By ALAIN RENÉ LE SAGE.

WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR,

By JULES JANIN.

Illustrated by TONY JOHANNOT.

[Translated by Joseph Thomas.]

GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS,

LONDON: BROADWAY, LUDGATE HILL.

NEW YORK: 416 BROOME STREET.

1879.

[Pg vii]

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.

When I first determined on the publication of a new edition of "The Devil on Two Sticks," I had certainly no idea of engaging in a new translation. I had not read an English version since my boyhood, and naturally conceived that the one which had passed current for upwards of a century must possess sufficient merit to render anything beyond a careful revision, before passing it again through the press, unnecessary. However, on reading a few pages, and on comparing them with the much-loved original, I no longer wondered, as I had so often done, why Le Diable Boiteux was so little[Pg viii] esteemed by those who had only known him in his English dress, while Gil Blas was as great a favourite with the British public as any of its own heroes of story. To account for this, I will not dwell on the want of literal fidelity in the old version, although in some instances that is amusing enough; but the total absence of style, and that too in the translation of a work by one of the greatest masters of verbal melody that ever existed, was so striking as to induce me, rashly perhaps,

to endeavour more worthily to interpret the witty and satirical Asmodeus for the benefit of those who have not the inestimable pleasure of comprehending him in his native tongue—for, as Jules Janin observes, he is a Devil truly French.

In the translation which I here present, I do not myself pretend, at all times, to have rendered the words of the 'graceful Cupid' with strict exactness, but I have striven to convey to my reader the ideas which those words import. Whether I have succeeded in so doing is for others to determine; but, if I have not, I shall at all events have the satisfaction of failing in company,—which, I am told, however, is only an Old Bailey sort of feeling after all.

[Pg ix]

I have not thought it necessary to attempt the Life of the Author; it will be enough to me, for fame, not to have murdered one of his children. I have therefore adopted the life, character, and behaviour of Le Sage from one of the most talented of modern French writers, and my readers will doubtless congratulate themselves on my resolve. Neither have I deemed it needful to enter into the controversy as to the originality of this work, except by a note in page 162: and this I should probably not have appended, had I, while hunting over the early editions there referred to, observed the original dedication of Le Sage to 'the illustrious Don Luis Velez de Guevara,' in which are the following words: "I have already declared, and do now again declare to the world, that to your Diabolo Cojuelo I owe the title and plan of this work ...; and I must further own, that if the reader look narrowly into some passages of this performance, he will find I have adopted several of your thoughts. I wish from my soul he could find more, and that the necessity I was under of accommodating

my writings to the genius of my own country had not prevented me from copying you exactly." This is surely enough to exonerate Le Sage from the many charges which have been urged against him; and I[Pg x] quote the concluding sentence of the above, because it is an excuse, from his own pen, for some little liberties which I have, in my turn, thought it necessary to take with his work in the course of my labours.

JOSEPH THOMAS.

[Pg xi]

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XXI.

[Pg xv]

NOTICE OF LE SAGE.

I shall at once place Le Sage by the side of Molière; he is a comic poet in all the acceptation of that great word,—Comedy. He possesses its noble instincts, its good-natured irony, its animated dialogue, its clear and flowing style, its satire without bitterness, he has studied profoundly the various states of life in the heights and depths of the world. He is perfectly acquainted with the manners of comedians and courtiers,—of students and pretty women. Exiled from the Théâtre-Français, of which he would have been the honour, and less fortunate than Molière, who had comedians under his direction, and who was the proprietor of his own theatre, Le Sage found himself obliged more than once to bury in his breast this Comedy, from want of a fitting stage for its exhibition, and actors to represent it. Thus circumstanced, the author of "Turcaret" was compelled to[Pg xvi] seek a new form, under which he might throw into the world the wit, the grace, the gaiety, the instruction which possessed him. In writing the biography of such men, there is but one thing to do,

