Mezzetin (to Isabelle). Come now, my beauty, tell the truth. Is it not true that you would very willingly become my better half? Look now, consider me—my air, my carriage! Eh? I grow angry when I observe these little embryos attempting to enter into competition with me.
Isabelle. They must indeed have lost their wits. They are very amusing marionettes.
Mezzetin. No matter for that. Let us speak of the happiness in store for us.
Isabelle. These are calculations in which we are sometimes mistaken, and it is not often that we find in marriage all the happiness that we had expected.
Mezzetin. I am gentle, peaceful, easy to live with, my humour is silk and velvet. I lived six years with my first wife without ever having the slightest dispute.
Isabelle. That is very extraordinary.
Mezzetin. I quarrelled with her only once. I had taken snuff and I wanted to sneeze; she caused me to miss my stroke. In my anger I took up a candlestick and broke her head. She died a quarter of an hour afterwards.
Isabelle. Heavens! Is it possible?
Mezzetin. That was the only difference we ever had, and it didn’t last very long as you can see. If a woman is to die it is better that she should die at the hands of her husband than at those of a doctor, who charges heavy fees, and who may keep her languishing perhaps for six months or a year. I cannot bear to see people languishing.
Isabelle. And can you think without horror of having committed as black a crime as that?
Mezzetin. I? Not at all. I am used to blood from my youth. My father had a thousand affairs in his life, and he invariably killed his man. He served the king for thirty-two years.
Isabelle. On land or sea?
Mezzetin. In the air.
Isabelle. How in the air? I never heard of such employment.
Mezzetin. It is that as he was of an extremely charitable disposition, and whenever he happened to meet a doomed man on his way to the gallows, he would get into the cart with him and assist him to die in the best possible manner.
Isabelle. Oh! Horror!
Mezzetin. If you had but seen him at work you would have been inclined to get yourself hanged.
Isabelle. As these are perhaps family talents, you should have taken up your father’s office.
Mezzetin. I inclined considerably towards it; but, as you know, it is necessary that a gentleman should travel.
Isabelle. I perceive only one slight difficulty to our marriage; it is that I am married already.
Mezzetin. Married? Pooh! What of that? Shall that embarrass you? I am also married, but there is nothing easier than to be widowed; twopennyworth of rat-poison will do the business.
In other scenes of the same repertory, Mezzetin shines only in his clownishness and cowardice.
Isabelle (as an inn servant, receiving Mezzetin dressed as a traveller and followed by Harlequin, his lackey). Good-morning, gentlemen, what do you lack?
Harlequin. Come along, my girl; a chamber, a fire and the best food. I always put up willingly at a house where the wine is good and the waiting-woman pretty.
Isabelle. Sirs, you shall have all that you seek, nothing is wanting here.
Mezzetin (presenting his booted leg to Isabelle). Now then, my girl, off with my boots.
Isabelle. Draw off your boots! Indeed, sir, that is not my business.
Mezzetin. Are you not also the ostler?
Harlequin (to Mezzetin). Now that seems a resolute girl. But I think that she is ogling you a little.
Mezzetin. The little rogue is pretty, faith. Come here, my girl; are you married?
Isabelle. No, sir, thank God. I have not that honour; it is not a good year for girls. All the young men are at the war.
Mezzetin (becoming mincing). If you would but repose me a little from my warlike exploits? I have money.
Isabelle. Good! I am very fortunate, I have never been tempted by money. I prefer a man whom I like to all the treasures of the world, and if you want me to speak frankly, I like your valet better than yourself. (She strikes Harlequin in the stomach with all her strength.)
Harlequin. Ouf! Faith, the rogue has good taste. Come, sir, withdraw. This is not meat for your birds. (Pushing Mezzetin away.)
Mezzetin (approaching her). The little rogue does not appreciate my merit.
Isabelle. I beg you, sir, again to be quiet. I do not like to be mauled. If you wish to put up at the inn the door is open. Otherwise—your very humble servant.
(She attempts to enter the inn, Mezzetin arrests her, seizing one of her arms; Cinthio, who has seen this, comes out of the inn and rudely thrusts Mezzetin aside.)
Cinthio. By virtue of what, sir, if you please, do you permit yourself liberties with this girl?
Mezzetin. By virtue of what? By virtue of my good pleasure.
Cinthio. Your pleasure! Listen to me, my ugly little fellow. Don’t warm my ears for me because I might find my pleasure in something that would not please you.
Mezzetin. Sir, that is not the way to address a Parisian gentleman who returns from Flanders.
Cinthio. You from Flanders?
