty; she had physiognomy, a fine air, easy gesture and a sweet and pleasant voice.” Born in 1665 of Giuseppe-Domenico Biancolelli and Ursula Corteze (known in the theatre under the name of Eularia), she took the surname of Columbina, a surname which had been in vogue in the theatre since 1560; her paternal grandmother had already borne it and had been painted in walking costume, holding a basket containing two doves (colombes) in allusion to this her stage name. This portrait was preserved in the house inhabited by Domenico in the village of Bièvre, near Paris.
Caterina made her début on the 11th October 1863, in Arlequino Protèo. She came on and in Italian addressed her father who was playing Harlequin: “I was told that your lordship desired to speak with me. But what a droll figure is your lordship’s! You have the air of a turkey-cock.”
“How? Of a turkey-cock?” replied Harlequin; “I am the chief comedian of a troupe of turkey-cocks—I mean of a troupe of comedians. But I sent for you because I know that you have great talent for comedy, and I am going to give you a rôle in The Burning of Troy: I will represent the horse, you shall represent the fire,” etc. Columbine rejects the piece, which, she says, would end in smoke and hurt the eyes of the spectators. Choice is made of The Loves of Titus and Berenice. Columbine announces that she is going to imberenice herself (imberenicciarmi), and Harlequin goes off to titusine himself (intitusinarmi).
She scored a great success, and from the moment of her début she gave a free rein to her wit and audacity in improvisation. As soubrette to Isabella she remonstrates with her mistress, who is desolated at the prospect of marrying a man whom she does not love.
“You will live” (she tells her) “as live the majority of wives in Paris. In the first four or five years you will be prodigal, and then when you shall have consumed the greater part of your husband’s fortune in moveables, gowns, equipages and jewels, you will part company with him; your marriage-portion will be returned to you, and you will live thereafter as a great lady. How simple you are! Do you think rich men are married to be loved?”
Elsewhere she deals in home truths with her master:
“Quite frankly, sir, if you do not take care, you will, for all your millions, become the laughing-stock of Paris. It is well known that there is no man, be he great or little, who has not sometimes something in his head; but it is a shame to see you without occupation, lamenting your life and haggling from morning to night about the merest necessities of the house! Alas! for the days of your extravagance, when nothing was talked of but your ostentation and good humour. Whenever you returned from town you would always chat with me for a moment, your hand under my chin. It was Columbine here, Columbine there; now a ribbon, now a ring, now a fan. In short one had, now and again, some little mark of your remembrance. Now you come home a hundred times without once saying: ‘God keep you.’ You never cease from grumbling, you become as ugly as yellow lard, as cantankerous as a devil. Of your fifty lackeys you have dismissed fifteen; there remain only three coaches here, and I think—God forgive me!—that you retrench your wife’s expenditure in dress.”
On the subject of coquetry, Columbine thus admonishes Isabella:
“Things must never be allowed to go to extremes. But I assure you that a little pinch of coquetry scattered through the manners of a woman, renders her a hundred times more lovable and desirable. I but repeat the words of my mother, who was a marvellously well-informed woman on this subject. I have heard her say a hundred times that it is with coquetry as with vinegar: when too much is put into the sauce it becomes sharp and detestable; when it contains too little it is so faint as not to be tasted; but when you achieve that mediocrity which arouses appetite, it will induce you to eat your very fingers. It is the same with woman. When she is coquettish at the expense of her honour, fie, fie! that is not worth a devil. When she is not coquettish at all, that is still worse; her virtue seems confounded with her temperament, and you would suppose her merely a lethargic beauty. But when a beautiful woman has just so much sparkle as is required to please, faith, if I were a man, that should tell with me.”
In Le Banqueroutier to prove to Isabella that her heart is more tender than she cares to confess, this is what she imagines:
Columbine. Bring me a mantle, a scarf, a wig and a hat belonging to mademoiselle’s brother. I will beguile our leisure by counterfeiting one of these sighing lovers.
Isabella. But what shall I call you?
