Scaramouche is the son or the grandson of Matamoros. His name, which signifies “little fighter” or “skirmisher,” and his primitive Neapolitan type, would place him in the category of Captains, if Tiberio Fiurelli had not endowed him in France with every shade of character.
The costume of Scaramouche has never varied in point of colour; he has always been dressed in black from head to foot. Riccoboni says that “in point of cut it is an imitation of the Spanish dress, which, in the city of Naples, had long been the dress of courtiers, of magistrates and men of war. Towards 1680 the Spanish Captains came to an end in Italy, and the old Italian Captain having long been forgotten, it became necessary to find in the companies of Neapolitan comedians an actor to replace the Spanish Captain; thus Scaramuccia was created. In Italy this personage has never had any character other than that of the Captain; he is at once a boaster and a coward.”
Originally he wore a mask, like all the types that date back to this epoch. In his Petits Danseurs, Callot represents the Scaramuccia of the Fedeli company (whose real name was Goldoni) wearing a mask and brandishing a sword. His costume differs but little from what it afterwards became with Fiurelli, excepting the slashings in his doublet and in his plumed cap, which suggest that the date of the creation of this type is the end of the sixteenth century.
Tiberio Fiurelli, the most famous of all Scaramouches, discarded the mask, floured his countenance and, by his facial play, “was the greatest mime in the world.” The breeches that he wore at first were wide, afterwards he assumed those which remained traditional to the type. The girdle has sometimes been of cloth like the costume, sometimes of leather. Trimmings and buttons were always of the colour of the dress.
Scaramouche proclaims himself marquis, prince or lord of several countries which have never existed in any geographical chart. He was, he says, abandoned in his early youth by his illustrious father, and reared at the expense of some king or other, who caused him to spend his early years at the oar of a royal galley. It is not to be doubted that he found his way to the galleys later on, for he is the greatest thief that ever breathed. He inherits all the boast and brag and poltroonery of his father the Captain. Like him he is in love with all women; but his pale countenance and evil reputation afford him few chances with the fair sex. He avenges himself for his rebuffs by boasting of illusory favours and by maligning the women whom he pretends to have jilted.
Notwithstanding his pretensions to nobility, for he claims to be as noble as Charlemagne, and as rich as another ancestor of his named Crœsus, he is nearly always the servant of a very minor gentleman, or of a poor bourgeois, who employs him in the conduct of his love affairs. But instead of doing his duty he prefers to amuse himself by beating the watch and thieving from passers-by. In short, Scaramouche is a good-for-nothing who finds delight only in disorder. If there are any blows to be received in payment for his rascalities, he is sly enough to procure for some neighbour the windfall that was destined for himself. There is a perfect understanding between him and Pulcinella, who is another rogue of his kidney. It is thus that, arm-in-arm, the one shouting and gesticulating brutally, the other bellowing, leaping and wheeling his sword about the ears of peaceful citizens, they sweep the pavement, ogling the same women and thirsting for the same bottles. It is rarely that the matter does not end in a dispute between these two gossips. Pulcinella becomes angry, and Scaramouche vanishes.
“Where is that poltroon, that coward?” cries Pulcinella, pounding the tables with his great knotted cudgel.
When the formidable fellow’s anger is spent Scaramouche returns to reprimand his friend upon his evil inclinations, his irascibility, drunkenness and egoism; it is a speech full of good sense and morality, to which Pulcinella listens absent-mindedly rubbing his hump. Most of the time he does not listen at all, for he has no esteem whatever for this poltroon. The matter, however, ends invariably in libations, and it is glass in hand and his brain a little heated that Scaramouche gives a free rein to his brilliant imagination. He will thus relate all his exploits of gallantry to Pulcinella, who does not interrupt him save by occasional exclamations of admiring astonishment, or by little mocking laughs, which indicate his incredulity.
Suddenly, however, pots, glasses and bottles fly into fragments. Pulcinella, wearied by all this chatter of Scaramouche, swings his devastating club to put an end to the conversation; then he gets up and, without paying his share, departs sneering.
Scaramouche has gone into hiding at the crash, and does not show himself again until his comrade is far away.
“What an ass!” he exclaims. “What an animal! What rude, unmannerly ways! Next time I shall correct him thoroughly; I shall pull his ears.”
