It is the old story: the bourgeois husband and the beautiful, dissatisfied, ambitious wife, who rebels at her dull surroundings, who believes herself “wasted,” who is tempted by a sympathetic admirer; and who falls. Rametty, director of the Nantes Theatre, is Gabrielle’s lover. His ardent prayer that she should accompany him on one of his tours and win the fame that inevitably awaits her, rings constantly in her ears. She resists, chiefly for the sake of her daughter, Pascaline. But the temptation to fly becomes irresistible when, on the night of one of Forjot’s concerts, audience, friends, her lover, and even a popular composer from Paris, delight, intoxicate her with their praise. Forjot, however, stands aloof; the eulogies of the popular composer—respectfully known as Le Maître—exasperate him.

In ecstasies is Gabrielle. In the heavens is Gabrielle. But she soon comes to earth again, when at last she and her husband find themselves alone. Forjot has returned to his ledgers—is making up his accounts. He has not a word to say of his wife’s success. He is entirely absorbed in the night’s receipts. He counts under his breath; he rustles the pages of his ledgers; he is—to Gabrielle—exasperating, maddening, intolerable.

And the storm bursts when Gabrielle, beside herself with rage, dashes one of the ledgers to the ground.

Now furious, now broken, now contemptuous, now with hoarse, poignant emotion, Forjot addresses his wife.

He knows her to be the mistress of Rametty. His illness of three years ago was due to that humiliating and horrible discovery, but he had thought that she had sinned in a moment of madness and was repentant; and so he resolved to pardon her, generously, without even charging her with her crime:

But even now the music publisher does not believe that Gabrielle will desert him. Shortly after she has left the room his little daughter enters and asks for her mother. The servant is sent in quest of Gabrielle, but returns to announce that she is nowhere to be found. When Forjot realises that his wife has left him he covers his face with his handkerchief and trembles all over and sobs.

In a former paper[4] I spoke of the prodigious importance of the child in France; the Child, the great indestructible bond between the parents. Of course, exceptions—as in Gabrielle Forjot’s case. But, as we shall see, Gabrielle seeks to recover Pascaline; and it is around this struggle that the vital interest of the play centres. It is also around this struggle, and in the feelings, language and conduct of those engaged in it that we realise the different conditions of sentiment, morals and manners that characterise respectively the French bourgeoisie and the lower English middle class.

Pascaline is the typical jeune fille. In the First Act she is a child of thirteen; thirteen, l’âge ingrat, for at that period the French jeune fille is plain. It is considered right—imperative—that she should be plain. If she be not so by nature she is made so. See her in her convent dress, her “Sunday best”—the one that most successfully conceals her natural grace—when Mademoiselle is most nearly a fright. Pascaline, for instance, first appears before us shy, awkward, with her hair dragged back from her forehead and falling down her shoulders in depressing little plaits, and arrayed in a dreadful white dress which no English girl of her age would don without a struggle and a tearful outburst. Nevertheless, the jeune fille is adored, and she knows it. She is strictly, terribly surveillée—but that, after all, is a proof of her importance. She must be protected from dangers, so precious is she. Has she, at the age of fifteen, only to cross the street the servant (I can see the indignant glances and hear the expressions of pity of her English sisters) must be close at her elbow. Plenty and plenty of time to wear fine dresses and make the first exciting bow to the world, and to be surprised, and to wonder. Says the French mother, speaking from experience: “It is delicious to be a jeune fille. And I tell my Yvonne so, when she grumbles.” But Yvonne’s grumblings do not betray a tragic, desperate state of mind. As a matter of fact, Yvonne, in spite of those dresses and that constant strict, terrible surveillance, is delightfully happy. And I expect her first bow to the world will be made all the more exciting by that long, rigid training, and that she will don her elegant dresses with all the more rapture, and that she will find life the more brilliant, exhilarating and extraordinary. The parents preserve those old, ugly dresses. When Cosette left her convent, and discarded her depressing dress for tasteful finery, and did what she pleased with her hair, and became all of a sudden beautiful—Jean Valjean kept the dress, and often brought it forth in secret, and looked upon it with infinite tenderness and emotion....