Harlequin (who has been hiding round the corner out of fear, approaching). May the devil take us if we are not!
Mezzetin (standing squarely). Oh no, we were not there when our general issued his summons to the enemies; they did not appear on the last day of July to plead on the battlefield. The case was called and it lasted for eight hours, but by virtue of good pieces of cannon which we carried we very quickly routed the enemy. They attempted two or three times to appeal, but they were always dislodged from their opposition and condemned to pay expenses, damages, interests and costs. Ah! and costs! Well then, were we there? Oh no! I am but jesting!
Cinthio. As far as I can see, sir, you have observed the battle in some lawyer’s office. But I recommend you to go your ways and not to look behind you.
Mezzetin. Sir, have a care what you do. Should you insult me.... (He draws his sword, Cinthio carries his hand to his own hilt.)
Cinthio. Well?
Mezzetin (hiding behind Harlequin). You will have to deal with my lackey.
Harlequin (running off). I am not obliged to get myself killed in your place.
Cinthio. Begone! I don’t deign to answer you. But if you come ogling this girl again I’ll beat you to death. (He flicks Mezzetin’s nose with his gloves and departs.)
Mezzetin (after Cinthio has gone). But he is going for all that! (To Harlequin.) Heh! What do you think of it? I nailed him all right, didn’t I?
Sometimes Mezzetin would sing in parodies, accompanying himself on the guitar. Watteau painted him playing this instrument amid the various actors of the Comédie-Italienne: Isabelle, Ottavio, Columbine, and the rest.
He also sang and danced in allegorical costumes in the ballets which concluded most of the plays, or, after having played the rôle of the servant of Ottavio throughout the piece, he would disappear in the last act to go and make up as an American Indian.
After the suppression of the theatre and the company in 1697, Constantini set out for Germany to seek employment. He had found an engagement in a company at Brunswick, when Augustus I., King of Poland, who had heard of him, made him a proposal. Constantini accepted it, and found himself charged by this prince with the formation of a company which was alternately to play Italian comedy and sing Italian opera. He went to France in 1698 to recruit his company, and discharged his mission so well that in the following year Augustus I. named him chamberlain and treasurer of his entertainments, and ennobled him.
Such brilliant fortune, however, could not endure. The daring and enterprising Mezzetin fell in love with the king’s mistress, and declared himself. Nor did he stop there; he set himself to depreciate the king in the spirit of this lady. The lady, it is said, was indignant at the insolence of the comedian. The king was informed of what had passed and concealed himself in the lady’s chamber, where an assignation had been given to Constantini. What happened no one knows beyond the fact that Augustus came forth in a fury, sword in hand, threatening the comedian’s death. “But probably he felt that it was not fitting that he should soil his hands in the blood of a man who had betrayed him so unworthily.” He ordered his arrest, and had him imprisoned in the castle of Königstein.
Mezzetin remained for twenty years in this fortress. At last another lady of the court, who then enjoyed some influence over the heart of Augustus, induced the King of Poland to visit his fortress-prison of state. There she summoned Constantini, who appeared “with a beard which he had allowed to grow ever since his arrest.” He flung himself at the king’s feet, but notwithstanding that the lady added her supplications to the actor’s, Augustus remained inexorable and refused the solicited mercy. This lady, however, continued her efforts with such good result that a few months later Constantini was restored to liberty. “All his property was restored to him, but he was commanded to quit Dresden and the state of Saxony.”
Mezzetin set out for Verona, but he remained there only a little while. Anxious to revisit Paris and to return to the stage where so long he had played with success, he joined the new company of the Regent, and was received into it with joy and surprise. He made arrangements with his old comrades to perform in five or six pieces for the payment of a thousand crowns, and he reappeared on the stage on the 5th February 1729.
In the Mercure de France for the month of February 1729 you may read:
“The Sieur Angelo Constantini, a native of Verona, known heretofore by the name of Mezzetin, a comedian of the old Hôtel de Bourgogne, played in the same theatre, and made his début in the rôles which he had erstwhile performed in the comedy entitled La Foire Saint-Germain, originally presented in 1695.
“This piece was preceded by a prologue by the Sieur Lelio, the son, of which the following is the subject:—
“Momus and Harlequin first make their appearance. Momus complains that his place should so long have been abandoned. He inquires of Harlequin the cause, and Harlequin imputes it to the extreme love of the French for novelty. Momus promises to remedy this difficulty by a novelty which shall surpass all others. By his orders a venerable old man comes forward; he explains that this is the Mezzetin of the old Italian theatre. At a further order from the god who introduces him, and who takes him under his protection, he casts aside his old man’s robe, and appears in the garb of Mezzetin. Momus recites a fable on the subject of old age. This fable does not at first seem favourable to an old man of seventy-five, but Momus consoles him with a tap from his bauble, thereby shedding upon this beloved disciple a pleasant folly which is to take the place of youth.”