Upon the remark of a third party, who accuses him of having been afraid, he replies like Panurge: “Afraid? I? I have a deal of courage. I do not mean the courage of the lamb, but the courage of the wolf, and even more the courage of the slayer.”
Scaramouche is like the bowman of Bagnolet, “he fears nothing but danger.”
Tiberio Fiurelli was born in Naples on the 7th November 1608. Although the son of a cavalry captain, he was, at the age of twenty-five, employed as a servant by the leading lady of a company that then enjoyed a good repute in Naples. He was a utility man, and played small parts from time to time.
One day the laundress of the comedienne who employed him told Fiurelli that her daughter’s best friend was about to be married and that her daughter was to be one of the bridesmaids; she invited him to the nuptials, knowing him for a young man of jovial humour. The marriage was a brilliant affair; there was a deal of drinking and dancing; Fiurelli distinguished himself by eating as much as two and drinking as much as four. As a result, in the course of the dance, driven no doubt largely by the wine into an amorous transport, he kissed the bridesmaid notwithstanding her resistance. The insult was considered of a grave character, particularly as it had been offered in public, and it was judged to be reparable only by marriage. On the morrow the laundress, having assembled witnesses and the members of her family, came to demand justice from the mistress of Fiurelli. The accused appeared, but had nothing to say. He could remember nothing of what had happened yesterday. The laundress, having reminded him of everything, threatened to lay a plaint before the magistrates if he did not repair his fault and make the amend demanded by the honour of the family. Having taken counsel with the actress whom he served, Fiurelli decided to marry the young laundress, who was very pretty.
Some time after their nuptials, Fiurelli and his wife joined a company of comedians. Madame Fiurelli took the name of Marinette, which was probably her own, for she was the first soubrette to bear it. Fiurelli himself assumed the name of Scaramouche. Angelo Constantini, the author of The Life, Loves and Deeds of Scaramouche, says that Fiurelli was the creator of this type; but he is at fault in this statement as in several others in his biography. Evaristo Gherardi severely trounces this work of Constantini’s: “If those,” he says, “who have spoken so unworthily of Fiurelli, and who have made use of his name to produce an infinity of wretched quips and bad jests are capable of shame, let them come candle in hand to make reparation to the manes of so great a man, that they may avoid the punishment which impostors deserve before God and humanity. There is nothing more impious than to exhume a man for the purpose of covering him with calumny.”
Nature had marvellously endowed Fiurelli, and his name very quickly became famous throughout all Italy as that of the most perfect and witty mime that had ever existed. After having visited most of the great cities of Italy, he went to Paris in the reign of Louis XIII., in 1640, and enjoyed there an equal degree of success.
The queen took great pleasure in his mimicries. One day, when he and Brigida Bianchi (an actress known—as we have seen—under the name of Aurelia) were in the chamber of the dauphin (afterwards Louis XIV.), the prince, who was then but two years old, was in such evil temper that nothing could appease his rage and his cries. Scaramouche told the queen that if she would permit him to take the royal child in his arms he would undertake to calm him. The queen having permitted this, he made so many grimaces, performed so many apish tricks, that not only did the child cease to cry, but he was seized with a hilarity whose results ruined the garments of Scaramouche, to the great bursts of laughter of all the ladies and gentlemen present at this scene.
From that day Scaramouche received the order to visit the dauphin every evening to amuse him, together with his dog, his cat, his monkey, his guitar and his parrot. Scaramouche would then be about thirty-three years of age. He was invariably summoned to Paris whenever any Italian troupe was commanded to appear there. Many years later Louis XIV. used to take pleasure in reminding Fiurelli of their first interview, and the great king would laugh heartily when Fiurelli mimed the story of that adventure.