But to return to our particular jeune fille, Pascaline. In the Second Act, she is seventeen and charming. Nevertheless, it is still necessary to hide from her all dangerous knowledge, all doubts or suspicions, even of the existence of evil outside her own experience. Father, governess, nurse, family friends and all who approach her are in league to keep from her the true history of her mother’s desertion. The legend, as she hears it, is that the brilliant, captivating mother she recollects abandoned her home in order to follow her vocation—to become a great and famous singer. And this passionately interests Pascaline; consequently, she is wild with excitement when, after a four years’ absence, her mother claims the right to see her daughter, and obtains legal authorisation to do so. Then, trouble. For, in the meanwhile, Forjot has married the excellent, trustworthy governess, Hélène, chiefly because she was so devoted to the little Pascaline and would make her a second mother. Pascaline at thirteen—dazzled and overawed by the brilliant Gabrielle—had treated the kind and homely governess as a confidante; but at seventeen—flattered, fascinated and caressed by Gabrielle—she sees in Hélène only the “Stranger,” who has usurped her mother’s place.

Then begins the second struggle; that is once again to make havoc of poor Forjot’s domestic peace! The struggle of Hélène, on the one side, to reconquer by patience and kindness, and sometimes by affectionate reproaches, the confidence of the child she loves, and has cared for as her own; and of Pascaline, on the other side, to resist these attentions and appeals to her feelings and to remain true to her more brilliant mother, who, she is convinced, has been harshly turned out of her home, simply because she was too artistic to make a good bourgeoise housekeeper of the usual type.

The knot in the entangled situation is that Pascaline must not be told the truth. So that misunderstanding the position, she cannot, from her own point of view, without disloyalty to her admired and adored mother, recognise the interloper, Hélène, as the rightful mistress of her father’s home, and with claims upon herself, Pascaline, for respect and gratitude, on account of the care and affection she has shown one whom she has robbed of her natural guardian.

Pascaline comes back from her first interview with Gabrielle fascinated and enthusiastic, and full of anger and disdain for the homelier, much less outwardly demonstrative Hélène. This condition of mind becomes aggravated later on, when Gabrielle is in misfortune. Alas! her voice has failed her. She is no longer able to follow her artistic vocation, for the sake of which she sacrificed her home. She now is directress of a theatrical agency, and she is no longer so gay, although still full of noble courage. All this Pascaline confides to her old nurse, Marion, with whom she is still able to talk about her mother.

This is the legend as Pascaline has received it from her mother. Marion does not contradict it. Nor yet do Forjot and Hélène ever hint at the true facts of Gabrielle’s desertion. Hélène’s reticence is heroic, for Pascaline becomes more and more bitter against the good Hélène and defies her to justify herself by some real fault discovered in Gabrielle, worse than the noble ambition of a gifted artist.

However, one little awakening, one little shock. In the Third Act Pascaline visits the theatrical agency, sees the tawdriness of the place, hears noisy laughter and is even addressed at length by a shabby old comedian—a veritable cabotin—who mistakes her for an ingénue, in quest of an engagement. The comedian is delightful. He might have stepped straight on to the Odéon stage from one of those dim little cafés haunted by broken-down actors in the neighbourhood of the Porte St-Martin. He appals Pascaline with his grins, grimaces and familiarity. Pascaline’s silence he attributes to worry. And he seeks to console her by declaring that one must always be gay, always be smiling, even if one has eaten nothing all day and the landlord has threatened to turn one out into the street. He calls her mon petit enfant, and mon petit chat, and he tutoies her. Pure, irresistible comedy! The scene deserves to be quoted in full, but we must hasten on to the dénouement.