Columbine. You shall call me “Chevalier.” And be on your guard, for, faith, I shall press you closely. You laugh? Had God but made a man of me I should have been a dangerous rogue. (She goes out, to return dressed as a man.) Faith! mademoiselle, it is not without trouble that one penetrates to your apartments. If your brutal porter but wore laced breeches he would be taken for a Swiss. Do you know that I have spent literally two hours at your door, and that this rascal would not have consented to open if it had not occurred to me to tell him that I am a relative of yours? Count me a rascal if I do not speak the truth. By the way, have I told you that I love you?
Isabella. That statement has not yet reached me.
Columbine. We men of feeling are sometimes so inattentive that it is necessary to guess our meaning. I find you most touchingly blossoming.
Isabella. Fie! Chevalier, you must not look at me. I am not personable to-day. These last two nights I have been so ill that I have not closed an eye. You will understand that one may not be beautiful after such a defeat to one’s health.
Columbine. You have, perdition catch me, more health than I have need of. My only fear is lest your illness should be of the heart. Lovable as you are it is not possible that you should not bear some passion in your soul. Should it be so, conceal it from me, for I would sooner that five hundred devils should seize me than——
Isabella. How, Chevalier! Are you jealous?
Columbine. As the devil! My beautiful, will you compel me to sigh for ever? When will you sup with me, chez Lamy?
Isabella. Chevalier! You are wanting in respect. A lady of my quality in a tavern!
Little by little Columbine becomes impassioned and plays so well her rôle of a lover that Isabella sighs: “Alas, Columbine! what a pity that you are not a boy!”
Columbine is frank, and calls all things by their proper name. But if at times her mistress does not listen to her she pretends that she desires to quit her service knowing full well that this will never be permitted.
Columbine. If you were to give me three times my present wages, I would not remain another quarter of an hour in your service. You may think that I am ruled by money. I love my reputation, mademoiselle, and that is all that matters.
Isabella. I do not think, Columbine, that your reputation has run any risks with me.
Columbine. All that is very well, but I am going to leave you.
Isabella. How! without telling me the reason?
Columbine. I leave you because my heart is in the right place, and I am dying of shame to see how little progress you have made in six months. From morning to night I wear myself out body and soul to teach you that beauty unadorned makes no dupes, and that a marriageable girl must adapt herself to all sorts of rôles if she is to succeed. Instead of profiting by my lessons you remain tranquilly confident of your charms and you leave the care of your fortune to your star. A fine way that to go about getting a husband!
Isabella. You are wrong to scold me, Columbine. Since you have been with me I have been no more than the echo of your remonstrances, and in company I never speak save on the lines which you have indicated to me.
Columbine. You go about it in a fine way! Virtue of my life! When marriage is the aim, more artifice is necessary. I have told you a hundred times to assume a severe and haughty air with those who seek you in marriage. Man is an animal that desires to be mastered. He attaches himself only to those who repulse him. From the moment that you seem gentle and complaisant any fatuous suitor may suppose your heart to be garrotted by his charms. But when you treat him with indifference, you will see him supple, arduous, attentive, sparing no pains or expense to succeed in pleasing you.
Isabella. It seems, then, that I am still a novice, for I had thought that sincerity sustained by honesty must most surely win affection.
Columbine. Whence are you with your honesty? Go on singing that tune and you’ll die an old maid. Get it into your head, mademoiselle, that with the man of to-day it is necessary to be astute, alert, and roguish even, if necessary. The great thing is to become a wife; the rest is in the hands of God.
In L’Homme à Bonnes Fortunes, Columbine is the younger sister of Isabella. She is but fifteen years of age, and desires already to be married.
Columbine dressed as a little girl, and Isabella
Isabella. You are really very foolish to stuff your head with silly notions of love and marriage. Is such conduct becoming in a younger sister? Were it not better that you should renounce the world?
Columbine. All that is very easy to say, my sister, but you wouldn’t speak as you speak if you felt as I feel.
Isabella. And what do you feel, pray? And what do I feel who am your elder? Do you hear me complaining of the tiresomeness of the spinster state? You’re an amusing urchin!
Columbine. An amusing urchin? I am not as much an urchin as I seem: and I should have become a wife long since if my father had permitted it, for I have been told that one may be married at the age of twelve.
Isabella. But do you so much as know what a husband is, that you talk like this?
