FRENCH MYSTERY PLAYS.*
DESPITE the author's attempt to ascribe a real unity to this work, we cannot help regretting that he did not revise its disjointed chapters, get rid of or occasionally reconcile many perplexing repetitions, supply many palpable defects, and give us in a com- pact form, as he is admirably qualified to do, a popular history of the medixval French drama. The book is so good that we cannot
help wishing it better. For instance, chapter v., containing a sketch of a dramatic representation at the end of the fifteenth century, is full of life and colour, and would have formed a fitting conclusion to such a work as we should desire. One side of the medimval drama is but ill represented by the bare statement that its jests "were often seasoned by a more than Gaulish, but by no means Attic, salt." M. Sepet is an ardent Catholic, and the suc- cessive chapters of his book have appeared before in various Catholic journals ; but he is likewise a scholar of no mean literary gifts, as becomes a disciple of MM. Lion Gautier and Gaston Paris. The services of the Church, as M. Sepet points out, are in themselves essentially dramatic, and often a dialogue between
clergy and people or between the two halves of the choir. The sequence for Easter Day contains within itself a brief dialogue,— " 'Die nobis, Maria, quid vidisti in via ?' Sepulchrum Christi) viventis et gloriam vidi resurgentis : angelicos testes, sudarium et vestes.'" In the tenth century tripes (i.e., interpolations) were introduced into the Liturgy, which assumed an increasingly dramatic form. "Preserved," says the author, "by its dialogued form from the proscription which expelled simple tropes from the Missal, the dramatic trope was perpetuated in the liturgy of the diocese from year to year, from age to age, under forms slightly amplified and ornamented, but relatively still close to the original form." Many of the lessons, too, then in use were simply recita- tions in the form of dialogue, like the Gospel of the Passion at the present day. Of these the most important was a sermon against the Jews, by a preacher believed in the middle ages to have been St. Augustine, which was introduced into the Breviary, and in a large number of dioceses formed one of the Christmas lessons. This sermon, which included dialogues between the Bishop and the uubelieving Jews, and appeals to the long line of Prophets, speedily became dramatised, and gave rise first to the Prophets of the Christ, and in the twelfth century to the mystery of Adam, from which, in turn, sprang a whole cycle of dramas on Old-Testament history.
The earliest or "liturgical" mysteries were purely sacerdotal,— a dramatic office, rather than a drama. Thus the {Vise and Foolish Virgins and the Bridegroom's Coming at Limoges were acted entirely by the clergy and choir, and the words of Scripture were closely followed. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries the drama tended to become " semi-liturgical,"—i.e., to be distinct from the Office, with which, however, its subject, its arrangement, and its text still connected it, but by a bond which was evidently relaxing. To this class belong Adam, mentioned above, and a fragment of a Resurrection, both in French. The elaborate scenery provided for the representation of the Mysteries—in England, one monkish stage-manager styled himself "Professor of Holy Pageantry "—is • Le Drame Chrilien au Moyen-Age. Par Marina Sepet. Paris : Didler. 18T8
noteworthy, as are the instructions to the actors, which remind the reader of Hamlet and his troupe. We will quote the latter :—
" Let Adam be instructed when he is to answer, that he be neither too quick nor too slow to give the reply, and that not only he, but all the characters, be trained to speak deliberately, and to use gestures in accordance with what they have to say ; and in the verses, that they neither add nor cat off a syllable, but pronounce them all distinctly, and that all that is to be spoken be spoken becomingly."
Of the Resurrection, M. Sepet writes :— " The bond which connects with the liturgy the origin of the Christian drama is still perceptible, since the liturgy itself still regulates -the form of this mystery and the date of its representation. But by the development of the dialogue and the mise-en-scime, by the im- portance assumed by the episodic scenes and the accessory characters, and also by the language and by the style, the already somewhat trivial familiarity of which presages what will be the weak point of the theatre in the middle-ages, when, without ceasing to be Christian, it will, so to speak, have been secularised ; on all these sides the French mystery of the Resurrection of the Saviour, of the twelfth century, already touches the so-called lay mysteries' of the fifteenth."
After the semi-liturgical, there follow the "lay" mysteries, which attained an extraordinary popularity in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and first half of the sixteenth centuries, and often contained from 10,000 to 60,000 verses. There was yet a fourth stage, in the middle of the sixteenth century, when the mystery was gradually being transformed into the historical and chivalrous drama. Of such transition plays there remain the Siege d'Orleans and Saint Louis, while the Enfants Aimery de Narbonne and Huon de Bor- deaux are only known to us by name. At the very end of his book M. Sepet calls attention to a Tragedie representant l'odieux et sanglant meurtre commis par le maudit Cain, 2i rEncontre de son Frere Abel, written by a Norman priest named Thomas Le Coq, in which he recognises the influence of classical antiquity super- added to the ordinary elements of the mysteries, and for which he .claims "something of Marot and of La Fontaine, and also, with due regard to proportion, something of Corneille, and even of Milton."
At this point, then, says M. Sepet, the French national drama perished, or rather committed suicide, and the triumphant Renaiss- ance sought to supply its place by faint imitations of ancient tragedy. But in our author's opinion, the attempt was a total failure; Corneille and Racine were great, in spite of the form which they had adopted, not because of it ; nor have Voltaire and Victor Hugo improved on their predecessors. Every element of the ancient drama save the mystery French genius has developed to the full ; the morality, the sotie, and the farce were all brought to perfection by Moliere, and are living still. But tragedy has never been French in the sense in which the stage of Shakespeare is English, and that of Calderon and Lope de Vega Spanish. Had it not been for the Renaissance, M. Sepet urges, Corneille and Racine might have been to the French mysteries what Moliere was to the moralities, and Shakespeare to the English mysteries. He pleads in favour of a new French Renaissance, to be attained by a return to the point at which the mysteries, for the educated classes at least, became extinct, and by studying and assimilating the old French chroniclers and epics, and combining into one fabric the threads of classical, medimval French, and Christian tradition. And so he thinks the "high style" in the French drama may even yet be revived.
We must confess that we prefer the author's account of what has been to his dreams of what might be. He shows us in an in- teresting and concrete form the manner in which the early reli- gions theatre grew from small beginnings, till it embraced and welded into one a multitude of lesser dramas, forming the Christmas and Easter cycles ; and he gives us translations of some of these early works, including a miracle-play acted by the boys on the Feast of St. Nicholas. It is interesting, too, to read how the actors consisted, first, solely of the clergy and choir ; how the drama received its next development in the great episcopal and monastic schools, which contained in germ the future universities, and where we meet once more with the Boy-Bishop ; bow, finally, the Confraternities—some of which were specially founded for dramatic purposes—took it from the hands of the clerks and scholars. Of these the most famous was the "Confraternity of the Passion, which Charles VI. licensed by letters patent, and which established itself in a closed chamber, and so inaugurated the permanent theatre and periodical representation." The locale, too, was changed from the church to the cloister or the precinct, and the clergy possessed less and less power over the drama, which became more " Gaulish " accordingly. The specimens here given of every variety of mystery, and of the transition from ' each to each, are extremely valuable, and with the full references appended by the author, will serve as a guide to any who wish to extend their knowledge of this subject. M. Sepet's comparisons, 1
also, between the beginnings of the Greek and of the French drama will interest all scholars, though they may not in every case meet with their full approval.
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