It is close. Life at the Nantais publisher’s has become intolerable. Constant strife; day after day, scenes between Pascaline and her step-mother. And, at last, Hélène decides on a daring step: to visit Gabrielle, tell her of Forjot’s unhappiness, implore her to interfere no longer between father and daughter. But she fails to move Gabrielle, who is cold and impertinent. And then, believing that if she herself disappeared, Pascaline would be entirely restored to Forjot, Hélène determines to leave Nantes and resume her dull career of governess. And this determination becomes all the stronger when she learns that Pascaline has fled Nantes and taken refuge with her mother. Poor Forjot has aged and withered when next we see him. Pascaline’s flight has been a bitter blow. But the music publisher will not hear of Hélène’s sacrifice, and is passionately bidding her remain, when Gabrielle is announced. Hélène leaves the room. And Gabrielle and Forjot find themselves face to face again.

In the great scene that follows, Gabrielle begins by saying that, as Hélène has determined to leave Nantes, she, Gabrielle, no longer wishes to keep Pascaline away from her father, and has brought her home.

Forjot declares that Hélène shall not be sacrificed; and upon this, Gabrielle proclaims her intention of keeping Pascaline.

Now again we have the Bourgeois Forjot displaying qualities of temper, character and moral sense, of the very highest order: qualities of the chivalrous sort. He does not fly into a passion. He does not taunt this offender against maternal and conjugal obligations. But earnestly and simply he addresses the author of all this trouble; and with a self-restraint that would certainly not have been found in his English prototype, he invites her to examine her own conduct; and to ask herself whether it is Hélène and himself, or whether it is Gabrielle herself, and Gabrielle only, who has behaved cruelly and selfishly to Pascaline, as well as to the husband she betrayed and the good woman who has taken care of the child she abandoned.

Always generous is Forjot. Not one brutal, not one harsh word does he throw at his wife! He promises that Pascaline shall continue to visit her as often as she pleases, if Gabrielle, on the other side, will promise not to poison Pascaline’s mind against him and Hélène. Gabrielle is touched. Rising, she opens the door, and brings in Pascaline. And Pascaline, seeing her poor father’s anxious, care-worn face, runs up to him.

Always, emotionally, Gabrielle tells how she once had two paths to choose, and that she chose the wrong one.

But Pascaline interrupts her with a cry of: “What a calumny!” and vows that her mother has never done wrong. And that she knows for certain, as Hélène herself has often told her so.

And so, the end. Not heroic, in accordance with the English poetic sentiment, demanding that Gabrielle should pass out sorrowing and penitent; convicted in her child’s eyes, who flies for safety to the virtuous bosom of Hélène, but à l’amiable, in accordance with the French sentiment expressed by Forjot: “Mon enfant, si l’on n’avait pas d’indulgence les uns pour les autres, la vie des plus braves gens ne serait pas possible.”

But what comes of it all? No argument for or against divorce; no attack upon, no justification of the French method of educating the jeune fille. But a picture of the feelings and emotions bound up with that method; and a picture also of the generous reasonableness, sense of justice, and human kindness that lie at the root of French character—and that may to some extent compensate for a lack of the absolutely sincere and unadulterated love of decency and respectability for their own sakes that are our own distinguishing characteristics.

4. Paris, M. Edmond Rostand, and “Chantecler”

Six years have elapsed since a Paris newspaper announced that M. Constant Coquelin—dear, wonderful Coquelin aîné—had suddenly taken train to the south-west of France in the following circumstances:—

