Vtctorien SARDOU. VICTORIEN SARDOU

VtCTORIEN SARDOU. m of the motlier country. There are in six. Nevertheless, the character of the the British islands about a hundred and sport provided by our masters is of the eighty packs of fox hounds, besides as best, and American riders who have many more of stag hounds, harriers, formerly gone abroad for the hunting and beagles; and the average number of season now find in their own land abun dogs in a pack is about fifty couples, dant opportunities for indulging in this while the Meadow Brook has but twenty most exhilarating of pastimes. VICTORIEN SARDOU. C iS-• ""' '^'^Sj The foremost of living dramatists— The fatnous Frenchman s^ eventful career^ his long list of successful plays, from '' Pattes de Mouche " {"A Scrap of Paper'') to "Madame Sans-Gine" and his home life at Marly-le-Roi. By Arthur Weyburn Howard. ^ riCTORIEN SARDOU has been at gave him his choice of a profession, and V the head of the French dramatists the young man chose medicine. It was —the most successful play makers in while attached to the Necker Hospital the world—for considerably more than that he wrote his first play—a tragedy a quarter of a century. During that time in blank verse called '' La Reine Alfra.'' he has written nearly sixty plays, which The success this work obtained at a have been translated into every civilized reading encouraged the young author tongue, and he has amassed a fortune, to further efforts in the same direction, unprecedented for a playwright, of though he had no idea, at that time, nearly five millions of francs. that he could ever earn a living by His father, who is still living, was, at writing plays. It soon dawned upon the time of the future playwright's him, however, that he had no love for birth—which event occurred in Paris, the dissecting room, and he gave up all on the 7th of September, 1831—an ill idea of becoming a physician. paid professor at one of the Paris For a while he had a hard struggle colleges; a man, however, of consider with poverty. His parents had barely able literarjf attainments, and the author enough to support themselves, and he of several educational books. His was too proud to ask for assistance. So mother also had a love for letters, and he endured all the tornients, physical received a number of the literary men and mental, that artistic and sensitive of the time at her house. Thus it was natures can suffer. His only source of that Sardou 's childhood and youth were income was in writing articles for spent in an artistic and literary atmos magazines, reviews, and dictionaries, phere which could not fail to influence and in giving lessons ; but the articles his future life. were poorly paid, the lessons scarce, and When he was nineteen, his father for many months Sardou nearly starved. PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED 138 VICTORIEN SARDOU. Victorien Sardou. From his latest photDgrapk by Van Bosch, Paris. Ill those dark days of his life he that dogged perseverance which has ever might have been seen, day after day, been one of his most marked character wandering- about the streets of Paris, istics. He was a close student of his shabby and hungry looking, seeking tory—a fact that has been of great employment. At night, in his cheerless service in his later work. He was also attic, b}' the light of a single candle, an inveterate theater goer in those days, procured by saving a sou from his attending the performances at the Fran- economical dinner, he used to study the 9ais as often as his means permitted. art of writing plays.. Scribe he loved One da}^ he pawned his coat to buy a seat above any other master. Taking one at the Opera. of Scribe's plays, a play that he had In 1854 he succeeded in getting a never read or seen, he would read the piece called ' 'I^a Taverne des Etudiants'' first act ; then he would close the book produced at the Odeon. It was a com and map out what he considered would plete failure, and its author's dis be Scribe's scenario of the two remain couragement was bitter. A dangerous ing acts. When finished, he compared illness followed, brought on by priva his work with the original, overjoyed tions. Through this he was nursed by if he had hit on a similar scene or Mile, de Brecourt, who later became his situation. wife; and in what had seemed his So he toiled on, day and night, with darkest hour his fortune began to PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED I40 VICrORIEN SARDOU. Sardou in his Study. Lravin hy L. M. Glaekena from a jjlwtogTaph hy Dornae, Paris change for the better. His wife was