Columbine. Should I want one if I didn’t know?
Isabella. Hey! And where have you learned all these fine things?
Columbine. One doesn’t need to learn them. Marriage must be a very agreeable state, since the mere thought of it brings so much pleasure.
Isabella. You are very much out in your reckoning if you think marriage is agreeable. A fine thing to have a husband who is always grumbling! A fine thing to have the care of servants! A fine thing to suffer the inconvenience of pregnancy! That alone were sufficient to make me renounce marriage for ever. You are not fit for marriage. It is not a child’s game.
Columbine. And I tell you that I am as fit for marriage as you are. And although I may be wrong, if I were married at once I am sure I should not die of it.
Isabella. Really! I think I am very patient to listen to all these expressions of your petty humour! There is no one so bereft of sense as to desire to take charge of you.
Columbine. Eh! la, la, it is not such a heavy charge, and everybody is not afraid of it. Less than a week ago, in a shop at the Palais, a gentleman of condition told me how much he liked me, and how glad he would be to marry me.
Isabella. And what did you answer him?
Columbine. I told him that I was still very young for that, but that next year——
Isabella. You will be older and more foolish. Can’t you see that he was mocking you, and that you are becoming ridiculous? You ought to die of shame.
Pierrot (entering). How now, mesdemoiselles! What a noise you are making. You seem to be flattering one another after the fashion of cat and dog.
Columbine. Pierrot, it is my sister who is angry. She would have no husbands but for herself.
Pierrot. The glutton!
Columbine. My poor Pierrot. You who are so beautiful, tell me: is it necessary that I should be a spinster all my life?
Pierrot. Impossible! Look now, girls should be married when they are young; youth is game that won’t keep.
Isabella. But then, is it just that I should resign my rights to a younger sister?
Pierrot (to Columbine). It is true that so far you are but an embryo, and I have seen larger ones in bottles.
Columbine. I admit, Pierrot, that I am still small, but——
Isabella. Silence! There is no enduring your impertinences. I will leave you.
After the exit of Isabella, Columbine entrusts Pierrot with the delivery of a letter to the gentleman whom she met at the Palais. “Since I know how to write,” she says, “why should I not write?”
“Quite so,” replies Pierrot, and he departs with the love-letter, exclaiming: “A fine thing nature! It thinks of marriage whilst in the shell!”
Some scenes later Pierrot brings the reply from this gentleman of condition whom Columbine already loves, and who is none other than Harlequin.
Columbine. Well, my poor Pierrot, did you bear my letter to this viscount?
Pierrot. I did, and he sends you a little note in return.
Columbine (snatching the letter from him). Give it me quickly.
Pierrot. Peste! How sharp-set you are upon the quarry.
Columbine (reading). “Love is like an itch; there is no concealing it. Wherefore may the plague catch me if I do not come and see you to-day.—Viscount of Bergamotte.”
Pierrot. Now there is a man who writes tenderly.
Columbine. He loves me, for he says so, and I hope that we shall soon be married.
It is always Harlequin who is, will be, or has been the lover or the husband of Columbine. But Harlequin is not set upon being faithful. He courts other women, and goes even so far as to introduce one into the conjugal domicile, pretending himself a bachelor. But his duplicity is discovered, and Columbine comes to an understanding with Angélique, her rival, and they both avenge themselves by cudgelling the too-perfidious Harlequin.
Sometimes Harlequin has abandoned her in Venice, to go to seek his fortune in Paris under the dress and style of the Marquis Sbruffadelli. Columbine pursues him with her vengeance, and assumes all manner of disguises to frighten him, for she has given out that she is dead, thereby causing great joy to Harlequin, who is in haste to marry Isabella.
Columbine unites herself with Pasquariello, and they vie with each other as to which shall play the more tricks upon the ungrateful Harlequin. First she comes as a Spaniard, addressing Harlequin in Castilian; he does not understand a word of it, and interprets what she says in his own fashion. After putting him in a rage, she discloses herself, crying: “Perfido traditore, m’avrai negli occhi, se non m’hai nel cuore!” (Perfidious traitor, you shall have me in your sight if not in your heart). Harlequin, terrified, cries for help. She runs away to return as a soubrette and enter the service of her rival, Isabella. There Harlequin attempts to flirt with her, and implores her to come and mend and starch the only three shirts that he possesses. Columbine, pretending not to know him, speaks to him of Harlequin, alluding to him as a wretch, a villain, who caused the death of a certain heart-broken Columbine.
