SARDOU'S " THERMIDOR."
[To THE EDIrou or THE " BrEcrATou.1 SIB,—I should like to corroborate the tendency of your remarks on the above subject.
It would be quite impossible to give a more grotesque mis- representation of the circumstances of the suppression of M. Sardou's Thermidor than was furnished by Mr. Blowitz in the Times of January 28th. His well-known stage scenery of French politics was produced as usual. There was the "stricken bourgeois mass" rushing from the arms of Boulanger into those of Constans, there was M. Clemenceau portrayed as a "Red" making a " scarecrow " of the Republic, and there was a cowed Government dictated to by a " triumphant mob ;" and, finally, there was the showman's portentous announcement that "the prohibition of Thermidor hands France over to the Revolution " Now the real fact is, there was no mob pressure at all. The demonstration made on the second night, at which I was present, was of an extremely feeble description. It consisted chiefly in M. Lissagaray gesticulating from an upper box, and throwing a whistle at Coquelin : he was supported by a few siffleurs in the gallery, and one or two in the boxes. The demonstration, indeed, was overwhelmingly in favour of the play : the hostile manifestation in the street at the conclusion of the performance could not have exceeded a hundred and fifty persons, and the collection appeared to be quite a casual one.
It may be asked, if the protest was so feeble, why did the Government suppress the play P The explanation simply is, that a very large section of the supporters of the Government viewed the piece with extreme disfavour, and although but a feeble protest had appeared, it was certain to have grown in dimensions, and would have become a formidable one. I have it on good authority that no less than fifty Republican Deputies had resolved to come down on the first night that seats were available, in order to hiss the piece. The scandal of ejecting fifty Deputies from the theatre would have been too great for M. Constans to face, and, moreover, as he remarked himself, he would rather, if there was to be any wholesale arresting, have to arrest fifty of his opponents than fifty of his friends. It is silly misrepresentation to say there was any yielding to " the dictation of the mob." The mob was never in sight, or such mob as there was declared itself, as I have remarked, vehemently in favour of the piece, and turned the disturbers out of the house. The French Government had to consider the annoyance and exasperation which the play caused among its own supporters. The only way out of the dilemma was to interdict the performance.
It is almost difficult to understand why there should have been so much exasperation over this particular play. Char- lotte Corday was acted at the Odeon, a subventioned theatre like the Francais, quite recently, and Marat was held up to odium without protest ; but then, Charlotte Corday was not written by a known reactionary like M. Sardou, and the Odeon is on the left bank of the Seine. There appeared to me to be nothing in the play hostile to the Republic : the struggle re- presented was that between the Republicans proper and the Terrorists. It seemed, however, intolerable to devout Re- publicans that the merely hideous side of the great Revolution should be displayed—and under a Republic—in the chief theatre of Paris. They knew their adversaries would collect and gloat over it. They asked whether, under the Monarchy or Empire, a display would have been tolerated of the excesses committed by the Royalists during the reign of White Terror ?' Certainly not. They would protect their Revolution—that adored convulsion from which the salvation of mankind is derived—from profane misrepresentation. This was the attitude of all earnest Republicans, and it was to this attitude Government yielded with sufficient alacrity.
The curious thing is, that modern Republicans should commit the error of condoning, and, indeed, defending, the excesses of the Revolution, and of thereby identifying them- selves with it. Such, however, is their custom. They say you must take the Revolution as a whole : you cannot take parts of it. This does not seem reasonable. They hardly, however, profess to be reasonable on the subject. To them the Revolu- tion is as a divine event. Only the incorruptible can under- stand it. From an unprejudiced point of view, it is piteous to observe how these apostles of reason abjure reason and human responsibility directly their own sanctuary of dogmas. Is examined.
Victor Hugo, in. the following passage, seems to deny that the Revolution was of human origin. He says : " To impute the Revolution to man is as one who should impute the tide to the waves. The Revolution is an action of the Unknown." Even Renan, who is supposed to live in an atmosphere removed from political strife, cannot maintain his intellectual equili- brium in presence of the Revolution, which he terms " cette maladie divine." He was interviewed last week on the subject of Sardou's Thermidor. Ho remarks sagaciously that " the Revolution is for many a sort of religion. In the same way as we cannot handle a religious question without exciting animosities, so one cannot speak of the Revolution without exciting dissensions." And then he proceeds to say that the• good results of the Revolution are due to the excesses ! This may seem to be incredible, but such is the unoontradioted re- port of an interview published in the Eclair, and the words in French are : " Oe emit les execs de la Revolution qui out produit ces resultats que l'on admire."
The moral of Victor Hugo's utterance is the repudiation of human responsibility for the commission of human crime, while that of Renan, is that no revolution is likely to be beneficial without excesses.
It was rather cruel to the artists of the Comedie Francaise that the objectionable character of the play was not discovered earlier. Those who performed in the play had been labouring at it for three months previous; great expenses were under- taken in furnishing scenery and costumes; the theatre was let for thirty nights in advance. It may be imagined that the- players who succeeded so admirably in their parts are rather sore at finding themselves associated with a failure, and the more so as their profits, as well as those of all the members of the company, will be seriously affected by the interdiction of the play.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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