and that is to praise. The more humble and obscure have they been in their existence, the greater is the duty of him who tells the story of their lives, to heap upon them eulogy and honour. This is a tardy justice, if you will, but it is a justice nevertheless; and besides, of what importance, after all, are these vulgar events? All these biographies are alike. A little more of poverty, a little less of misery, a youth expended in energy, a manhood serious and filled with occupation, an old age respected, honourable; and, at the end of all these labours, all these troubles, all these anguishes of mind and heart, of which your great men alone have the secret,—the Académie-Française in perspective. Then, are you possessed of mediocre talents only? all doors are open to you;—are you a man of genius? the door opens with difficulty;—but, are you perchance one of those excelling spirits who appear but from century to century? it may turn out that the Académie-Française will not have you at any price. Thus did it with the great Molière; thus

also has it done for Le Sage; which, by-the-bye, is a great honour for the illustrious author of "Gil Blas."

René Le Sage was born in the Morbihan, on the 8th of May, 1668:[1] and in that year Racine produced "Les Plaideurs," and Molière was playing his "Avare." The father of Le Sage was a man slightly lettered,—as much so as could be expected of an honourable provincial attorney, one who lived from day to day like a lord, without troubling himself too much as to the future fortunes of his only son. The father died when the child was only fourteen years of age; and soon afterwards the youthful René lost his mother. He was now alone, under the guardianship of an uncle, and he was [Pg xvii]fortunate enough to be placed under the tutelage of those learned masters of the youth of the seventeenth century, the Jesuits who subsequently became the instructors of Voltaire, as they have been of all France of the great age. Thanks to this talented and paternal teaching, our young orphan quickly penetrated into the learned and poetical mysteries of that classic antiquity, which is yet in our days, and will be to the end of time, the exhaustless source of taste,

of style, of reason, and of good sense. It is to praise Le Sage to say that he was educated with as much care and assiduity as Molière and Racine, as La Fontaine and Voltaire; they one and all prepared themselves, by severest study, and by respect for their masters, to become masters in their turn; and they have themselves become classic writers, because they reverenced their classic models,—which may, in case of need, serve as an example for the beaux-esprits of our own time.

[1] According to Moreri, in his "Grand Dictionnaire Historique," (folio, Paris, 1759,) and he cites as his authority M. Titon de Tillet's second supplement to the "Parnasse Français," Le Sage was born at Ruis in Brittany, in 1677. There is, however, every reason to believe that M. Jules Janin is correct, both as to the year and the place of his birth, notwithstanding that Mr. Chalmers, in his "Biographical Dictionary," while he assigns to the former the year 1668, places the latter at Vannes, as does also the "Biographie Universelle," which he appears to have followed.

But, when this preliminary education was completed, and when he left these learned mansions, all filled with Greek and Latin, all animated with poetic fervour, Le Sage encountered those terrible obstacles that await invariably, as he emerges from his studies, every young man without family, and destitute of fortune. The poet Juvenal has well expressed it, in one of his sublimest verses: "They with difficulty rise, whose virtues are opposed by the pinching wants of home."

"Haud facile emergunt, quorum virtutibus obstat Res angusta domi."

But what matters poverty when one is so young,—when our hopes are so vast, our thoughts so powerful and rich? You have nothing, it is true; but the world itself belongs to you,—the world is your patrimony; you are sovereign of the universe; and around you, the twentieth year touches every thing with its golden wand. Your clear and sparkling eye may look in the sun's bright face as dauntless as the eagle's. It is accomplished: all the powers of your soul are awakened, all the passions of your heart join in one swelling choir, to chant Hosanna in excelsis! What matter then that you are poor! A verse sublime, a noble thought, a well-turned phrase, the hand of a friend, the soft smile of some bright-eyed[Pg xviii] damsel as she flits across your path,—there is a fortune for a week. Those who, at the commencement of every biography, enter into all sorts of lamentation, and deplore with pathetic voice the mournful destiny of their hero, are not in the secret of the facile joys of poetry, of the exquisite happiness of youth,—the