“Yesterday morning the greatest of our comedians received a telegram urging him to proceed without delay to Cambo, the tranquil, beautiful country seat, in the Pyrenees, of M. Edmond Rostand. No sooner had he read the message than M. Coquelin bade Gillett, his devoted valet, pack a valise, hail a fiacre, and accompany him to the Gare d’Orléans. Excitement and delight were depicted on the face of the distinguished traveller, whom we found smoking a cigarette in front of a first-class compartment. ‘Yes,’ he joyously admitted. ‘Yes, I am off to the Pyrenees—but that is all I shall tell you.’ Never, indeed, such indomitable discretion! In reply to our adroit, persuasive questions regarding the object of his journey, M. Coquelin made such irrelevant observations as these: ‘The weather looks threatening,’ and ‘Gillett is the most admirable of valets,’ and ‘Ah, my friends, has it ever occurred to you what an extraordinary thing is a railway station?’ And then, as the train steamed slowly away: ‘You may state in your article that the cushions of this carriage are exceedingly restful and sympathetic.’ Still, in spite of M. Coquelin’s reticence, we are in a position to acquaint our readers with the reason of this sudden, this sensational visit to Cambo. M. Edmond Rostand is engaged upon a new play, and the leading part in it will be sustained by M. Coquelin. Down there in the golden calm of the Pyrenees—yes, even as we pen these words—the most exquisite of poets is reading to the most brilliant of actors... another chef-d’œuvre. It will surpass the triumphant, the glorious Cyrano de Bergerac! Parisians will certainly rejoice, Parisians will assuredly be thrilled to hear of the superb, artistic festival in store for them.”

Such, six years ago, was the very first—and very florid—potin to be published on Chantecler; and no sooner had it appeared than Paris, truly enough, “rejoiced” and was “thrilled”—but complained that it was maddening and heart-breaking to know so little about the new masterpiece. What was its theme? What, too, was the title? And when—oh, when—would the first performance take place? In order to satisfy the Parisian’s curiosity, newspaper editors despatched their Yellowest Reporters to Cambo with instructions to force a statement out of the comedian and the poet. With the Yellow Ones went alert, sharp photographers. And then, what strange, indelicate scenes in that once-tranquil and refined spot in the Pyrenees! Since M. Rostand and his guest refused to receive the invaders, the latter set about performing their vulgar mission from a distance. Outside the poet’s picturesque Basque villa, cameras and cameras; and again and again was the “golden calm” of Cambo disturbed by shouts of “There’s Madame Rostand at that window,” and “There’s her son, Maurice, picking a flower,” and “There’s Rostand talking hard to Coquelin on a bench.” Nobody, nothing in the far-spreading grounds, escaped the photographers. The gardener was “taken”; so were a housemaid, a peacock, a mowing-machine, a dog and a hammock. As for the reporters, they followed MM. Rostand and Coquelin when the latter took their afternoon walks, even hid themselves behind bushes and hedges in the hopes of overhearing a fragment of their conversation; and minutely they described in their newspapers the gait and the gestures of the comedian, and the smile, the eyeglass and the extreme elegance of the poet; and wildly they declared that insomuch as MM. Rostand and Coquelin discussed naught but the new masterpiece during those afternoon walks, every step they took left a glorious, an historic imprint in the dusty white lane. But the subject of the play, the date of its production?—“mystery, mystery!” admitted the reporters. Nor was it until many months later, and until after M. Coquelin had paid half-a-dozen visits to Cambo, that Paris heard with amazement that M. Rostand’s hero was a cock, his heroine a hen pheasant, his chief scene a farm-yard, in which all kinds of feathered creatures were to fly, strut and waddle about. As Paris was marvelling at the novelty and audacity of the idea, the poet fell ill. A severe operation kept him an invalid a whole year. The successive deaths of a relative and of three close friends so shocked him that he had not the heart to return to his work. But when in the autumn of 1908 M. Coquelin made yet another expedition to Cambo, the “glorious,” “historic” walks were resumed. In M. Rostand’s study, animated, all-night sittings. In the drawing-room, extraordinary rehearsals—M. Coquelin the cock, Madame Rostand the pheasant, M. Rostand a dog, young Maurice Rostand a blackbird. Then visits from wig-makers, costumiers, scene-painters, electricians. And at last the official, stirring announcement that M. Rostand and the play were leaving for Paris, that the name of the play was Chantecler, and that the first performance would be given at the Porte St-Martin Theatre in the spring of 1909.

