The Princess. What do you seek, Harlequin? Is your master in the palace?
Harlequin. Madam, I implore Your Principality to pardon the impertinence of my stupidity; had I but known of your presence here I should not have been so foolish as to have brought my person hither.
The Princess. You have done no harm. But tell me, are you seeking your master?
Harlequin. Exactly. You have guessed it, madam. Since he spoke to you a while ago I have lost him in this plaguey house and, saving your presence, I have lost myself also. If you would show me the way you would be doing me a kindness; there are here so many chambers that I have been travelling for an hour without coming to the end of them. Par la mardi! if you prize all this it must mean that it brings you a lot of money. Nevertheless, what a jumble of furniture, of oddities, and of kickshaws! A whole village might live a year upon the value of it all.... It is so beautiful that one does not dare to look at it; it instils fear into a poor man like me. How rich you are, you princes, and I, what is it that I am by comparison with this! But surely it is another impertinence on my part to reason with you as with an equal. Your companion is laughing, perhaps I have said something foolish.
Hortense. You have said nothing foolish; on the contrary, you seem to me of an excellent wit.
Harlequin. Pardi! I laugh always: what would you? I have nothing to lose. You amuse yourselves with being rich, you others, and I—I amuse myself with being gay; to every one his own amusement in this world.
With his master Harlequin shows himself to be no less critical and profound.
Lelio. I am disposed to confide in you that I am a person of condition, who amuse myself by travelling incognito. I am young; it is a study that will be useful to me some day.
Harlequin. My faith, it is a study that will teach you nothing but poverty; it was hardly worth while to travel post for the sake of studying all this rubbish. What will you make of all this knowledge of men? You will learn but poor things.
Lelio. But they will cheat me no more.
Harlequin. That will spoil you.
Lelio. Why?
Harlequin. You will no longer be so kindly when you are learned on that subject. By dint of seeing so many scoundrels, in truth, you will become a scoundrel yourself.... Good-bye! Which is the way to the kitchen?
Comical scenes follow between Harlequin and Frederick, an ambitious courtier who seeks to seduce Harlequin. The latter thereupon becomes again the loutish lackey, opposing to Frederick’s attack the ponderous and ingenious probity of the peasant.
Harlequin. Pardi! You treat me like your own child. There is no boggling at that. Wealth, employment, and a pretty girl; that means a whole shipload of victuals, money and delicacies. It is clear that you love me very dearly!
Frederick. Yes; your physiognomy pleases me; you are a good lad!
Harlequin. Oh! as for that, I am as droll as a box; leave it to me and we shall laugh like mad together; but let us behold at once this wealth, these employments and this pretty girl, for I am in haste to be rich and at ease.
Frederick has a small service to ask of him. It is that of spying upon his master, and to report to him his words and actions. “Observe all very carefully, and as an earnest of the recompense ultimately to be yours, here is some money for you in advance.”
Harlequin. Can’t you advance me the girl also? We will deduct her from the rest.
Frederick. A service, my child, is never paid for until it is rendered; that is the custom.
Harlequin. A villainous custom!... I prefer to give you my note of hand to the effect that I have received this girl on account.... But, when I come to think of it, I am afraid you want me to do dirty work for you. What do you want with the words of my lord Lelio, my master?
Frederick. Mere curiosity.
Harlequin. Hum.... There is malice under all this. You have a sly look. I will bet you ten sous that you are a worthless fellow.... Get along! you should not tempt a poor lad who has no more honour than is necessary to him, and who is fond of girls. I have all the trouble in the world to prevent myself from being a scoundrel. Must my honour be the ruin of me, to deprive me of wealth, employment and a pretty wench. Par la mardi! you are very wicked to have invented this girl.
Frederick. Consider that I am offering you your fortune, and that you are losing it.
Harlequin. I am considering that your commission smells of trickery, and luckily this trickery fortifies my poor honour which was wavering. Bah! your pretty girl is no better than a drab; your employments are concerned with some dogs’ traffic. That is my last word, and I am going straight to find the princess and my master to relate to them my disaster and all your proposals.
Frederick. Wretch! are you resolved then to dishonour me?
Harlequin. Good! when one has no honour is it necessary to have reputation?
Thomassin would execute at times highly extraordinary turns of strength and of agility.
“He would run round the outside of the boxes of the first, second and third tiers; but the public, too deeply interested in the life of this amiable actor, compelled him to cut out a turn so dangerous which invariably had the effect of frightening the spectators far more than it amused them.
“His natural gaiety and the graces of his clowning would in themselves have sufficed to have charmed the public, even had not nature made him an excellent actor, which is to be taken in the widest sense of the term as meaning that he was natural, naïve, original and pathetic.”