simpletons! They amuse themselves in counting, one by one, the rags that cover yonder handsome form; and they see not, through the holes of the cloak which envelopes it, those Herculean arms, or that athletic breast! They look with pity on that poor young man with well-worn hat, and beneath that covering deformed they see not those abundant, black, and tended locks, the flowing diadem of youth! They will tell you, with heart-rending sighs, how happy Diderot esteemed himself, when to his crust of bread he joined the luxury of cheese, and how this poor René le Sage drank at his repasts but pure spring water;—a lamentable matter, truly! But Diderot, while he ate his cheese, already meditated the shocks of his "Encyclopædia"; but this same clear fountain from which you drink, at twenty, in the hollow of your hand, as pure, will intoxicate more surely than will, after twenty other years, alas! the sparkling produce of Champagne, poured out in cups of crystal.

This is sufficient reason why we should not trouble ourselves overmuch as to the early life of Le Sage; he was young and handsome, and as he marched, his head upturned like a poet, he met as he went along with those first loves which one always meets when the heart is honest and devoted. A charming woman loved him, and he let her love him to her heart's content; and, without concerning himself as to his good fortune, more than would master Gil Blas have done on a similar occasion, these first amours of our poet lasted just as long as such sort of amours ought to last—long enough that they should leave no subject for regret, not enough that they should evoke hatred. When, therefore, they had loved each other as much as they could, she and he, they separated, still to please themselves; she found a husband of riper age and better off than her lover; he took a wife more beauteous and less wealthy than his mistress. And blessings on the amiable and devoted girl who consented, with a joyous heart, to encounter[Pg xix] all the risks, all the vexations, and also to expose herself to the

seducing pleasures of a poetic life! Thus Le Sage entered, almost without thinking of it, into that laborious life in which one must daily expend the rarest and most charming treasures of his mind and soul. As a commencement, he made a translation of the Letters of Calisthenes, without imagining that he was himself possessed of more wit than all the Greeks of the fourth century. The work had no success, and it ought not to have had. He who has the genius of Le Sage must create original works, or not meddle in the craft. To translate is a trade of manual skill—to imitate, is one of plagiary. However, the failure of this first book rendered Le Sage less proud and haughty; and he accepted, what he would never have done had he at once succeeded, a pension from M. l'Abbé de Lyonne. This pension amounted to six hundred francs; and thereupon the biographers of our author are in extacies at the generosity of the Abbé de Lyonne.

Six hundred francs! and when we reflect that had Le Sage lived in our day, depending only on his Théâtre de la Foire, he would have gained thirty thousand francs a year! In our days, a romance like "Gil Blas" would not be worth less than five hundred thousand francs; "Le Diable Boiteux" would have brought him a hundred thousand, at least: still, we must not be angry with M. l'Abbé de Lyonne, for having bestowed a pension of six hundred on the author of "Gil Blas." The abbé did more; he opened to Le Sage an admirable treasure of wit, of imagination, and of poetry; he taught him the Spanish tongue, that lovely and noble instructress of the great Corneille; and it is doubtless no slight honour for the language of Cervantes to have given birth in our land to "The Cid" and to "Gil Blas." You may imagine with what delight Le Sage accepted this instruction, and how perfectly at home he found himself in those elegant and gracious manners; with what good will he studied that smiling gallantry, that loyal jealousy; those duennas in appearance so austere, in reality so

accessible; those lovely women, their feet ensatined, their head in the mantilla; those charming mansions, all carved without, and within all silence; those exciting windows, lighted by smiles above, while concerts murmur at their feet! You may imagine if he[Pg xx] adopted those lively and coquetish waiting-women, those ingenious and rascally valets, those enormous mantles so favourable to love, those ancient bowers so friendly to its modest blisses! Thus, when he had discovered this new world of poesy, of which he was about to be the Pizarro and the Fernando Cortes, and of which Corneille had been the Christopher Columbus, René le Sage clapped his hands for joy. In his noble pride, he stamped his feet on this enchanted land; he began to read, you may fancy with what delight, that admirable epic, "Don Quixote," which he studied for its grace, its charms, its poetry, its passion; putting for the time aside its satire, and the sarcasm concealed in this splendid drama, as weapons for a later use, when he should attack the financiers. Certainly, the Abbé de Lyonne never dreamt that he

was opening to the light this exhaustless mine for the man who was to become the first comic poet of France—since Molière is one of those geniuses apart, of whom all the nations of the earth, all literary ages, claim alike with equal right the honour and the glory.