It was in January of that year that M. Rostand took up his abode in an hotel facing the Tuileries Gardens. The corridor outside the poet’s suite of apartments was guarded by footmen—so many sentinels with instructions to let nobody pass; and thus M. Rostand was secure from cameras and Yellow scribbling pencils except when he left the hotel, entered a motor car and sped off to the pleasant little country town of Pont-aux-Dames, where Constant Coquelin had founded a home for aged and infirm actors. Of this establishment Coquelin aîné himself was then an inmate. Not that he was feeling old or infirm—“only a little fatigued and in need of calm and repose ere disguising myself as a proud, majestic cock.” Kindly Coquelin was never so happy as when playing the host to his score of superannuated actors and actresses. He called them his “guests,” and had provided them with easy-chairs, a library, a billiard-table, playing cards, backgammon boards and gramophones; and with summer-houses in the garden where the old ladies might gossip and gossip out of the glare of the sun, and with a lake, too, in which the old fellows might fish. Also, he invited them to relate their theatrical experiences—the rôles they had played, the successes they had achieved, the costumes they had worn long, long ago; and, oh, dear me, how the “guests” took their host at his word—yes, heavens, how garrulously and lavishly they responded! Withered old Joyeux (late—very late—of the Palais Royal) described how emperors and kings had been convulsed by his grins, winks and tricks; swollen, red-faced Hector Duchatel (slim, elegant, irresistible at the Vaudeville in the seventies) declared that beautiful mondaines had sighed, almost swooned, when he passionately made love on the stage; wrinkled, haggard Mademoiselle Giselle de Perle (once such a radiant blonde at the Bouffes) narrated how she could scarcely turn round in her dressing-room for the corbeilles of flowers, in which jewels and billets-doux from illustrious personages lay concealed. Then, after all these reminiscences, the “guests” produced faded, tattered newspaper cuttings, that proclaimed Joyeux “extraordinaire de fantaisie et de verve,” and Hector Duchatel “le roi de la mode,” and Mademoiselle de Perle “the most exquisite, the most incomparable of blondes”—“Cabotinville,” if you like; the tawdry, flashy talk of M. le Cabot and Madame la Cabotine. But I like, nevertheless, to call up the vision of Coquelin aîné, wrapped in a dressing-gown, a skull-cap pulled down over his ears, listening patiently and sympathetically to these confidences of the past, and reading through the faded newspaper cuttings, and saying to haggard Mademoiselle de Perle: “I myself, like everybody else, was once madly in love with you,” and to withered old Joyeux: “Those winks and grins of yours were excruciating,” and—— But an end to this digression. The scene between Coquelin aîné and his superannuated “guests” is cut short by the arrival, from the hotel in the rue de Rivoli, of the author of Chantecler.

Well, Constant Coquelin was wearing a dressing-gown and a skull-cap, because he felt a little “fatigued.” But the visits of M. Rostand, and of the wig-makers, scene-painters and costumiers, as well as the impatience of the Parisians to behold the new “masterpiece,” restored to the comedian all his former energy, enthusiasm. Final resolutions were made. The first rehearsal at the Porte St-Martin Theatre was fixed for the following week; the first performance would be given, irrevocably, in the middle of May. “What a triumph we shall have!” said Coquelin aîné to the few friends he received in the Home. “Ah, my admirable Gillett, what a work of genius is Chantecler!” he exclaimed, when the devoted valet lighted him to his bedroom. “Listen, I will recite to you Rostand’s Hymn to the Sun. And after that, my good Gillett, you shall hear me crow.” Replied faithful Gillett: “To-morrow—not to-night. It is wiser to go to sleep.” But Constant Coquelin refused to sleep until he had recited and crowed. Up and down the room, in the dressing-gown and skull-cap, he strutted. The superannuated actors and actresses were awakened by his cry: “Je t’adore, Soleil!” Five minutes later there resounded throughout the Home a clarion, peremptory—“Cocorico.” Said the old players: “The master is rehearsing.” Said Gillett: “Your old servant insists upon your going to bed.” Said Coquelin aîné: “When I have played Chantecler I shall retire from the stage, and you and I, my faithful Gillett, will pass the rest of our lives down here, tranquilly, happily, amidst our twenty old guests.” But next morning, after Gillett had helped his master into the dressing-gown, Constant Coquelin fell heavily to the floor. Cry after cry from admirable Gillett, cries from the superannuated players—then profound silence and gloom. Gloom, too, in Paris. The blinds darkly drawn in the windows of the first floor of the rue de Rivoli hotel. The Porte St-Martin—other theatres—closed. All kinds of soirées, banquets and fêtes postponed. “What a disaster, what a tragedy, mon ami; what a blow, what a calamity, ma chère.” Gloom—dear, wonderful Coquelin aîné was dead....