On the subject of Scaramouche, Gherardi writes as follows in the scenario of Colombine Avocat Pour et Contre:—
“After having mended everything that is in the chamber, he takes his guitar, drops into an arm-chair and plays whilst awaiting the arrival of his master. Pasquariello comes up softly behind him and beats the time of his music on his shoulders, which terribly frightens Scaramouche. In a word it is now that this incomparable Scaramuccia, who was the ornament of the theatre and the model of the most illustrious comedians of his day—having taught them that art so difficult and so necessary to persons of their character, how to stir up passions and to depict them—it is now, I say, that for a long quarter of an hour he could shake the audience with laughter at a scene of terror in which he did not utter a single word. It must also be agreed that this excellent actor possessed this marvellous gift in so high a degree that he could move the hearts of his audience by the simplicity and naturalness of his mimicry far more than they are ordinarily to be moved by the most able orators or by the charms of the most persuasive rhetoric. A great prince, seeing him play once in Rome, said of him: ‘Without speaking Scaramouche says the most beautiful things in the world.’ And to mark the esteem conceived for him, the prince sent for him when the comedy was ended, and made him a present of the coach and six horses in which he had had him fetched. He was always the delight of all the princes who knew him, and our invincible monarch never wearied of heaping favours upon him. I dare even to persuade myself that if he were not dead the company would still be in existence.”
In 1659 a rumour was abroad that in the course of journeying into Italy Fiurelli had been shipwrecked and drowned whilst crossing the Rhone, an adventure which was celebrated in verse by Loret.
Fiurelli made frequent journeys into Italy to visit his wife Marinette. His last visit was a very protracted one; he remained with her for seven years, and returned to Paris only after her death. He established himself there permanently, and remained on the stage until the age of eighty-three. Having then retired, he fell in love with a young girl named Mademoiselle Duval, who was tall, well made and very beautiful, the daughter of a servant of the Président de Harlay. He sought her in marriage and obtained her.
The first months of the honeymoon were spent peacefully; but soon Fiurelli’s jealous and avaricious nature was revealed. After all, he was perhaps right to suspect and to complain. There was too great a difference in age between them and the young woman was coquettish. Scaramouche sought to enforce his rights and his authority; but his young wife refused to endure lessons and corrections; she sought shelter with her parents and took proceedings against him to obtain a separation. Fiurelli on his side accused her of infidelity, and demanded that her hair be cut and she be sent to a convent. The affair made a deal of noise, and four years were spent in preparing the case for the courts. Before it was completed Fiurelli died, on the 5th December 1696, at the age of eighty-eight.
At eighty-three he still displayed such agility that in his pantomime scenes he could box the ears of a fellow-actor with his foot. With a slight and supple body he combined a strength and litheness that were extraordinary.
We know that Molière testified ever for Fiurelli an unlimited admiration. It has been said, and there is reason to believe it, that it was the incomparable Scaramouche who determined the vocation of this illustrious child when he was taken by his grandfather to witness Fiurelli’s performances. It was by these that Molière was inspired to embrace the profession of the theatre. It has also been said that as a comic actor Molière always sought to imitate the Italians, Trivelino in particular, but Scaramouche above all. It is well known that Molière was Italian rather than French in his ways, both as author and comedian; that for his first essays, not only for his scenarii but still more for his written pieces, he tapped the sources afforded by the Italian repertory, and that the two companies played in his day the same subjects in the same theatre, whilst the Italians made no affectations of claiming priority, and Molière did not dream of contesting it them. For the rest these borrowings became reciprocal, as may be gathered from the fact that Scaramouche Ermite scored a success at court, whilst Tartuffe gave rise there to indignation.
At the foot of a portrait of Fiurelli in the dress of Scaramouche is the legend:
Tibère Fiorilli, dit Scaramouche, le grand original des théâtres modernes.
Let us take a glimpse of him at work in some entirely Italian scenes preserved in Gherardi’s collection.
“Ottavio, having given Angélique an assignation in the Tuileries, desires that a gallant collation shall be prepared so as to afford her a pleasant surprise. He begs Scaramouche to attend to it and departs. Scaramouche, left on the stage, falls into a reverie. Harlequin enters and Scaramouche begs of him to think of a way but without telling him what is the subject. Thereupon the two of them walk up and down the stage, their heads in their hands, and from time to time one turns to the other exclaiming: ‘Faith, I have it!’ to add afterwards: ‘No, that idea is worth nothing,’ and to recommence their goings and comings in silence. Suddenly they meet, and Scaramouche exclaims: ‘Ah, this is sure to succeed!’ Whereupon they depart without any further explanations.”
In another scene:
Cinthio (approaching Scaramouche). Come vi chiamate? (What is your name?)
Scaramouche. What is my name?
