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Ruy Blas

PREFACE

Three classes of spectators make up what is by common consent called the public; in the first place, the women; secondly, the thinkers; thirdly, the multitude, properly so-called.

What the multitude demands almost exclusively in a dramatic work, is action; what the women desire before everything else is passion; what the thinkers more especially seek is delineation of character. If these three classes of spectators be attentively studied it will be noticed that the multitude is so intent upon the action that at need it makes very light of characters and passions. The women, who are also interested in the action, are so absorbed by the development of the passions, that they give little thought to the conception of the characters. As for the thinkers, they are so intent upon the characters, that is to say the men and women living upon the stage, that while they welcome the developments of passion as a natural part of the dramatic work, they may almost be said to be annoyed by the action. In other words, what the multitude demands most of all at the theatre is excitement, the women emotion, the thinkers food for thought. All are equally in search of pleasure, but with the first it is pleasure of the eyes, with the second pleasure of the heart, with the third pleasure of the mind. Thus it is that we find three distinct varieties of play upon our stage; the one vulgar and inferior, the other two noble and superior, but each of which supplies a want; melodrama for the multitude; for the women, tragedy, wherein the passions are analyzed; for the thinkers, comedy, wherein mankind is depicted.

Let us say in passing that we do not undertake to lay down any rigorous rule, and we beg the reader to import for himself into our thought such restrictions as it should contain.

General rules always admit exceptions; we know full well that the multitude is a vast body wherein is found instinctive love of the beautiful as well as liking for the commonplace, and longing for the ideal as well as thirst for what is vulgar; we know also that every perfect thinker is a woman to all intent, so far as the delicate perceptions of the heart are concerned; and we are well aware that, by virtue of that mysterious law which unites the sexes in mind as well as in body, it very often happens that a woman is a thinker, pure and simple. Having said thus much, and having once more begged the reader not to take too literally the few words we have still to say, we resume.

Every man, who seriously considers the three classes of spectators we have mentioned, must be convinced that all three are right in a certain sense. The women are right to desire to be moved, the thinkers are right to desire to be instructed, the multitude does no wrong in desiring to be amused. From this fact is deduced the law of the drama. In fact, the whole purpose of the drama may be stated thus: beyond the barrier of fire which is called the footlights, and which separates the real from the ideal world, to create and present upon the stage, under artistic and natural conditions combined, the characters, that is to say, and we repeat it, real men and women; to inspire these characters, these men, with passions, which develop the one and modify the other; and finally, from the contact of these characters and passions with the great laws of the universe, to evolve human life, that is to say the mass of events, great and trifling, painful, comic, terrible, which afford the heart that pleasure which is called interest, and the mind a lesson in moral philosophy.

Thus we see that the drama is related to tragedy in that it depicts passion, and to comedy in its delineation of character. The drama is the third great form of the art, including, linking together and fertilizing the other two. Corneille and Moliere would exist independently of each other, did not Shakespeare stand between them giving his left hand to Corneille and his right to Moliere.

In this way the two opposite poles, comedy and tragedy, are brought in contact, and the resulting spark is the drama.

In explaining the principles, the law and the aim of the drama, as he understands them, and as he has already explained them several times, the author is very far from desiring to conceal the meagerness of his powers, and the paucity of his intellect. He is defining, —let there be no misunderstanding—not what he has done, but what he has endeavored to do.

He is indicating his point of departure. Nothing more than that.

We have but a few lines to write at the head of this book, and we lack space for the necessary elaboration of our thought. We beg leave therefore to pass, without dwelling upon the transition, from the general ideas we have expressed, and which in our opinion govern the whole art, all the conditions of the ideal being maintained intact, from these general ideas we beg leave to pass to the consideration of some of the special ideas which this drama, Ruy Blas, may give birth to in interested minds.

And first of all, to take but one phase of the question, what is the meaning of this drama from the standpoint of the philosophy of history? Let us explain.

At the moment when a monarchy is tottering to its fall, several phenomena may be observed. In the first place the nobility exhibits a tendency to dissolution. In dissolving it becomes divided, and this is how it comes about.

The kingdom is tottering, the dynasty is dying out, the law is falling to pieces; political unity is crumbling under the incessant attacks of intrigue, society in its highest strata is rapidly degenerating; a deathly weakness is felt everywhere, without and within. The great pillars of the state have fallen, the smaller ones only are still standing, a melancholy spectacle: no police, no army, no funds; everyone feels that the end is at hand.

Thence it comes to pass that every mind is filled with loathing of yesterday and dread of the morrow, every man is an object of suspicion, and profound discouragement and disgust are universal. As the disease of the state is in the head, the nobility, which occupies a position near the head, is first attacked.

What then becomes of it? A part of the nobles, the least honorable and high-minded, remains at court. Everything is soon to be swallowed up, time presses, they must make haste, they must take advantage of the opportunity and fatten and enrich themselves. Each thinks of himself and himself alone. Each one, without pity for his country, builds up for himself a little private fortune out of some fragment of the great public misfortune. If one is a courtier, or a minister, he makes all haste to become happy and powerful. If he has intellect, he becomes depraved and prospers. Orders, dignities, offices, money, they covet everything, seize everything, rifle everything. Ambition and greed are henceforth the mainsprings of all life. All the secret disorders which human weakness may engender are hidden under a grave demeanor. And as the first requisite of this life given over to the indulgence of vanity is forgetfulness of all natural sentiments, men become ferocious.