stance, "La Papillonne " at the Fran- a bosom friend of Mile. Dejazet, who fais in 1862—were not well received, opened for him the doors of the theater but these were the exceptions that that still bears her name. '' Candide '' proved the rule; and among the others and '' Les Premieres Armes de Fi were two of Sardou's most brilliant suc garo " were given successively at the cesses—" Nos Intimes, " iirst performed Theatre Dejazet, and Sardou's footing at the Vaudeville in 1861, and "La as a playwright was won. His success Famille Benoiton," given at the same was clinched by the famous '' Pattes theater four years later. de Mouche," so well known in this After the Franco German war Sardou country as " A Scrap of Paper,'' which entered on a new and venturesome path. was produced at the Gymnase Drama- He produced at the Vaudeville on Feb tique in i860. The author had placed ruary I, 1872, a comedy in five acts all his hopes on this last play. If it called " Rabagas," which was a politi failed, he had decided to emigrate to cal satire on contemporary events and America; if it succeeded, he would de personages. The piece raised a storm vote his life to the stage. It did suc of discussion both in Paris and the pro ceed, and Sardou was well on the road vinces. Another comedy following im to fame. mediately afterwards, called " L'Oncle From that time to the end of the Em Sam," was at first prohibited by the pire his fecundity was constant. "Within censorship for fear of diplomatic com ten years he wrote over twenty plays plications with the United States, and that were produced at the Frangais, the was performed in New York in 1873 be Vaudeville, the Gymnase, and other fore it was seen in Paris. theaters. One or two of them—for in Then, after three or four other pieces PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED t;. PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED 142 VICTORIEN SARDOU. A Family Group in the Garden at Marly-le-Roi. Frmn a photograph by Pepper, Paris, •—one of which, " I,a Haine " (Gaiete, eral less notable works, three more plays 1874), was a failure—there came were written for " the great Sarah, " and " Daniel Rochat, " a play " with a pur produced at the Porte St. Martin—" La pose," presenting various phases of the Tosca," "Cleopatra," and "Jeanne d' question, much discussed just then, Arc "—the second of these being a joint whether marriage should properly be work of Sardou and Emile Moreau. sanctified by the church. This was Then in January of the latter year produced at the Fran9ais in February, " Thermidor " made its sensational ap 1880, and proved a great success. An pearance at the Frangais. The first other widely debated subject, the per performance passed off quietly, but on missibility of divorce, furnished Sardou the second night a cabal, organized by a with another idea, and in collaboration journalist, succeeded in interrupting the with Emil de Najac he wrote " Divor- play. It was alleged that in this drama 90ns" (December, 1880), which was of the Revolution Sardou hurt the feel also very succes.sful. The following ings of some of the ultra republicans, 5rear he gave '' Odette '' to the Vaude and the government finally prohibited ville, and then came two spectacular its further performance. It has been dramas, "Fedora" (Vaudeville, 1882), given since, however, in the French pro and " Theodora " (Porte St. Martin, vinces, in Belgium, and in New York. 1884), written for Sarah Bernhardt. Some time previous to this, Sardou Between 1887 and 1891, besides sev had lost his first wife and married again, PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED VICTORIEN SARDOU. 143 his second bride being Mile. Soulie, middle of the chateau, on the ground daughter of a distinguished legitimist floor, overlooking the garden and com and archffiologist at Versailles. In 1877 manding a fine view. Sardou is up at he was elected, almost unanimously, to six o'clock in the morning, summer fill the chair in the French Academy and winter, and after taking a first meal left vacant by Joseph Autran, defeating of tea or coffee, works until eleven or both M. D'Audiffet Pasquier and M. twelve o'clock, when he stops for lunch. lycconte de Lisle. He had already, ten If not interrupted by callers or rehear years before, been decorated with the red sals, he resumes his writing, and works ribbon of the Legion of Honor. until three o'clock, when he lays his Sardou is now sixty three, and age is pen aside for the day. Then until seven beginning to tell upon his physique.

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