Cinthio. Si, il vostro nome, qual è? (Yes, what is your name?)
Scaramouche. Il mio nome, signor, è (My name, sir, is) Scaramuzza, Memeo Squaquara, Tammera, Catambera, e figlio di (a son of) Cocumaro and of Madonna Papara Trent’ova, e Iunze, e Dunze, e Tiracarunze, per servire a vossignoria (to serve your lordship).
Cinthio. O che bel nom! in verità, non si puo far de più! (What a beautiful name! A better were impossible!) (He pulls out his purse.) Here, this is for Scaramouche. This is for Memeo Squaquara. This is for Tammera and Catambera. (At each name he gives him a coin.) And the rest of the purse for the rest of your name.
Scaramouche (aside). This fellow must be a collector of names. (To Cinthio.) Sir, I have still several other names in my family as beautiful and as long as my own. If you want them you have but to mention it.
Scaramouche, having heard of the issue of a warrant for the arrest of Harlequin, his master, under his assumed name of the Marquis of Sbrufadelli, dresses himself as a woman so as to escape.
Harlequin. Ha! Ha! here is some demoiselle from the Pont Neuf. Good-morning, madam. Your servant.
Scaramouche. Sir, indicate to me, if you please, the way to La Grève?[4]
Harlequin (mockingly). You have but to go on as you have started. Stick to your present ways and you will go straight there.
Scaramouche. I will hurry then, for I fear lest I should not find room.
Harlequin. There is no need to hurry, there will always be room for you.
Scaramouche. The truth is, sir, that they are going to hang the Marquis of Sbrufadelli, and he will be, they say, the most comical corpse in the world, so that everyone is hurrying to see him.
Harlequin (angrily). Those who told you that are ill-informed. The Marquis of Sbrufadelli is a man of honour and he will not be hanged. Do you understand?
Scaramouche. But I tell you that he will be. That it is absolutely necessary that he should be, since all the windows are already let.
Harlequin. That is a fine necessity—to hang a man because the windows are let. Go your ways, madam, you don’t know what you are saying.
Scaramouche. It will be a very pretty show. I am dying to see it. He married two wives and they are going to hang two petticoats beside him. Oh, what a pretty show to see! Oh, how droll it will be!
Harlequin. I shall end by losing my temper. I tell you again that I know the Marquis of Sbrufadelli, and——
Scaramouche (revealing himself). Yes, and I know him too.
Harlequin. Scaramouche?
Scaramouche. Yes, sir. I have disguised myself in this fashion because I know that the Doctor is seeking you to have you put in prison. He is at the head of twenty archers, and I should be sorry if they compelled me to keep you company. You know very well that I have had nothing to do with your affairs, and that this would never have happened to you if you had followed my advice.
Harlequin. This is not a time to be moralising——
Scaramouche. Oh, sir, you have waited too long, we are lost. Here comes the Doctor.
The archers arrive with the Doctor. Harlequin, not knowing where to conceal himself, dives under the petticoats of Scaramouche. The Doctor is furious. He seeks Harlequin and comes face to face with Scaramouche. He gives him good-day with a mocking air, and, observing that he is holding his sides and groaning, asks him what is the matter.
Scaramouche. I beg you to let me go, sir. I am pregnant and in pain.
The Doctor. This is very distressing! But we must see about getting you away from here because I am looking for a certain man whom I am going to arrest, and if he should come this way the archers might hurt you in the tumult.
Scaramouche. And what is the name, sir, of him you are seeking to arrest?
The Doctor. He is called the Marquis of Sbrufadelli.
Harlequin (thrusting his head from under the petticoat). The Marquis of Sbrufadelli, sir? The Marquis of Sbrufadelli is gone!
The Doctor (hearing a voice but seeing no one). Who spoke then?
Scaramouche. It is my unborn child, sir. (Aside to Harlequin:) Be quiet, animal, or you will be discovered.
The Doctor (suspiciously). Your unborn child, is it? He is a well-nourished child.
Scaramouche. Indeed yes, sir. I have never spared my children anything.
The Doctor. So I perceive, since they talk before birth. (Leaning over Scaramouche.) Master child, you say then that the Marquis of Sbrufadelli is gone?
