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The Stones of Paris in History and Letters (Vol. 1&2). Benjamin Ellis Martin
Читать онлайн.Название The Stones of Paris in History and Letters (Vol. 1&2)
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isbn 4064066498672
Автор произведения Benjamin Ellis Martin
Жанр Документальная литература
Издательство Bookwire
In this donjon the good monks established "storehouses" for the poor, a phrase that may be modernized into "soup-kitchens." These were under the control of a certain "Père Vincent," who has been canonized since as Saint Vincent de Paul. This peasant's son had grown up into a tender-hearted priest, bountiful to the poor with the crowns he adroitly wheedled from the rich. For he had guile as well as loving-kindness, he was a wily and a jocular shepherd to his aristocratic flock, he became the pet confessor of princesses and the spiritual monitor of Louis XIII. So zealous was he in his schemes for the relief of suffering men and women, and signally of children, that Parliament expostulated, in fear that his asylums and refuges would fill Paris with worthless vagrants and illegitimate children. His is an exemplary and honored figure in the Roman Church, and his name still clings to this tower; local legend, by a curious twisting of tradition, making him its builder!
While its buyer, at the auction, is unknown to us, we do know to whom was knocked down one lot, that holds records of deeper concern to us than all the ground hereabout, thick as it is with historic footprints. The plot on the southeasterly corner of the property, fronting on Rue Mauconseil, was purchased by a band of players for a rental in perpetuity. The Parliament of Paris had not recognized the King's claim to all these ownerships, and would not give assent to some of the sales; and this perpetual lease was not confirmed by that body without long delay. We may let the players wait for this official warranty while we see who they are, whence they come, and what they play.
It was a religious fraternity, calling itself "La Confrérie de la Passion de Notre Seigneur, Jésus-Christ," and it had been formed, during the closing years of the fourteenth century, mainly from out of more ancient companies. The most ancient and reputable of these was "La Basoche," recruited from the law clerks of the Palais de Justice, players and playwrights both. This troupe had enjoyed a long, popular existence before it received legal existence from Philippe "le Bel," early in that same fourteenth century. From its ranks, reinforced by outsiders—among them, soon after 1450, a bachelor of the University, François Villon—were enlisted the members of "Les Enfants sans Souci." Other ribald mummers called themselves "Les Sots." Men from all these bands brought their farcical grossness to mitigate the pietistic grossness of our Confrérie, and this fraternity soon grew so strong as to get letters-patent from Charles VI., granting it permission for publicly performing passion-plays and mysteries, and for promenading the streets in costume. Then the privileged troupe hired the hall of Trinity Hospital and turned it into a rude theatre, the first in Paris, the mediæval stage having been of bare boards on trestles, under the sky or under canvas. On the site of this earliest of French theatres are the Queen's fountain, placed in 1732 on the northeast corner of Rues Saint-Denis and Grenéta, and the buildings numbered 28 in the latter and 142 in the former street. There, in 1402, the confrères began the work that is called play, and there they remained until 1545. Then, during the construction of the new house, they took temporary quarters in the Hôtel de Flandres, not yet cut up by its purchaser at the royal sale, and settled finally, in 1548, in the Théâtre de l'Hôtel de Bourgogne. By then an edict of François I. had banished from the stage all personations of Jesus Christ and of all holy characters; such other plays being permitted as were "profane and honest, offensive and injurious to no one."
The name "mystery" does not suggest something occult and recondite, even although the Greek word, from which it is wrongly derived, sometimes refers to religious services; it carries back, rather, to the Latin word signifying a service or an office. The plays called "mysteries" and "moralities" were given at first in mediæval Latin, or, as time went on, in the vernacular, with interludes in the same Latin, which may be labelled Christian or late Latin. They were rudimentary essays in dramatic art, uncouth and grotesque, in tone with that "twilight of the mind, peopled with childish phantoms." Hugo's description of the "très belle moralité, le bon jugement de Madame la Vierge," by Pierre Gringoire, played in the great hall of the Palais de Justice, is too long and labored to quote here; well worth quoting is the short and vivid sketch, by Charles Reade, of the "Morality" witnessed in puerile delight by the audience, among whom sat Gérard, the father of Erasmus, at Rotterdam, in the same brave days of Louis XI. of France and Philip the Good of Burgundy.