Amid the laughter excited by his buffoonery he would at times suddenly surprise his audience into tears. “Often, after beginning by laughing at the manner in which he expressed his pain, one ended by experiencing the emotion by which he was penetrated.”
Like Domenico, in the matter of pupils, Thomassin produced only very bad copies, and “one saw nothing but pitiful attempts in the rôle of Harlequin” until the day when Carlo Bertinazzi came to succeed him.
Thomassin had married Margarita Rusca, who played waiting-woman parts under the name of Violetta. He died on the 19th of August 1739 at the age of fifty-seven, after a long illness. Among the many children he left and who have appeared on the Italo-French stage, the best known was Madame de Hesse, wife of the actor of this name.
On the 21st of November of 1739 Antonio Constantini, a brother of the celebrated Angelo Constantini, who had created the rôle of Mezzetin in Paris, made his first appearance in the part of Harlequin. He played “with great vivacity,” and held out some hope that he would repair the loss which the theatre had sustained by the death of Thomassin; he did not, however, fulfil this promise, and he was not accepted for the rôles of zany.
The feeble début of the Alsatian, Théodorak—anagram of Cadoret—in 1740, met with no better success.
“It is altogether incredible what a number of Harlequins appeared within the space of three or four years; they seemed to rise from the ashes of Thomassin: but, similar to those shadows which are formed from the exhalations of tombs, and which the least sound dissipates, so all these disappeared before the booings of the groundlings.”
In 1741, Gioachino Vicentini, the youngest son of Thomassin, aged eighteen, made his début as Harlequin, on the 26th of August. “But, as talents are not always hereditary, he was not accepted at the Comédie-Italienne, and he confined himself thereafter to playing in the provinces.”
In the same year the Sieur Molin also attempted the rôle of Harlequin with no better reception. He also repaired to the country.
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At last, on the 10th of April 1741, Carlo Bertinazzi, born at Turin, 1713, made his début, and was received into the troupe in the month of August 1742, after having played with success the famous character of Harlequin for more than a year, and having surpassed the hopes which had been founded upon his talent. This brilliant début was thus chronicled in the Mercure:
“On Thursday, the 10th of April 1741, the Italian comedians opened their theatre with an Italian piece in prose and in three acts, in which the Sieur Carlin Bertinazzi, born at Turin, some twenty-eight years ago, performed for the first time the rôle of Harlequin, the principal character in the piece. The Sieur Richard, who had addressed the public on the closure of the theatre, addressed it again on the opening, and expressed himself in the following terms:—‘Gentlemen, this day, which renews our efforts and our homage, was to have been marked by the novelty which we had prepared for you; but the actor who is going to have the honour of appearing before you for the first time was too deeply interested, and too impatient to learn his fate, to permit us to postpone his début. “Should your novelty fail,” said he, “I shall learn how your public hisses, and that is something that I do not want to learn; should it succeed I shall know how they applaud, and I shall draw, perhaps, a sad comparison between its reception and that which may be accorded to me.” So as not to give this new actor any grounds for reproach, we have conformed entirely with his wishes. He knows, gentlemen, not only what he has to dread in appearing before you, but also in following that excellent actor whom we have lost (Thomassin) in whose rôle you are about to see him. These just causes of apprehension would be counterbalanced in his mind if he were aware of the resources which await him in your indulgence; but it is in vain that we have endeavoured to reassure him on this score; he can be convinced of the truth of it only by yourselves, and we hope, gentlemen, that you will be disposed to fulfil the promises which we have made to him on your behalf. They are founded upon an experience so long and so happy that we are as assured of your kindliness as you must be of our zeal and profound respect.’”
It was in such terms that the public was flattered in those days. And being thus flattered, it received Carlin with an indulgence of which he was very far from standing in need.
Carlin’s performance was easy, natural and comical. Garrick, seeing him in a scene in which he had just received a correction from his master, menacing this last with one hand, whilst rubbing his side with the other, was so charmed by the naturalness of his miming that he exclaimed: “Behold, how the very back of Carlin has a physiognomy and an expression!”
Carlin Bertinazzi was, like Domenico and all great buffoons, of a very melancholy character; he depended upon his wit and not upon his temperament.
Of Domenico it is related that, being intensely troubled with his spleen, he went to consult Dumoulin, a celebrated doctor, who prescribed for him as a remedy that he should go and see Domenico at the Comédie-Italienne, because Domenico made all the world laugh. “Alas!” replied the poor actor, “I am Domenico, and from now onwards I must look upon myself as a lost man.”