Harlequin (thrusting out his head). Yes, sir, he departed by the mail coach. It should suffice you to be told once.
The Doctor. That is very true, sir. I beg your pardon for my importunity. (To the archers.) Corporal Simon! Take me that child and put him in prison at once. He is a little debauchee at much too early an age, and must be sent to a reformatory.
The archers seize Harlequin and bear him off; Scaramouche escapes crying: “Salvo! salvo!”
When Tiberio Fiurelli withdrew from the Théâtre-Italien in 1694, the rôles of Scaramouche were filled by Giuseppe Tortoretti, who had been playing Pasquariello until then.
“On the day of Pasquariello’s birth, the cat stole the roast meat, the candle turned pale thrice, the wine turned sour in the cellar, and—incredible prodigy!—the stock-pot emptied itself into the ashes. Evil prognostications! Faithful to them Pasquariello was ever a glutton, a drunkard and a devastator, the ruin and the terror of kitchens.”
This name of Pascariel, or Pasquariel as it is written by Gherardi, is no doubt a diminutive of Pasquino, the Roman emblem of satire.
In the sixteenth century Pasquariello was a dancer and a mountebank like Meo Squaquara, from whom Scaramouche claims descent. These personages are depicted by Callot. They are dressed in tight garments, with hawk-bells on their legs, they carry sabre and cloak, and wear a mask with a fantastical long nose, but they appear to be without head-dress. Meo Squaquara in particular seems to be bald-headed. Pasquariello bears the surname of Truonno—that is to say, the Terrible. It is a type that was not seen in France until 1685, when it was borne thither by Giuseppe Tortoretti. Like its ancestors, his Pasquariello was particularly a dancer and a very clever equilibrist. The rôle is always that of a servant.
The Mercure Galant for March of 1685 says:
“The Italian company has been increased by a new actor who earns the applause of all Paris, and who has given similar pleasure at court. He is of a surprising agility and admirably supports the incomparable Harlequin.”
Notwithstanding, however, the felicitous débuts of Pasquariello, this actor was never more than mediocre, and his talents lay largely in the suppleness of his limbs. His type is a variant of Scaramouche, whom—as we have mentioned—he came to replace in the Italian company after the death of Tiberio Fiurelli in 1694.
After the suppression of the Théâtre-Italien (1697), Giuseppe Tortoretti (Pasquariello) obtained from the king the privilege of performing the plays of his repertory throughout France, but with the reservation that he was not to bring his company within thirty leagues of Paris.
Thereupon he engaged a company and toured the provinces, but did such poor business that he died in want. Giuseppe Tortoretti had married in Italy Angelica Toscano, who was known at the Théâtre-Italien under the name of Marinetta; she went with him into the provinces and shared his ill luck.
Pasquariello is dressed more or less like Scaramouche, saving that he does not always wear the cap and cloak; he replaces cloth by black velvet, and sometimes wears red stockings. His simple and severe appearance permits him to play the same parts as Scaramouche, and to replace Scapin under the name of Pasquin.
It is chiefly in L’Avocat Pour et Contre that Pasquariello has an important part; it is he who develops the plot of the piece; he enters at every instant to terrify Harlequin, who has become a great lord, and his servant Scaramouche. Now he appears as a Captain, to compel Harlequin to marry Columbine whom he has betrayed; at other times he is seen as a dancer, a Moor, a devil and even as a painter, for Harlequin has demanded a painter to paint his portrait.
Pasquariello enters. He has donned a waistcoat splashed and smeared with paint; he walks clumsily by the aid of crutches, and his eyes are almost hidden under a green visor.
“What is this?” demands Harlequin. “A painter of invalids? He is paralysed and he will paint me upside down.”
Pasquariello attempts to doff his hat to salute the Marquis Arlecchino, but he trembles to such an extent that, at his movement, the crutches, being unable to support him, one slips forward and the other backward and he tumbles upon Harlequin, who also falls. In the very act of falling this courteous painter greets Harlequin, wishing him good-morning, and announces himself his servant.
Harlequin, bruised and crippled, enlists the assistance of Pierrot to pick up the painter, and then says to him: “Without ceremony, sir, go and do your dying first, and then come back to paint my picture.”
