While things do remain as they are, however, we may, I think, smile a little at such a judgment as Monsieur de Saintfoix passes upon our theatrical compositions, when comparing them to those of France.
"Les actions de nos tragédies," says he, "sont pathétiques et terribles; celles des tragédies angloises sont atroces. On y met sous les yeux du spectateur les objets les plus horribles; un mari qui discourt avec sa femme, qui la caresse et l'étrangle."
Might one not think that the writer of this passage had just arrived from witnessing the famous scene in the "Monomane," only he had mistaken it for English? But he goes on--
"Une fille toute sanglante...." (Triboulet's daughter Blanche, for instance.)--"Après l'avoir violée...."
He then proceeds to reason upon the subject, and justly enough, I think--only we should read England for France, and France for England.
"Il n'est pas douteux que les arts agréables ne réussissent chez un peuple qu'autant qu'ils en prennent le génie, et qu'un auteur dramatique ne sauroit espérer de plaire si les objets et les images qu'il présente ne sont pas analogues au caractère, au naturel, et au goût de la nation: on pourroit donc conclure de la différence des deux théâtres, que l'âme d'un ANGLAIS est sombre, féroce, sanguinaire; et que celle d'un FRANÇAIS est vive, impatiente, emportée, mais généreuse même dans sa haine; idolatrant l'honneur"--(just like Buridan in this same drama of the Tour de Nesle--this popular production of _la Jeune France_--_la France régénérée_)--"idolatrant l'honneur, et ne cessant jamais de l'apercevoir, malgré le trouble et toute la violence des passions."
Though it is impossible to read this passage without a smile, at a time when it is so easy for the English to turn the tables against this patriotic author, one must sigh too, while reflecting on the lamentable change which has taken place in the moral feeling of revolutionised France since the period at which it was written.
What would Saintfoix say to the notion that Victor Hugo had "heaved the ground from beneath the feet of Corneille and Racine"? The question, however, is answered by a short sentence in his "Essais Historiques," where he thus expresses himself:--