To his histrionic talents Carlin united considerable knowledge on various subjects and all the qualities that go to make a good member of society.
It is related that on a lovely summer evening, when the heat was suffocating, and Carlin was to perform in two plays, Camerani, the manager, came to inform him that there was but one spectator in the theatre, and that there was no occasion to give a performance. Carlin laughed, and replied that it was necessary to play none the less since there was a public (un public). The curtain rose; Carlin appeared, drew his wooden sword, took a turn round the theatre, and after a thousand capers which provoked great bursts of laughter from a fat gentleman seated in a corner of the orchestra, he advanced to the footlights and addressed him:
“Monsieur Tout-Seul, we are desolated, my comrades and I, to be compelled to play in such weather as this to one single spectator; nevertheless, if you demand it, play we will.”
The spectator entered into conversation with the actor, informed him that he was from the country, and that he had come to Paris for no other purpose but that of seeing him perform, and implored Carlin to grant him this favour. Carlin resigned himself and began his performance. All at once the sky became overcast, thunder rumbled and rain came down in torrents. The theatre filled itself as by enchantment, and in less than an hour the receipts rose to nine hundred livres, an enormous figure at this epoch. At the end of the second and last piece, Carlin came forward again to the footlights and sought his fat gentleman, who had been convulsed with laughter throughout the performance. “Monsieur Tout-seul, are you still there?” he cried. The man from the provinces rose to reply: “Yes, M. Carlin, and you have made me laugh very much.” “Monsieur Tout-seul, I come to thank you for having compelled us to perform; as a consequence our receipts are enormous. Thank you then once more, Monsieur Tout-seul.” “I am enchanted, M. Carlin. Au revoir,” replied the fat country gentleman, striding across his bench to depart, whilst the audience shook with laughter.
When there was hesitation to announce a performance, either on account of the heat or from any other cause, Carlin would say to Camerani: “Let us put up our bills, none the less. Who knows?—perhaps Monsieur Tout-seul will come this evening.”
Carlin died in Paris in 1675. He was still playing within a very short time of his death. His advanced age had robbed him of none of his vivacity, mirth and suppleness. The following epitaph was written in his honour:
As author he has left us Les Métamorphoses d’Arlequin.
Modern literature has made of him an historical personage. A very remarkable novel of M. de Latouche attributes to him a regular correspondence with Pope Clement XIV., who was in fact an old schoolfellow of his. MM. Rochefort and Gustave Lemoine wrote some years ago a very pretty piece on this subject. Carlin, ignorant that the new pope was that same Lorenzo Ganganelli, the friend of his youth, received a visit from him, addressed him familiarly in the second person singular, and performed with him a scene of which Ganganelli held the manuscript, laughing so heartily the while that he kept forgetting to take up his cues.
On the subject of the début of a Harlequin at the Théâtre-Italien, Collé, in his Journal Historique, speaks as follows of the masters of the burlesque art:—
“On Monday, the 21st inst. (June 1751), I went to the Comédie to see a new Harlequin who has been playing there for several days. He is a very nimble rascal, a mountebank, a sort of rope dancer, a buffoon and a sound comedian; as he is merely a bird of passage, the Italians would not have been so ill-advised as to have permitted him to appear upon the stage if he had been better than, or even the equal of Carlin, their present Harlequin. The latter, who for some years now has been in possession of this rôle, does not acquit himself at all badly, although he is sometimes ponderous in his action and always stupid in his subjects, whatever may be said to the contrary by the partisans of these paltry spectacles. But we may say at least that Thomassin, his predecessor was quite as stupid as Carlin, and even perhaps more so, although he repaired his short-comings by an unflagging energy and inimitable grace. This comedian even went so far as to endow his Harlequin with a singular attribute; he gave him a pathetic side; he could move his audience even to tears in certain pieces such as La Double Inconstance, Timon, L’Isle des Esclaves, and others; this has always seemed to me a prodigy to perform under the mask of Harlequin.”
In 1777 Bigottini took up the rôles of Harlequin. Grimm refers to him as follows:—
“A young Harlequin of sixty odd summers, the Sieur Bigottini, has made his début on the stage of the Comédie-Italienne in a piece of his own, entitled Arlequin Esprit Follet. The performance of the Sieur Bigottini has no analogy with that of the actor he is replacing; he has not the same grace nor the same subtlety, nor yet the same naïveté; nevertheless his metamorphoses are ingenious and varied, and his movements, without having the suppleness which characterised the slightest gestures of Carlin, are of extraordinary precision and lightness. Nothing could equal the swiftness with which he changes his costume and his mask; his talent on this point approaches prodigy, but it is a style of merit which must fail to amuse for very long. It is only wit that may be infinitely varied, it is only grace whose charm never stales.”
