: Bataille de dames by Legouv Ernest Scribe Eug Ne Wells B W Benjamin Willis Editor - Comedies; French drama 19th century FR Théâtre

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BATAILLE DE DAMES

PAR SCRIBE ET LEGOUV?

BY BENJ. W. WELLS, PH.D. FORMERLY PROFESSOR OF MODERN LANGUAGES, UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH.

INTRODUCTION

"BATAILLE DE DAMES" bears on its title-page the names of two authors, Scribe and Legouv?; and as we can determine the nature of their collaboration from internal evidence alone, it is necessary to examine somewhat the works and characteristics of each.

Scribe's course was now an uninterrupted triumph. During the whole Bourbon and Orleanist period he was first, with no second, in light comedy. Beginning at the humble Th??tre du Vaudeville and the Vari?t?s, he passed in 1820 to the newly founded Gymnase, for which he wrote one hundred and fifty little pieces, of which the most significant are "La Demoiselle ? marier," "La Chanoinesse," "Le Colonel," "Zo?, ou l'amant pr?t?," and "Le Plus beau jour de ma vie," the last two familiar to us as "The Loan of a Lover" and "The Happiest Day of My Life." Most of these pieces were written in collaboration with various dramatists, of whom the least forgotten are Saintine, Bayard, and Saint-Georges, men of whom it is quite pardonable to be ignorant. It is, therefore, reasonable to infer that the essential dramatic element in them is due to Scribe alone; and indeed one sees that, while all are slight in conception, they are all ingenious and amusing in intrigue.

In his more ambitious comedies Scribe at first preferred to work alone, and here, too, he learned success by failure. The new conditions, social and political, that followed the Revolution of 1830, helped him also; for new liberties admitted, and the new bourgeois plutocracy invited, the good-humored persiflage in which he was an easy master. On the other hand, he was hardly touched by the accompanying Romantic movement in literature that was then convulsing the theatre-going public with "Hernani" and "Antony." He cared much less for the critics than for the box-office, and now transferred his work almost wholly to the national Th??tre Fran?ais. Here were produced during the eighteen years that separate "Bertrand et Raton" from "Bataille de dames" almost all his pieces that still hold the stage, notable among them "La Camaraderie," the most popular of his political comedies, "Une Cha?ne," "Le Verre d'eau," "Adrienne Lecouvreur," and "Les Contes de la reine de Navarre." The last two, the present comedy, and the somewhat later "Doigts de f?e" , were written in collaboration with Legouv?; and as these are certainly his best plays, we may expect to find an element in them that Scribe alone, or with other collaborators, could not supply. But of this presently.

Le th??tre a pay? cet asile champ?tre Vous qui passez, merci! Je vous le dois peut-?tre.

But as he had gained easily he spent liberally, and many stories tell of his ingenious and delicate generosity.

BENJ. W. WELLS.

FOOTNOTES:

BATAILLE DE DAMES

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