But Pasquariello, or rather the painter, evidently adds deafness to his other infirmities; for without being at all disconcerted he sits down, places an enormous pair of spectacles on his nose, and, after having mixed some colours on his palette with a brush that is something like a broom, he daubs the face of Pierrot, who was standing open-mouthed before him, watching him mix his red and black. Pierrot departs in tears. Harlequin becomes angry. The painter makes no answer; he considers Harlequin, and, brush in one hand and palette in the other, he drags himself on his knees to Harlequin, who, scared, asks him what he is going to do.
“I am going to paint your lordship,” replies Pasquariel. But Harlequin draws his attention to the fact that his canvas is on the other side of the stage. The painter gets up, attempts to turn towards his canvas, but misses his step, and falls full length upon the stage. Harlequin exclaims: “Oh, here is a broken painter! I shall have to pay for a painter!” But Pasquariel is up again, and is taking his leave preliminary to departing. He balances himself upon his feet, then lets himself hurtle against Harlequin, who, being pushed thus unexpectedly, falls once more. Pasquariello falls on top of him as heavily as possible. He then gets up and departs, pursued by Harlequin’s imprecations.
In another scenario, La Precaution Inutile, Pasquariello is a lackey. He has been placed on duty together with Pierrot at Isabella’s door, and they have been expressly commanded not to allow any love letters to pass in. A butterfly flutters towards them. Pasquariel lifts up his nose and observes to Pierrot that perhaps this is a love messenger. Pierrot is absolutely of the same opinion. Thereupon a chase is set on foot, their object being to seize the papers which the butterfly no doubt carries. We have bounds and leaps, and we see one climbing upon the shoulders of the other to reach the butterfly, but the butterfly rises ever higher and higher. Both of them, nose in the air, fling up their hats, and end by colliding with each other so violently that both are knocked over and roll on the ground.
In Le Grand Sophy, Pasquariello, the valet of Ottavio, says to Mezzetin:
“Become but a captain of dragoons, and pleasure and good living will follow you everywhere. No troubles, no sorrows, nothing but joy. What happiness! You receive an order to join the army. Immediately you take the coach, and all along the road you have partridges and quails and ortolans for your everyday food. Just taste me this wine.” (He pretends to uncork a bottle and to pour wine into a glass. Mezzetin opens his mouth to receive the wine.) “Well, what do you think of it? That is the least of all the wines that you will drink on the way. Then you arrive in camp. To begin with you are given very handsome apartments on one floor.”
Mezzetin. So much the better, for I do not care about going upstairs, I think it is a bad omen.
Pasquariello. A number of officers will come to visit you. You play, you smoke, you sing, you drink liqueurs.
Mezzetin. The devil! That is the life of a prelate! And people say that there are evils in war!
Pasquariello. Well, well! It is only people who have never been there who speak ill of it. Meanwhile the enemy advances, and the captain of dragoons is ordered to go and reconnoitre—that is, to ascertain where the enemy is encamped, what movements they are making, and the number of the troops that compose their army. There is nothing easier. First of all you will march in fine order at the head of your company. Oh! I can see you on horseback, what a heroic air! What majesty! Do you dream of it? Do you shake your ears?
Mezzetin. Ay. I know how it hurts me to go on horseback, and yet I have never mounted anything more than a donkey. It makes my shoulders ache. Couldn’t we cut that out?
Pasquariello. Indeed no, it is an honour. You advance thus upon the enemy. As soon as they see you appear, they detach a company of carabineers to come and meet you. When you are within range of one another you begin to exchange salutes in pistol shots, zin! zan! The captain of the carabineers draws his sword, runs upon you and—tac!
Mezzetin. Woe me!
Pasquariello. Oh! that is nothing, only an arm lopped off.
Mezzetin. And you call that nothing! I think it is something myself!
Pasquariello. Pooh! pooh! a mere trifle. The action is reported to the court, and you become a colonel in another regiment. The general orders his army to deliver battle, and to come to blows; the enemy are firing like all the devils, zi! zi! pi! pa! bon! ban! tac!
Mezzetin. Heavens, I am lost! Another tac!
Pasquariello. It is a grenade shot, which carries away one of our colonel’s legs. But that is a trifle.
Mezzetin. Devil take me if I didn’t suspect it when I heard that tac of yours!