At the end of the eighteenth century, one of the most celebrated Harlequins of Italy was Golinetti.
The character of Harlequin, which underwent as many variations in its type as in the orthography of the name, which from Harlequino became Arlechino, Arlichino and, to-day, Arlecchino, has more or less passed from fashion in Italy. Meneghino and Stenterello have taken his place. Nevertheless he is still to be found in the marionette theatres. There he is dressed in garments broken into squares of yellow, red and green. He still wears his mask and his black chin-piece to simulate a beard; but, perhaps to indicate his great age, his moustachios and his eyebrows have become white.
In France the type is more or less extinct. The wit which he developed in the eighteenth century has descended once more to his legs. He is no more than a traditional mime, more or less graceful. His last successes were leaped and danced by Cossard and Derruder.
In Italy the principal actors who filled the part were: Fremeri, in 1624; Belotti, in 1625; Girolamo Francesco, in 1630; Astori of Venice, in 1720; Bertoli, in 1730; Ignazio Casanova, of Bologna, in 1734.
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Trivelino is, under another name and in a different costume, what Harlequin was before Domenico gave him that attribute of subtlety which his successors have always preserved.
Instead of lozenges arranged symmetrically, we find small triangles over the seams of his garments and suns and moons scattered here and there upon his coat and breeches. He too wears the soft hat with the rabbit-tail, but he does not carry a bat. For the rest his name, which signifies a wearer of rags, is perhaps the real name borne by Harlequin before the sixteenth century.
We have said that in 1635 Domenico Locatelli (Trivelin) was performing on the stage of the Comédie-Italienne in Paris, when Domenico Biancolelli went there to make his début under the name of Arlechino. They were both lackeys, and they portrayed more or less the same character. They presented a sort of duplicated rôle and they were known as first and second zany, for in many of the pieces of the Italian troupe which went to Paris in 1716 the rôles of zanies are played under the names of Trivelino, Arlechino and Scapino indifferently.
In the companies that roved through Italy in the seventeenth century the rôle of Trivelino was that of an intriguer who incessantly tormented that poor fool Arlechino. He was in league with Fritellino and Truffaldino to play the most damnable tricks upon the Doctor and upon Pantaloon; he was, in short, a thorough-paced rascal, a worthy rival of Brighella.
Thus, in Artémire, a parody given at the Théâtre-Italien in 1720, we have the following scene:—
Trivelino. The goods of Pantaloon shall be my salary. Crime is to be approved when it is necessary. But here comes Harlequin; though something of a fool, I would have him join us in this plot. (To Harlequin.) Are you brave?
Harlequin. Yes, particularly at table.
Trivelino. I know your talents for eating and for drinking, and I know the activity of your jaws, but I want other exploits from you at present. I have chosen you for a daring enterprise.
Harlequin. Pantaloon is alive....
Trivelino. That does not worry me. I have determined to murder him.
Harlequin. Fie! that smells of the gibbet.
Trivelino. I want you, my dear Harlequin, to second me.
Harlequin. In the art of murder I am still a novice. Do not reckon upon me.
Trivelino. You are a coward.
Harlequin. Better words, my friend! I am prudent.... But, to assassinate Pantaloon—no, no.... I cannot without sorrow behold the slaughter of a pig. How then can I murder Pantaloon?
Domenico Locatelli, who performed the rôles of Trivelino at the Petit-Bourbon Theatre, went to France in 1645. He was an excellent comedian. He wrote a very spectacular French piece entitled Rosaure, Impératrice de Constantinople, which was performed in 1658. After a brilliant career he died in March of 1671.
Pierre-François Biancolelli, born in 1681, and known under the name of Domenico, which had been borne by his father, was educated at a Jesuit college. Upon leaving school he joined Giuseppe Tortoretti (Pasquariello) who was then touring the provinces. He made his début with success as Trivelino at Toulouse. He then went to Montpellier, where he married Tortoretti’s daughter, with whom he had become enamoured in Paris, and for whose sake he had turned comedian.
He repaired immediately to Italy with his wife, and performed in Venice, Milan, Parma, Mantua and Genoa, returning afterwards to France, where he played in the provinces until 1710. He returned to Paris and performed until 1717 at the fairs of Saint-Germain and Saint-Laurent, after which he entered the Italian company of the Regent. This Biancolelli was the author of more than eighty pieces for the Italian repertory. He died in Paris in 1734.
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The first creation of Truffaldino took place somewhere about 1530 in the troupe of the famous Angelo Beolco (Ruzzante). He represents the sly and lying servant under the name of Truffa (the crafty). This type achieved popularity in Italy, and towards the middle of the seventeenth century it became one of the varieties of Harlequin, under the diminutive of Truffaldino.