Mezzetin then relates a dream which he has just had. He dreamed himself, he says, in Paris, on the Italian stage; he beheld a guitar issuing from the boards and he was singing again notwithstanding his great age. Whilst he is relating this a guitar is, in fact, thrust upwards. He takes it, tunes it and sings to his own accompaniment, addressing the groundlings:
There was such a concourse of spectators that, notwithstanding that the prices of admission had been doubled, as many people had to be turned away as it was found possible to admit.
He gave five performances, and a few days later set out for Verona, leaving in Paris “more creditors than reputation,” according to one of his detractors. He died in Italy at the end of that same year, 1729.
Angelo Constantini had married in Italy Auretta, the daughter of Dorsi and of the famous actress Angiola. Auretta was seen in Paris at the Italian theatre of the Hôtel de Bourgogne; but she was not a success. Her talents and appearance were only mediocre. Thence she went to Germany. Of this marriage were born a daughter who became a nun at Chaumont, and a son named Gabriele Constantini who played Harlequin in Italy.
Narcisino is a native of the town of Malalbergo, between Bologna and Ferrara. The Bolognese, having already in the Doctor a character which spoke the dialect of the educated classes, the actor Ricconi created, towards the middle of the seventeenth century, another personage speaking that of the lower orders—a dialect which is almost a different language from that which is spoken still to-day. This character was, in the seventeenth century, sometimes a stupid servant, sometimes a master; further he would very often play the rôles of fathers and of guardians usually imbecile, stupid, and as obstinate and malicious as possible. He shared these duties with Tabarino and Fitoncello, rôles which, like those of Beltrame and Sganarelle, served two purposes, and were created—or rather reconstructed—by the actor Bigher, in Bologna.
Narcisino was still held in great esteem and enjoyed a great vogue in Bologna at the beginning of the nineteenth century. His part was then a singular one. He scarcely appeared at all in the course of the actual plays, coming upon the stage merely to utter or perform some buffoonery which had no connection with the scenic action.
Wearing a straw hat, his hair long like that of the peasants, dressed in extremely wide coat and breeches, in red and green stripes, sometimes with a cloak on his arm or a basket of fruit in his hand, he would come during the entr’acte to perform an interlude and to chat with the audience, criticising the manners of his day, and relating amusing adventures of the suburbs and the country. He was a sort of Pasquino or Bruscambille. He was accorded the right to say anything he chose, but he was obliged to confine himself to generalisations, avoiding personalities that were too pointed.
“Sirs! It must be confessed, and you will confess it with me I am sure, that falsehood is a curious thing. Should there be any liars in the theatre I beg them to have the goodness to depart so that they may not hear what I am going to say.” (He pauses a moment.) “Well, then! Does no one depart? I see, sirs, that we are all men of sincerity. I may tell you then between men.... Ah! but I perceive some women yonder! All sincere and frank ladies are entreated to remain; those who are addicted to falsehood may return home to see whether the wine is turning sour in their cellars.” (A pause.) “Not a lady departs. Well done, ladies! I see that I have round me nothing but frankness and loyalty.” (He goes to one side of the stage, stoops, and, with his hand to his mouth, as if he were speaking secretly in the ear of each:) “I don’t believe it for a moment, but they wish to be taken for something that they are not! Now, since frankness and truth reign here, I will tell you in confidence that women must imagine men to be far more stupid than they are, to relate to them a heap of inventions which they have the air of believing and of accepting as current coin until one day when, weary of this tissue of diabolic invention, they dismiss the lies together with the women who utter them.
“I ask you now, ladies (yes, it is to you in particular that I address myself), is it not true that when you don’t even so much as stir your tongues you still indulge in falsehood by means of your raiment? I ask you whether it is not the greatest falsehood that a woman could invent to lead us to believe in the existence of that which she does not possess. I see it every day. The thinnest women parade themselves in petticoats of the rotundity of the cupola of Saint-Mark in Venice. The streets of Bologna are now too narrow, for our ladies are compelled to go afoot—there are no carriages capable of containing them. I ask you what is the result of all this? Under these mendacious cruppers what is there? Nothing!”