Pasquariello. What would you? These are the fruits of war. Your wound will be treated. Your name will be published in the gazette, and you will become a brigadier.
Mezzetin. A still greater charge?
Pasquariello. Faith, I should think so! All the officers will come to compliment you upon your new rank, and they will envy your good fortune. The enemy rallies and returns to the charge. First of all our brigadier runs from side to side, issuing the necessary orders. The fight becomes obstinate, then the enemy is routed, victory is shouted, the fugitives are pursued sword in hand. At that moment a battery of twelve pieces of cannon, which the enemy had mounted on a little prominence, is discharged, bon! don! don! tac! tac!
Mezzetin. Mercy! Ah! I am dead, there were two tacs!
Pasquariello. You were very unfortunate. What a pity! Our poor brigadier has had his remaining arm and leg carried away by a cannon shot.
Mezzetin. I am not in the least surprised, tacs have always been fatal to me. (Kneeling down with his two arms behind him.) Now here is a pretty man!
Pasquariello. You must be patient, my friend. These are marks of your valour. You will have appeared again in the gazette, and you will be made a general, the highest rank of all.
Mezzetin. There is one thing I notice: the more my rank increases, the more my limbs diminish.
Pasquariello. From the moment that you are a general you mount on horseback.
Mezzetin. A moment, please. How am I to mount on horseback if I have neither legs nor arms?
Pasquariello. You are afforded a fresh occasion on which to cover yourself with glory. The enemy is badly placed, you have closed round them, and, after issuing your orders for the fight, you run hither and thither, giving courage to your soldiers.
Mezzetin. Good! I shall be giving courage to others whilst myself I am dying of fright.
Pasquariello. The battle is over: turn what way you will there is nothing but carnage; grenades, bombs, carcasses, cannon balls, all come hailing down. Pif! paf! zin! zan! bon! don! don! tac!
Mezzetin. Ah me! We have come to it again!
Pasquariello. It is a bullet that has carried away the general’s head.
Mezzetin. Trivial, eh?
Pasquariello. Exactly.
Mezzetin. I shall be happy to know what rank you will give me now.
Pasquariello. Oh, as soon as your wounds are healed, peace will be made, and you will go and serve in Hungary against the Turks.
Mezzetin. I am to go and serve in Hungary without arms, legs or head. Oh, go to the devil with your company! If ever I become a captain of dragoons may all the tacs in the world strike me at once!
In La Fausse Coquette, Pasquariello is again a servant, and in the service of I know not what Polish prince, who is none other than Ottavio.
“He comes on with a lighted torch followed by one of his friends who carries a bottle and a glass. And as Pasquariello’s entire attention is engaged by the bottle, he thinks only of emptying it, without paying attention to what his master is saying. Hence it follows that he never returns proper answers to the questions of the prince who, wearied by his impertinences, looks at him closely, and, surprising him glass in hand, delivers him a kick in the stomach and goes off. Pasquariello falls backward, turns a somersault without upsetting his glass, gets up, drains it, and goes off saying: Gran sventura di servire un giovane senza cervello! (What a misfortune to serve a witless young man!)”
In the Regent’s troupe (1716) Giacopo Rauzzini was entrusted with the rôles of Scaramouche. According to the brothers Parfait,
“He was an intruder in the troupe of the Italian comedians. A hundred pistoles presented by him to the man who had been charged by Riccoboni (Lelio) to find a good Scaramouche obtained him the position. He had been an usher in Naples before taking to the stage, and he was but a very mediocre comedian. He was addicted to gambling, ostentation and extravagance; he set up a coach, kept open house, and in consequence made many debts. Riccoboni the elder was obliged to apply to the court for an order to inhibit his comrade’s creditors to stop persecuting him, and, being himself an honest man, he compelled Rauzzini to pay three-quarters of his debts. This state of things continued down to the death of this comedian, who was stricken by an apoplexy in the church of Saint-Eustache, where he died on the 24th October 1731. He was buried on the morrow at the expense of the troupe.”
In 1711, Cavé, known as Maillard, made his début at the fair of Saint-Germain in the rôles of Scaramouche. He toured the provinces but was never seen at the Théâtre-Italien. One day at the fair of Saint-Laurent, Maillard was in the shop of Dubois, the lemonade vendor; his wife, who was playing Columbine, happened to pass by on her way to the theatre, and gave him good-day in a friendly and coquettish manner.