In the summer of 1909 M. Edmond Rostand, after spending four months in seclusion at Cambo, returned to Paris; a few days later the rehearsals of Chantecler at the Porte St-Martin Theatre began. “Should anything happen to me, you must ask Guitry to play my part,” had said Coquelin, to the poet. M. Guitry, therefore, was appointed “Chantecler,” Madame Simone, ex-Le Bargy, was made the Hen Pheasant. Gay, frisky M. Galipaux was created Blackbird, M. Jean Coquelin, the great comedian’s son, chose the rôle of the Dog. “Irrevocably in November,” stated the newspapers, “we shall hear ‘Chantecler’ sound his first cocorico.” And Paris rejoiced once again and was “thrilled.”

But, ah me, how that positive word, “irrevocable,” was misused! No Chantecler in November, no “Cocorico” in December—only multitudinous newspaper potins that constantly announced the postponement of the event, and described “life” at the Porte St-Martin and in M. Rostand’s hotel on the Champs Elysées. It was repeatedly stated that the poet, after hot words with M. Guitry, had taken “the 9.39 train back to Cambo.” It was asserted that Madame Simone had thrown her type-written rôle on to the stage, stamped hysterically on the rôle, and left the theatre in tears. It was furthermore reported that M. Guitry was about to undergo an operation for cancer; that lively Galipaux was suffering from acute melancholia; that M. Jean Coquelin, distracted, prematurely ancient and infirm, had taken refuge in the Home at Pont-aux-Dames. Then, the insinuation that Chantecler would never, never “cocorico.”... Nor, according to the same newspaper potins, was “life” in M. Rostand’s hotel more serene. He was as closely guarded as the Tsar of All the Russias. Nevertheless, a waiter who served him was, in reality, a Yellow Italian journalist; threatening letters and telegrams from lunatics arrived by the score; and wizened old cranks sent the poet baskets of feathers, with the solemn warning that unless these, and only these feathers, were worn by the Cock and the Hen Pheasant, well, M. Guitry and Madame Simone, and M. Rostand and Chantecler would be ridiculed, ruined, and done for.... In fine, what a November, what a December—and what a January of the present year! And when MM. Hertz and Jean Coquelin, the proprietors of the Porte St-Martin Theatre, themselves announced that the first performance of Chantecler would be given on 28th January “most irrevocably,” how delirious became the potins, and how agitated the Parisians! The great question was: Would Chantecler be a triumphant success, or only a moderate success, or a catastrophe? To determine this problem, clairvoyantes—positively—were consulted. And Madame Olga de Sonski, at present of the rue des Martyrs, and late—so her card asserted—of Persia, Budapest, Cairo and Bond Street—Madame de Sonski declared she already felt the Porte St-Martin, massive theatre that it was, trembling, almost tottering, from applause. But not so Madame Juliette de Magenta, of the rue des Ténèbres, from Morocco, St Petersburg, Constantinople and Broadway: “I hear [sic] the silence, the coldness, the gloom of disappointment and disapproval,” funereally she said. However, in spite of Madame de Magenta’s lugubrious prognostications, the news came that M. Rostand had disposed of the publishing rights of Chantecler for one million francs; that stalls and dress-circle seats (for the box-office was now open) for the first three performances were selling like wildfire at six pounds apiece; that critics and millionaires from America, and French Ambassadors and Ministers from divers parts of Europe, and even dark-skinned, dyspeptic merchants from Buenos Ayres, were all hastening to Paris to hear the “cocorico” of Chantecler. What excitement, what a whirl! For the twentieth time it was rumoured that M. Rostand had taken “the 9.39 train back to Cambo.” Now M. Guitry had appendicitis; and Madame Simone had injured herself by falling through a trap-door. Nevertheless, the first performance remained fixed “most irrevocably” for 28th January—on which day many a quarter of Paris and most of the banlieue were flooded.