The first fruit of this Spanish cultivation was a volume of comedies which Le Sage published, and in which he had translated some excellent pieces of the Spanish stage. It contained only one from Lopez de Vega, so ingenious and so fruitful; that was certainly too few: there was in it not one of Calderon de la Barca; and that was as certainly not enough. In this book, which I have read with care, in search of some of those luminous rays which betoken the presence of the man of genius wherever he has passed, I have met with nothing but the translator. The original writer does not yet display himself: it is because style is a thing which comes but slowly; it is because, in this heart of comedy more especially, there are certain secrets of trade which no talent can replace, and which must be learned at whatever cost. These secrets Le Sage learned, as every thing is learned, at his own expense. From a simple translator as he was, he became an arranger of dramatic pieces, and in 1702 (the eighteenth century had begun its course, but with timid steps, and none could have

predicted what it would become) Le Sage brought out at the Théâtre Français a comedy in five acts, "Le Point d'Honneur:" it[Pg xxi] was a mere imitation from the Spanish. The imitation had small success, and Le Sage comprehended not this lesson of the public; he understood not that something whispered to the pit, so reserved in its applause, that there was in this translator an original poet. To avenge himself, what did Le Sage? He fell into a greater error still: he set to work translating—will you believe it?—the continuation of "Don Quixote," as if "Don Quixote" could have a continuation; as if there were a person in the world, even Cervantes himself, who had the right to add a chapter to this famous history! Verily, it is strange, indeed, that with his taste so pure, his judgment so correct, Le Sage should have ever thought of this unhappy continuation. This time, therefore, again his new attempt had no success; the Parisian public, which, whatever may be said to the contrary, is a great judge, was more just for the veritable Quixote

than Le Sage himself; and he had once more to begin anew. However, he yet once more attempted this new road, which could lead him to nothing good. He returned to the charge, still with a Spanish comedy, "Don César Ursin," imitated from Calderon. This piece was played for the first time at Versailles, and applauded to the skies by the court, which deceived itself almost as often as the town. Le Sage now thought that the battle at last was won. Vain hope! it was again a battle lost, for, brought from Versailles to Paris, the comedy of "Don César Ursin" was hissed off the stage by the Parisian pit, which thus unmercifully annihilated the eulogies of the court, and the first victory of the author. It was now full time to yield to the force of evidence. Enlightened by these rude instructions, Le Sage at last comprehended that it was not permitted to him, to him less than to all others, to be a plagiarist; that originality was one of the grand causes of success; and that to confine himself for ever to this servile imitation of the Spanish poets was to become a poet lost.

Now, therefore, behold him, determined in his turn to be an original poet. This time he no longer copies, he invents; he arranges his fable to his mind, and seeks no further refuge in the phantasmagoria of Spain. With original ideas, comes to him originality of style; and he at last lights on that wondrous and imperishable dialogue which may be compared to the dialogue of[Pg xxii] Molière, not for its ease, perhaps, but unquestionably for its grace and elegance. He found at the same time, to his great joy, now that he was himself—that he walked in the footsteps of nobody, he found that the business was much more simple; this time he was at his ease in his plot, which he disposed as it pleased him; he breathed freely in the space which he had opened to himself; nothing constrained his march, any more than his poetical caprice. Well! at last then we behold him the supreme moderator of his work, we behold him such as the pit would have him, such as we all hoped he was.