“Do you by chance know that lovely comedienne?” Maillard was asked by one who happened to be in the shop at the same time.
“Eh! Cadedis,” he replied, affecting a Gascon accent, “if I know her?
“Shake hands,” said the other, “for I can say the same.”
Maillard abandoned his tone of raillery to inform this indiscreet fellow that he was the husband of the calumniated Columbine.
“Faith,” replied the other, “I am sorry to have been so frank; but I cannot possibly retract a statement of fact.”
It was then that Maillard became really angry and demanded satisfaction. Swords were drawn. Maillard was wounded and disarmed. His adversary himself conducted him to a surgeon in whose care he left him, taking his leave in the terms of the following mocking allusion from La Fontaine upon deceived husbands:
In 1745 Gandini made his début at the Théâtre-Italien in La Vengeance de Scaramouche and was very well received.
Other famous players of the part were Carlo Agati and Bertinelli, who achieved a deal of success in Italy somewhere about 1715.
Pasquino is an intriguing lackey, who talks a deal and lies as much. His reputation is detestable. He is a nincompoop who makes a ruin of everything to which he sets his hands, including his own affairs, for he spends far too much time in chattering with the waiting-women. Nevertheless he is concerned with only one thing in the world—his own interest. Pasquino is no more than a pale shadow of Brighella, or perhaps he is the same type as Pasquariello.
Pasquino (as a traveller). Ah, Fortune, Fortune! will you always turn a pirouette at the pasquinades of the unfortunate Pasquino? And will you never steer the wheel of your inconstancy into the rut of my merit? Driven from Rome by kicks, I have trailed my shoes from hostelry to hostelry, having no other payment to offer for my lodging than that of liberally maligning those who give me food. At last I arrive here without money, with the hunger of a dog, and unable to appease the starving murmurs of my languishing inside.
Oh, sweet Olivetta, my dear mistress, whose pretty and coquettish ways so often contrived that I should find credit in the hostelries, you should have mended my fortunes. But, since all things are mutable, and since your beauty could but grow pale before the inhumanity of innkeepers, I was compelled to leave you. What should you say, O beautiful forsaken one, if you could see your tender Pasquino, his stomach as hollow as his purse, you who found me a hundred times lying gorged with wine upon your door-sill, as upon a feather bed? It was then that in assisting me to rise you were able with such charming discrimination to distinguish between the hiccoughs of my vinous plenitude and the sighs of my burning love. Oh, Kitchen! enchanting and delicious retreat! Thou erstwhile favourable asylum for my appetite, thou, the usual sojourn of my charming Olivetta! Happy the peaceful stew-pans that are scoured by her lovely hands! Grills, cauldrons, pots and frying pans, warlike ministers to the jaws, you that are the usual trophies of my lovely mistress. Alas!—for pity’s sake revolt against all the roasts and the ragouts of which you are the secondary causes and by a general and harmoniously funereal rattle inform my dear Olivetta that a desperate hunger is about to break the springs of the turnspit of her love!
The costume of Crispin, of the French comedy, created by Raymond Poisson in the middle of the seventeenth century, is borrowed from that of Scaramouche, and particularly from that of the Neapolitan Scaramouche, who, in imitation of the Captains, wears a long rapier and displays all the arrogance and cowardice of that character. This type, which is that of a lackey, more or less faithful according to the wages which he earns, a flatterer, a drunkard, a liar and a thief like Brighella, is none the less an entirely French creation which we owe to Poisson. We mention the character as a transformation of that of Scaramouche, by which it was inspired. Crispin was very quickly admitted to the forain theatres, and was seen in the same pieces as Mezzetin, Harlequin, Polichinelle, Scaramouche, Pantaloon and the other Italian types. Being of a more modern creation, he wears no mask; he is dressed in black, with boots or shoes, ruffle, gloves, a wide leather belt and a rapier.
Poisson was a tall and well-made man. Some say that to the costume of Crispin he added boots to conceal the excessive thinness of his legs, but it is more likely that he appeared thus upon the stage because, in his youth, the streets of Paris, of which not more than one half were paved, compelled footmen and servants to go booted.