So, another postponement. Successively, and always “positively irrevocably,” it was announced that the great event would take place on 31st January, 2nd February, 5th February and 6th February. And thus the critics and millionaires from America, the French Ambassadors and Ministers from divers European capitals, the merchants from Buenos Ayres (looking sallow and bloodshot from the voyage) were detained in Paris at much personal inconvenience and loss to themselves. Nothing would move them until they had heard the clarion cry of—“Cocorico.” And M. Pichon, Minister of Foreign Affairs, became uneasy at the prolonged sojourn of the Ministers and Ambassadors. “Diplomatic relations between France and many a foreign Power are interrupted,” he cried tragically, “and all because of a cock and a hen pheasant.” Social life, too, was interrupted. Le Tout Paris refrained from issuing dinner invitations lest they should clash with the first performance, and countermanded rooms engaged weeks beforehand in the Riviera hotels.

A final rumour to the effect that M. Rostand had returned to Cambo by the 9.39 train—a train which, by the way, does not figure in the time-table. Another canard stating that M. Guitry had contracted typhoid fever through drinking water contaminated by the floods. A third Yellow potin reporting Madame Simone to have “mysteriously,” “sensationally” disappeared. What chaos, what incoherency! And what a scene in the Porte St-Martin when at last, on Sunday night, 6th February, Chantecler, in the presence of the most brilliant audience yet assembled in a Paris theatre, came, crowed and conquered.

A new handsome curtain, new carpets, new velvet fauteuils, programmes printed on vellum, and red ribbons (also supplied by the management) in the grisly hair of the middle-aged ouvreuses. “I have been an ouvreuse for twenty years, but never have I seen an audience so vast, so animated, so chic,” said one of these ladies to me as she bundled up my overcoat, pinned a ticket to it and dropped it on to the floor. “Not a peg left,” she continued. “Immediately beneath your overcoat lies the overcoat of Prince Murat. In the heap next to it is a Rothschild overcoat. And as for that other pile of overcoats in the corner, all fur-lined, all magnificent, well, they belong to ambassadors, dukes, American millionaires, English milords, famous writers, politicians, jockeys—all the great personages in the world. Thus, although it lies on the floor, your overcoat is in illustrious company.” After warning me that no one would be admitted into the theatre when the curtain had risen, the ouvreuse showed me to my seat, held out her hand, was rewarded, and left me free to admire the jewels, feathers, dresses and coiffures of le Tout Paris. All eyes—or rather opera-glasses—on the box occupied by Madame Rostand and her two sons. In another box, M. Briand, the Prime Minister. In the stalls, Academicians, generals, playwrights, critics, newspaper proprietors, aviators, financiers, leading actors and actresses. Everyone afoot, or rather on tip-toe, gossiping, laughing, singling out celebrities with their glasses. But at ten minutes to nine o’clock the three traditional thuds made by a mallet behind the curtain (the signal in French theatres that the play is about to begin) caused a hush. Everyone sat down. “Chantecler at last,” said, emotionally, a lady behind me. The curtain rose two or three inches. “Pas encore, pas encore,” cried a voice. Consternation, dismay of le Tout Paris; was the play again to be postponed, was it true that M. Rostand had taken that 9.39 train, and that Madame Simone had “sensationally” disappeared, and that M. Guitry—— “Pas encore, pas encore!” But it was—thank heaven—only the voice of M. Jean Coquelin who appeared in the front of the stalls in a dress-suit, mounted a footstool and recited the prologue to M. Rostand’s fantastic, symbolical chef-d’œuvre.