In La Vaccaria of Ruzzante, Truffa is the servant of Flavio, a young lover, and in La Rhodiana by the same author, he is the servant of Roberto, whom he aids in his amours.
“You may trust me entirely” (he assures his master), “because, although you see me in these peasant garments, I am nevertheless of anything but low extraction. I disclose myself to you alone, assured that you will not betray my secret. Learn that my real name is Gasparo, and that I am the son of Roberto San-Severino; I was compelled to flee my country on account of a love affair with a beautiful lady whose relatives sought my life. I have travelled in Italy, in the East and in the West, and I have learnt several languages that have proved very useful to me. Finally, being in Venice, I fell in love with the daughter of my mistress, named Lucretia, and so that I might commune with her in secret, I assumed the garments of a peasant. Do not be offended if, whether alone with you or in company, I employ a language that corresponds with my dress.”
Towards 1738 the actor Sacchi was playing in Italy, and particularly in Venice, rôles similar to that of Harlequin, under the name of Truffaldino, a Bergamese caricature. Goldoni and the Abbé Chiari had boasted that they would drive the Commedia dell’ Arte and the leather masks from the theatre. Sacchi, seeing the national company disappearing, quitted Venice with his troupe and his friends, Brighella, Tartaglia and Pantaloon, to seek his fortune beyond the seas. But the great earthquake at Lisbon drove them out of Portugal. Sacchi then returned to Venice with his troupe, and, in 1761, the theatre of San-Samuele, which had been closed for five years, was put into repair and reopened with L’Amour des Trois Oranges, a fable in five acts, by Carlo Gozzi. The marvellous genre being supported by Gozzi, became a subject of enthusiasm in Venice until 1769, in which year a rival troupe appropriated Sacchi’s pieces and actors, opened the theatre of Sant’ Angelo, and brought about his ruin, notwithstanding the endeavours made by Sacchi in giving the public commedie sostenute. “But,” says M. Paul de Musset, “the decadence and the dispersion of Sacchi’s company was none the less inevitable. Truffaldino was growing old and infirm. Further to complicate matters the old fool fell in love with La Ricci (Gozzi’s mistress), and notwithstanding his seventy years, he gave umbrage to our poet. One day Gozzi discovered La Ricci in the act of cutting out some white satin to make a gown. The material was a present from Sacchi, and the young leading lady would have desired, with Italian naïveté, to have retained at one and the same time the lengths of satin and her virtue. So much was decidedly impossible. She kept the satin.”
The character as performed by Sacchi was that of a poltroon, who is beaten and deceived. Bombastic, very proud of his birth, and calling all others low born, he was nevertheless the butt of the piece. Sacchi was an admirable improvisor, and the rôles destined for him in the plays of Carlo Gozzi are not written in extenso.
“No one,” says Gozzi, “may write the rôle of Truffaldino, either in prose or in verse. It suffices Sacchi to know the intention of the author, so as to enable him to improvise scenes superior to any which a writer might have prepared him.”
Those passages which are intended to be performed by Truffaldino are merely indicated as follows:—“Truffaldino enters, goes through his pleasantries,” or even more simply: “Enter Truffaldino,” and then “Exit Truffaldino.” In certain pieces nevertheless his rôle is more fully set forth.
Truffaldino. You ask me what I am and what I am going to do. I am going to tell you; and I shall sincerely relate to you the story of my life. I came from the foundling hospital. Let me consider a moment my genealogical tree. It is most probable that I am the son of a king, because I have always experienced in my blood a great superiority. In the foundling hospital they attempted to teach me to read and to write, but my greatness of soul could never permit me to lower myself to such meannesses. In consequence of a certain inherent royal ferocity, it was my fate to break the skull of a teacher. After that I ran away and by virtue of my heroism I became a mendicant. Taken by corsairs I was sold as a slave. The Turks, perceiving in my physiognomy the indelible signs of my noble origin and admiring the majesty of my stomach, valued me in the market at the price of fifty philippes. My buyer, having thoroughly experienced how monarchically I was disposed to despise all such work as was set me, sold me again for fifty livres. My third buyer harnessed me with a donkey. In this situation I became so celebrated for my indifference to any kind of occupation other than that of eating that my latest buyer sold me for twenty-seven livres and a half. At last I was decorated with an honourable kick and thus I quitted slavery with honour and glory. I was as much out of place there as a fish in a meadow or a cheese in a library. After all that I have told you, you will readily see for yourself the nature of the employment for which I am fitted.