In another interlude he says: “Sirs, let all misers depart quickly, lest they might employ their ears in listening to me! Since no one budges I may speak freely. How foolish are those people who spend some forty years of their lives in piling farthing upon farthing to make halfpence, and halfpence upon halfpence to make livres, and livres upon livres to make louis! By the time that they have amassed sufficient for enjoyment they can no longer make use of their fortune; old age has exhausted them. Let the exhausted ones depart, I am going to address young people in the prime of life. Oh, you young fools, who think but of eating, drinking and making love! Is that the aim of existence? I pause, sirs; we are in the theatre and not at a sermon.” And, with a pirouette like that of Stenterello, he disappears.
There are several French characters derived from the type of Scapino, among which the principal ones are Turlupin, Gandolin, Grattelard and Jodelet.
Turlupin (unlucky, unfortunate) was created at the end of the sixteenth century at the Hôtel de Bourgogne, by Henri Legrand. He played the rôle for more than fifty years in a costume greatly resembling that of Brighella in point of shape, and somewhat derived from that of Harlequin in point of colour.
Turlupin was of great fecundity in quips, puns, cock-and-bull tales and gibberish, and in that style of jests which derived from him the name of turlupinades. Like most of the French comedians of his day he helped himself to what he found available; but the most prolific source was undoubtedly Rabelais.[3]
“He was an excellent comedian,” says Sauval; “his sallies were full of wit, fire and judgment; in a word, he was short of nothing but a little naïveté; and notwithstanding this, everyone confesses never to have seen his like. Although florid he was a handsome well-made man, with a pleasing countenance. He was astute, witty and amusing in conversation.” He entered the theatre in 1583 and spent his life there, quitting it only for the grave which was accorded him in the church of Saint-Sauveur in 1637.
In the French troupe at the Hôtel de Bourgogne, “Gros-Guillaume,” says Tallemant, “was le fariné, Gaultier the old man, and Turlupin the rogue. The latter also played the part of Zanni, who was regarded as the facetious one of the company, and in that character he wore a costume similar to that of Brighella, with the little cloak and pantaloon.”
Turlupin was a man of well-ordered life, a husband who would not suffer his wife to enter the theatre, and who lived after the fashion of a bourgeois. He devoted long hours to learning his rôles. “He studied his trade assiduously, and it would happen sometimes that when a man of quality who esteemed him invited him to dinner he would answer that he must study.”
Louis Legrand, his son, upheld the celebrity of his father. He made his début, under the same name of Turlupin, in December, 1620, and lived until 1655.
Grattelard (1620), a French buffoon of the tabarinic farces, surnamed by derision the Baron Grattelard, is another type of cunning lackey. His costume is very similar to that of Trivelino. Like Trivelino he wears a doublet and pantaloon in the Italian fashion, very wide and embroidered with deep-coloured triangular designs upon a pale ground. He wears also the half mask, the chin-piece and the skull cap, the wide pleated collar, the lath and the light coloured shoes, a cap like Brighella’s but no cloak. Above a portrait of this character lately discovered in the Bibliothèque des Estampes the following distich is to be read:—
The same engraving presents two other characters of the same epoch—Jasmin (a sort of Crispin) and Jean Broche or Boche, who is somewhat related to the Italian Doctors.
Already before Grattelard, other French buffoons had attached to their theatre-names titles borrowed derisively from the nobility: Le Comte de Salles, Le Marquis d’Argencourt, Le Baron de Plancy and Le Comte de Permission.
The most brilliant rôle of Grattelard is in the farce of The Three Hunchbacks, a story drawn from the Facétieuses Nuits of Straparole, who himself derived it from an Eastern source.
The Farce of the Hunchbacks
“Trostolle the hunchback has three hunchback brothers, the sight of whom he cannot bear. He is filled with horror of misshapen people. One day, being compelled to leave home, he enjoins his wife to lock up after dinner and not to allow anyone to enter. He does not wish to find his brothers there, in which case he would lay the stick across Madame’s back. Thereupon he departs. Madame Trostolle has a love intrigue with a certain Horace, who sends her his servant Grattelard with a love letter.
“The husband being gone, the three hunchbacks arrive with stomachs as hollow as wells and teeth as sharp as wolves’.
“‘It is a long time since we have eaten,’ says the first hunchback, ‘and at need my belly might serve as a lantern.’
“‘Here is the house of my brother,’ says the second, ‘let us go in.’
“The third knocks at the door. But Madame Trostolle recognises them from their humps. Nevertheless she permits herself to be moved by their entreaties, admits them and sets food before them. But Trostolle returns and she hides the three brothers. Trostolle, whilst suspecting the presence of the hunchbacks, departs again upon receiving his wife’s assurances that no one has entered the house. She runs then to her brothers-in-law and finds them drunk.