It was a delightfully humorous description of the feathered inhabitants of a farm-yard; and as M. Jean Coquelin continued to harangue the audience eloquently from his footstool, the animals were heard becoming impatient on the hidden stage.

A crowing of cocks. A cackling of geese. The stamping of a horse’s hoof. The creaking of an old cart. The bray of a donkey. The miaow of a cat. The hoot of an owl. The whistle of a blackbird. Then—distinctly—three taps from a woodpecker: “le bec d’un pivert a frappé les trois coups”; and with a cry of “The woodpecker says the play must commence,” M. Coquelin disappeared, down went the lights: and up amidst thunders of applause rose the curtain.

Before us, a farm-yard, not an inmate or an object of which is wanting. White, black, grey and brown hens strut hither and thither, sharply discussing the powers, vanities, infidelities of Chantecler, their lord and master. Ducks and drakes, ganders and geese take sides for or against the king of the yard. Now and again the lid of a vast wicker-work basket opens, to reveal the head of the Old Hen—a very old hen, the doyenne of the place, and Chantecler’s foster-mother. In her, of course, the cock finds an ardent defender; but whenever the withered old head protrudes from the basket the Blackbird, hopping about in his cage, holds forth mockingly, ironically. For the Blackbird, like every other feathered creature in the play, is symbolical. He represents the smart, shallow, cynical Parisian, who scoffs at principles, ridicules genius, laughs at love, denies the existence of disinterested friendship, and is enormously pleased with his empty, impudent self. So he makes fun of the Old Hen and of the white, black, grey and brown hens whilst they pay naïve tributes to the supreme genius of Chantecler—the Cock of Cocks, the superb creature whose clarion, peremptory call causes the sun to rise and makes the world radiant, beautiful and cheerful. Chantecler has betrayed the hens, but they nevertheless admire and love him. As the discussion continues, bees, butterflies, wasps fly across the stage. On a pillar, a cat dozes tranquilly in the sun. Two fluffy little chicks play at getting in and out of a gigantic sabot. To the right, a huge dog’s kennel; in the background a gigantic cart, with its shafts in the air. In a corner, a set of enormous harness. The birds and beasts being of Brobdingnagian sizes, the objects on the stage have been magnified in proportion. But all is natural; never, from first to last, a note of extravagance, grotesqueness. Well, on and on goes the discussion, and, as the Blackbird sneers and scoffs, it becomes heated and shrill. “Silence; here he comes, here he comes,” cries a pigeon. And not a sound is heard when Chantecler appears, solemn, majestic, arrogant, on the poultry-yard wall. The hens gather together, look up at him with submission, admiration. The two chicks stop their game. The cat wakes up. Even the Blackbird ceases hopping about in his cage. Magnificent, awe-inspiring, indeed, is Chantecler in his dark green and light brown feather dress—“the green of April and the ochre of October.” He is, as on the top of the wall he recites his Hymn to the Sun, Cyrano de Bergerac in feathers. He represents the artist, the creative genius, the dispenser of beauty and spiritual light. If he be the lord over the other denizens of the farm-yard, it is because they will have it so. They believe the sun rises because Chantecler summons it with his shrill, imperious “Cocorico.” And Chantecler, the Superb, believes it himself—believes it in spite of the sceptical Blackbird. Chantecler, in fact, might stand for a great many types besides the artistic; for example, the statesman who fancies he is the creator of the social reforms that are advancing with civilisation like a tide. “I adore thee, O sun,” begins Chantecler, his beak raised towards the skies.