“In truth,” says Harlequin, “there are great villains in the world! But is she really dead?”
“Alas, it is but too true,” she replies. Whereupon Harlequin makes philosophy upon love and death.
Columbine interrupts him by revealing herself: “Perfido traditore, m’avrai negli occhi, se non m’hai nel cuore!” This threat comes up again and again; it is the drop of water which, falling incessantly upon the rock, ends by piercing it. She reappears as a girl from Gascony and speaks its dialect; again as a Moorish girl, in which character she dances and pulls the beard of Harlequin. She turns up as a master of arms, as a picture, as a doctor; as a woman she lodges a complaint against Harlequin, and returns as a lawyer to plead against him. Finally Harlequin, worn out by this unceasing persecution, marries her.
Caterina Biancolelli played in Paris until the closure of the Comédie-Italienne in 1697, whereupon she withdrew entirely from the theatre.
It was on the stage of the Comédie-Italienne that Columbine assumed for the first time the costume of Arlequine in Le Rétour de la Foire de Besons, in 1695. Afterwards this costume became a favourite one in the fairs. The popularised character of Columbine was traditionally dressed as Arlequine on the trestles in the farces, and very often in pantomime. It was the same in the case of Pierrette, who became the familiar companion of Pierrot, dressed in white with powdered face.
The costume of Columbine is very varied: now a soubrette, now a cavalier, now a little girl, now a lawyer, now a doctor, now the wife of Harlequin, whose mask and costume she wears. In the plays of Gherardi she wears the high comb of the period and a costume which would leave her undistinguishable from the leading lady but for the little apron, traditional in the theatre, and characteristic of the soubrette.
In more modern pantomime Columbine is usually the daughter, niece or ward of Cassandre. Her love affairs with Harlequin are nearly always crossed by the paternal will, which favours Léandre, the rich and powerful Léandre, the beautiful Léandre, so called in derision. But she has also, nearly always, a good fairy, or magic godmother, who saves her, and notwithstanding Cassandre, Pierrot and Léandre, she marries the Harlequin of her dreams.
v
In 1716, Margherita Rusca went to Paris as a member of the Regent’s Italian Company. Wife of the famous Harlequin Antonio Vicentini (Thomassin) she played the parts of waiting-maids under the name of Violette. She was born at Bologna in 1691, and died on the 28th February 1731, in Paris.
Violette’s character is practically the same as that of Columbine. Like Columbine she is Harlequin’s mistress, but in point of malice she returns him as good as he gives.
Violette. Good morning, my dear Harlequin. What sort of a night have you had?
Harlequin. I do not know, for I was asleep, and therefore can tell you nothing about it. And you?
Violette. Oh, as for me, I don’t know whether I slept, for I did but dream all night, and when you dream you don’t know what you are doing.
Harlequin. And you dreamed of me, no doubt?
Violette. No, I dreamed of that great baker lad who was your rival in Rome.
Harlequin. Traitress! And what did you dream touching this baker boy?
Violette. I dreamed that I received a letter from him in Lyons, in which he promised to come instantly to Paris.
Harlequin. Fie! I don’t like it at all. Such dreams are cornuti.
In the eighteenth century we find the soubrettes taking the names of Zerbinette, Olivette, Tontine, Mariotte, Genevotte, Babet, Farinette, Perette, Finebrette, Fiametta, Giannina, Catte, Ghitta, Checchina, Smeraldina, etc. Amongst the principal actresses performing these parts in the Italian comedy in Paris was Hippolyte de la Tude, known by the name of Clairon, who made her début at the Théâtre-Italien on the 8th January 1736, in the soubrette rôle in L’Isle des Esclaves. Of the début she speaks herself in the following terms:—
“... I was taken to the house of my benefactress, where Deshayes, an actor of the Comédie-Italienne, gave me a hearing. He was so pleased with me that he presented me to all his associates. I was admitted to this theatre, and I was given a part to study. Permission for my début was obtained, and finally I made my appearance on the stage before I had reached the age of twelve.