“‘I think,’ she says, ‘that they have a reservoir on their backs, for they have emptied a hogshead. However, they must be got out of this.’
“Grattelard arrives with his letter: ‘Consider my trouble,’ says Madame Trostolle. ‘A hunchback has dropped dead on my threshold. You must take him to the river.’
“‘What will you give me?’
“‘Twenty crowns.’
“‘Very good. Let us get to business.’
“‘Very well; here is the fellow.’
“‘He is very heavy,’ says Grattelard, and thereupon shoulders the hunchback and departs to throw him into the water.
“‘I have made a bargain to get him to carry one away; I must contrive that he shall carry away all three,’ says Madame.
“Grattelard returns. ‘I have thrown him into the water,’ he announces. ‘But he was very heavy!’
“‘You are mocking me,’ replies the woman. ‘You must have thrown him in very badly, for he has come back again. Look! Here he is!’
“‘To the devil with the hunchback! I will load my shoulders with him again and carry him back to the river.’
“He goes and returns, but still he finds a hunchback.
“‘Don’t you understand that he will always come back?’ says Madame Trostolle; ‘you don’t know how to go about it.’
“‘Mordienne!’ says Grattelard. ‘I shall end by getting angry! I shall take him back again, but if he makes another appearance I shall put a stone round his neck.’ And for the third time he carries off the hunchback, whilst Madame goes off on the other side.
“Trostolle returns; he has discharged his affairs and wishes to assure himself that his brothers have not been to his house.
“‘How now! Death of my life!’ cries Grattelard, who has returned for the third time, and perceives Trostolle, ‘there is my hunchback again! To the river, my hunchback! To the river!’
“He seizes the husband, and carries him off like the others. That done he returns to receive the promised twenty crowns.
“‘Well, have you thrown him into the river?’ inquires Madame Trostolle.
“‘I had to carry him there four times!’ answers Grattelard; ‘he persisted in coming back, but this time——’
“‘Four times! Has he by chance put my husband with the others?’
“‘Faith, the last one at least could talk!’
“‘Oh! what have you done?’ cries the woman. ‘You have thrown my husband into the water!’
“‘There’s no great harm done! He was a hunchback who could never have been straight. Here, this is a letter from Master Horace.’
“‘Is he far from here?’ she asks.
“‘Since your husband is dead,’ is the answer, ‘you had best marry him. Lo, here he comes!’
“‘Madame,’ says Horace, ‘if the affection which I bear you may serve as a warrant to permit me to present to you my vows, you may believe that I am the most faithful of your subjects.’”
Jodelet, a clownish lackey, ingenuous and stupid of appearance, was played in the French troupe of the Hôtel de Bourgogne by Julien Geoffrin, from 1610 to 1660. In shape his costume is that of Beltrame; as to its colour, he wears a black cap, striped doublet, trunk and hose, the mask of Brighella and the black chin-piece, the cloak, purse and wooden sabre of all similar types.
It was for the character of this personage that Scarron wrote Jodelet Duelliste and Jodelet Maître et Valet in 1645.
We have also Jodelet Astrologue, a comedy by d’Ouville, 1646; and La Feinte Mort de Jodelet, a comedy by Brécourt, 1660.
Julien Geoffrin was the last to play la farce in France.
“For one who plays the naïve with his face plastered with flour” (says Tallemant) “he is a good actor. Farce is no longer played save at the Marais, where he is, and it is on his account that it is played there. Jodelet speaks through his nose in consequence of not having been properly treated ... and that lends him a certain quaintness.”
Jodelet played also sometimes with the Italian troupe.
Gilotin, Tripotin and Filipin played in farces at the French theatre of the Hôtel de Bourgogne (1655). Filipin, whose real name was Villiers, played the same rôles as Jodelet. Scarron wrote for him Le Gardien de Soi-Même. He wore the black mask of the Italian lackeys, and a red cap adorned by two feathers.
(1635) Goguelu was a French mask who appears to have attempted to replace Gros-Guillaume at the theatre of the Hôtel de Bourgogne. He wore wide pantaloons, a doublet like that of Brighella, the cloak, skull cap and exaggerated moustache of the Italian buffoons.
Bruscambille, another type of the Hôtel de Bourgogne, was created by Deslauriers. He was a native of Champagne, an actor and an author, and he made his first appearance in 1598, on the trestles of Jean Farine, joining the company of the Hôtel de Bourgogne in 1634.