He shows us the clumsy machinery bringing divine personages, too sacred to name, direct from heaven down on the boards, that they might talk sophistry at their ease with the Cardinal Virtues, the Nine Muses, and the Seven Deadly Sins; all present in human shape, and all much alike. This dreary stuff was then enlivened by the entrance of the Prince of the Powers of Air, an imp following him and buffeting him with a bladder, and at each thwack the crowd roared in ecstasy. So, to-day, the equally intelligent London populace finds joy in the wooden staff of the British Punch. When the Vices had vented obscenity and the Virtues twaddle, the Celestials with the Nine Muses went gingerly back to heaven on the one cloud allowed by the property-man, and worked up and down by two "supes" at a winch, in full sight of everybody. Then the bottomless pit opened and flamed in the centre of the stage, and into it the Vices were pushed by the Virtues and the stage-carpenters, who all, with Beelzebub, danced about it merrily to sound of fife and tabor. And the curtain falls on the first act. "This entertainment was writ by the Bishop of Ghent for the diffusion of religious sentiments by the aid of the senses, and was an average specimen of theatrical exhibitions, so long as they were in the hands of the clergy; but, in course of time, the laity conducted plays, and so the theatre, we learn from the pulpit, has become profane."
The dulness of moralities and mysteries was relieved by the farces, spiced and not nice, of the "Sots" and the "Basoche" on their boards. They made fun of earthly dignitaries, ridiculing even kings. Thus they represented Louis XII., in his Orleans thirst for money—never yet quenched in that family—drinking liquid gold from a vase. Their easy-going monarch took no offence, avowing that he preferred that his court should laugh at his parsimony, rather than that his subjects should weep for his prodigalities. To win applause, in his rôle of "le Père du Peuple," he encouraged the "powerful, disorderly, but popular theatre," and he patronized Pierre Gringoire, whose plays drew the populace to the booths about the Halles. The poet and playwright, widower of Hugo's happily short-lived Esmeralda, had been again married and put in good case by the whimsical toleration of Louis XI., if we may accept the dates of Théodore de Banville's charming little play. That monarch, easily the first comedian of his time, allowed no rivals on the mimic stage, and it languished during his reign. Nor did it flourish under François I., whose brutal vices must not be made fun of. Henri IV., fearless even of mirth, which may be deadly, not only gave smiling countenance to this theatre, but gave his presence at times; thus we read that, with queen and court, he sat through "une plaisante farce" on the evening of January 12, 1607. The Renaissance enriched the French stage, along with all forms of art, bringing translations through the Italian of the classic drama. The theatre of the Hôtel de Bourgogne became La Comédie Italienne, and its records recall famous names, on the boards and in the audience, throughout long and honorable years. The troupe was not free from jealousies, and did not escape secessions, notably that of 1598, when the heavy old men of the historic house cut adrift the light comedians and the young tragedians, who had been recruited within a few years, mainly from the country. Those who remained devoted themselves to the "legitimate drama," yet found place for approved modern work, such as that of young Racine. The seceders betook themselves to buildings on the east side of Rue de Renard, just north of Rue de la Verrerie, convenient to the crowded quarter of la Grève; but removed shortly to the theatre constructed for them from a tennis-court in Rue Vieille-du-Temple, in the heart of the populous Marais. You shall go there, a little later, to see the classic dramas of a young man from Rouen, named Corneille. These players called themselves "Les Comédiens du Marais," and by 1620 had permission from Louis XIII. to take the title of "La Troupe Royale." A few years later, perhaps as early as 1650, all the Paris of players and playgoers began to talk about a strolling troupe in the southern provinces and about their