“The applause which I received reconciled my mother to the career which I had chosen. I was given preceptors in writing, dancing, music and the Italian language; my industry, my ardour and my memory amazed my teachers. I devoured everything; I retained everything. But my excessive youth, my short stature, the lack of protection, and the fear entertained by the famous Thomassin lest my talent should be hurtful to his daughters, who were not yet established, compelled me at the end of a year to seek my fortune elsewhere. I was engaged in the company of Rouen to perform all the parts suitable to my years, and to sing and dance. I was intent upon playing comedy and nothing else mattered to me.”
vi
On the 6th May 1744, Anna Veronese, having adopted the stage name of Coraline, made her first appearance as a soubrette. She was born in Venice, and was a daughter of Carlo Veronese (Pantaloon). “Both made their début in the same piece, Le Double Mariage d’Arlequin. The father was about forty-two years of age, and the daughter hardly fourteen; they gave the greatest possible satisfaction, and both were equally well applauded.” The talents, like the beauty of Coraline, increased from day to day, and she was long without a rival in the theatre.
Her gifts inspired Marmontel, whilst Jean-Jacques Rousseau has the following to say of her in his Confessions (1743-1744):—
“None would suspect that it is to me that lovers of the theatre in Paris owe Coraline and her sister Camille. Yet, nothing could be more true. Veronese, their father, was engaged, together with his children, for the Italian troupe; and, after having received two thousand francs for the journey, instead of setting out, he remained coolly in Venice, at the theatre of San Luca (or possibly it may have been San Samuele, for proper names elude me). Thither Coraline, no more than a child at the time, was drawing a large number of people. M. le duc de Gesvres, as first gentleman of the chamber, wrote to the ambassador, claiming the persons of father and daughter. M. de Montaigu, in giving me the letter, gave me no instructions beyond saying, ‘Look at that.’
“I repaired to M. le Blond to beg him to speak to the patrician who owned the theatre of San Luca, and whose name, I think, was Zustiniani, to the end that he might dismiss Veronese, who was engaged for the service of the King of France. Le Blond performed the commission indifferently, Zustiniani temporised and Veronese was not dismissed. This made me angry. The season was that of carnival. I put on a mask and had myself borne to Zustiniani’s palace. All those who observed the entrance of my gondola and the ambassador’s livery were astonished. Venice had never seen the like. I enter, I am announced under the name of a masked gentleman (una siora maschera). The moment I was introduced, I removed my mask, and named myself. The senator turned pale in his stupefaction. ‘Sir,’ I said to him in Venetian, ‘it is with regret that I importune Your Excellency with my visit, but you have in your theatre of San Luca a man named Veronese, who has been engaged for the service of the king, and whom you have vainly been requested to surrender. I come to claim him in the name of his Majesty.’
“My short speech took effect. No sooner had I departed than Zustiniani ran to give an account of his adventures to the inquisitors of State, who gave him a wigging. Veronese was dismissed that very day. I sent word to him that if he did not set out within a week I would have him arrested. He set out.”
In 1749 Collé, in that satirical and unjust journal of his which, published after his death, came somewhat to modify men’s opinion of him, wrote on the subject of the first performance of the Rétour de la Paix, of Boissy, at the Théâtre-Italien:
“... It must also be agreed that the actors and actresses, not excluding Coraline and Camille, are very, very mediocre at their best, and thence descend to the detestable. Yet this theatre is well frequented notwithstanding that its comedians are fatuous, ridiculous and bad, and that they never know a word of their parts; Harlequin is cold, Scapin has but one scene and some grimaces; the women inspire horror with the exception of Coraline, who has the graces of youth and of beauty and some spirit, but who, notwithstanding that, is of no intelligence, and has the bad habit of giggling when she is on the stage. Sylvia is old, and Deshayes extremely mediocre. None the less theirs is to-day the best frequented spectacle. What can one say to it? Although the French comedians have fallen low, and are impossible in tragedy, they are at least endurable in comedy by comparison with the Italians; and to say this is to say much, for they are worth very little.”
Notwithstanding the judgment of Collé, the vogue of Coraline was enormous, and we are compelled to think that she had more than youth and beauty, since a whole series of plays was written specially for her. A great number of pieces appeared one after the other, bearing such titles as: Coraline Magicienne, Coraline Jardinière, Coraline Protectrice de l’Innocence, Coraline Fée, Coraline Intrigante, Coraline Esprit Follet, Les Folies de Coraline, Arlequin-Coraline, L’Heureux Désespoir d’Arlequin et de Coraline, etc.
Anna Veronese left France probably in 1750, for, under the name of Coralina, she was playing in the comedies of Carlo Goldoni at Venice in the years 1751 and 1752. Camille, who had been for several years playing the same parts, quitted the company and entered that of Sacchi, in which she shone until 1769 in the improvised fairy spectacles of Carlo Gozzi.
It will be seen that in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the type of soubrette, daring in her language and in her actions, is to be confused and identified with that of the waiting-woman of Molière and his successors. This type retains to-day in Italy nothing peculiarly its own.
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The frank speech and the free ways of the woman of the people were personified in Naples in the character of La Guaiassa, a type speaking and acting like the matronly women of that class and country. She was compounded of triviality and a certain natural wit which reminds us of the chatterings of the ancient Citeria of the Latin farces. But the chief characteristic of La Guaiassa was a real and great goodness of heart under a gross exterior; ignoring everything that is beyond the narrow horizon of her alley (vicolo), and never having journeyed beyond the neighbouring street, hers was the good sense of honesty. This rôle was played in the first thirty years of the nineteenth century by a celebrated woman, who captured the hearts of the Neapolitan public fully as much as did Pulcinella. She expressed herself admirably in the dialect of the Neapolitan streets. Though handsome, her countenance lent itself marvellously well to her rôle. She was a Roman, and off the stage spoke the purest Italian. The news of her death in the fifties carried with it a sense of loss to the entire kingdom of Naples.
The unlimited licence allowed to the Italian soubrette and to La Guaiassa was never fully admitted in the French theatre; not even in the days when the public taste itself was least refined and its ears least prudish. Molière and Gherardi are contemporaries, but it is easily seen how much the Columbine of the latter exceeds in crudity the Dorine of the former. It is not only to the superiority of the talent of Molière that we must attribute his inferior audacity; the same public which, in the same theatre, on alternate days attended the performances of the Italians and the French, would never have tolerated in the French Company the same freedom of speech which they permitted to the Italians.
This is the more remarkable because, by a singular but verified anomaly, the morals of the Italian actresses, singers and dancers have always been superior to those of the French, and their domestic conduct better. The Marquis d’Argens, in his very philosophical—as the word was understood in his day—letters, gives the following certificate of good conduct to the Italian actresses:—
“There is a greater difference between the characters of the Italian and French comédiennes than there is between our opera and theirs. Education, prejudice, custom and remuneration are the four things which produce the difference existing between the morals and the habits of life of the two. It has been one of our affectations to cast ignominy and infamy upon those who by their talents render our country illustrious. The Italians are very far from having any such ridiculous prejudices. True lovers of art, they are careful not to wither those who produce it. Senesini, Scalsi and Farfalini are beloved and cherished in Rome; not only are they not considered unworthy of burial, but, when one is compelled to render them the last honours, to the sorrow of losing them will be united all that will go to proclaim how much they were esteemed.
“It is by these distinctions and these rewards that the Italian comédiennes are inspired with sentiments unknown to our own; they share in the honours of civil society; they are encouraged by the respect in which their talent is held, and, since their profession includes nothing that is not brilliant, they are careful not to render themselves contemptible by debauchery.
“Our French comédiennes, on the contrary, seem to wish to profit by the idea which we have of them; they avail themselves of the advantage of being regarded as libertines and, since their art exposes them to contempt, they cease to be restrained by sentiments which would be useless.
“It would be ridiculous to demand that Italian actresses should conduct themselves better than other women; it is more than sufficient that, being more exposed than ordinary women, they should, nevertheless, be as virtuous. If after reading my letter you do not agree with me, examine the French and Italian troupes in Paris, and you will perceive living arguments to support me.”