When the day of disgrace arrives, something monstrous develops in the fallen courtier, and the man is transformed into a demon.

The desperate condition of the state drives the other fraction of the nobility, the most honorable and the most nobly born, into a different path. They return to their own domains, to their palaces, their castles, their seigneuries. They have a horror of all business affairs, they can do nothing, and the end of the world is approaching. What is there for them to do, and why should they give way to despair? The only thing to do is to drive dull care away, to close their eyes, to drink and love and live, and enjoy life while they may.

Who can say that they have so much as another year before them? That said, or even felt simply, the nobleman begins to live at high pressure, increases his establishment, buys horses, pours out money upon women, gives magnificent parties, squanders his substance in midnight orgies, gives, throws away, sells, buys, pledges, devours, puts himself in the clutches of usurers and sets fire to the four corners of his property. Some fine morning disaster overtakes him. Although the monarchy is rushing down the incline at a great pace he has succeeded in ruining himself first. Everything is consumed and the end has come. Of all that splendid exuberant life, not even the smoke remains: it has blown away. A pile of ashes, nothing more. Forgotten and abandoned by everybody except his creditors, the impoverished nobleman becomes what he can, part adventurer, part fighting man, part Bohemian. He plunges into the crowd, a huge black mass which hitherto he has seen only from a distance, far beneath his feet. He plunges in, seeks shelter there, and disappears. He has no money, but he still has the sunlight, the treasure of all those who have nothing. At first he dwelt in the upper circles of society, now his quarters are well down toward the foot, but he adapts himself to his new surroundings. He laughs at his ambitious kinsman who is rich and powerful: he becomes a philosopher, and compares courtiers with robbers. A kindly, brave, loyal and intelligent nature: a mixture of the poet, the beggar and the prince: laughing at everything: to-day inciting his comrades to pummel the watch, as in the old days he ordered his servants to do it, but taking no part in it himself: exhibiting in his manners a not unattractive combination of the impudence of the marquis with the effrontery of the gipsy; soiled without, but sound within; and with nothing left of the nobleman save his honor, which he keeps intact, his name which he hides, and his sword which he shows.

If the twofold picture we have sketched is presented at some period in the history of all monarchies, it was presented in a particularly striking manner in Spain at the close of the seventeenth century. And if the author had succeeded, which he is far from claiming to have done, in carrying out this branch of his thought, the first portion of the Spanish nobility at that epoch would be represented in Don Salluste, the second in Don César: cousins, as it is fitting they should be.

Here, as everywhere, in this rough sketch of the Castilian nobility about 1695, it is to be understood of course that there were exceptions, rare, but noteworthy. We resume.

In scrutinizing this monarchy and this period, below the nobility, thus divided, and which maybe deemed to be personified to a certain extent in the two men we have named, we shall see something moving in the shadow, a vast dark mass of unfamiliar appearance. It is the people. The people, who have a future, but have no present; the people, orphaned, poverty-stricken, but intelligent and mighty; placed very low in the social scale, but with very lofty aspirations; bearing the brand of servitude upon their backs, and the presentiment of genius in their hearts; the people, lackeys to the great nobles, and, in their abject poverty, enamored of the only form which, amid the crumbling social fabric, stands out in a blaze of divine light, representing to them authority, charity and fertility. Ruy Blas would stand for the people.

Now, above these three men, who from this point of view, would present to the eyes of the spectator three facts, and in these three facts an epitome of the Spanish monarchy in the seventeenth century; above these three men, we say, there is a pure, luminous creature, a woman, a queen. Unhappy as woman, because it is as if she had no husband; unhappy as queen, for it is as if she had no king; inclining toward those beneath her because of her royal compassion, and of her womanly instinct also it may be, and looking down while Ruy Blas, the people, looks up.

In the eyes of the author, without considering what the subordinate characters may add to the authenticity of the work as a whole, these four heads thus grouped would summarize all the most striking principles deducible by the philosophical historian from the condition of the Spanish monarchy a hundred and forty years ago. To these four it would seem that a fifth might be added, King Charles II. But in history, as in the drama, Charles II. is not a figure, but a shade.

We hasten to say that what has gone before is not an explanation of Ruy Blas. It is simply a view of it in one aspect. It is a suggestion of the special impression the drama might leave, if it were worth the labor of studying, upon the serious and conscientious mind which should examine it from the standpoint of the philosophical historian, for example.

But this drama, though it be of the most trifling value, has many other aspects, like everything in this world, and may be looked at in many other ways. One may take several different views of an idea as well as of a mountain: everything depends upon the point from which the view is taken. We ask pardon for venturing upon a far too ambitious comparison, simply to make our meaning clear; Mont Blanc as seen from the Croix-de-Fléchéres does not resemble Mont Blanc as seen from Sallenches, but it is still Mont Blanc.

In like manner, to descend from a very great to a very small subject, this drama, of which we have suggested the historical aim, would present a very different appearance, if it were considered from a much loftier point of view, namely that of its purely human interest. In that aspect Don Salluste would represent absolute selfishness, anxiety without repose! Don César, his opposite, would represent unselfishness and recklessness; in Ruy Blas would be seen genius and passion kept down by society, and rising the higher the more violent the restraint; and lastly, the queen would personify virtue, undermined by ennui.

From a purely literary standpoint, the aspect of this thought, such as it is, entitled Ruy Blas, would change once more. The three sovereign phases of the art would then appear therein, personified and epitomized; the drama in Don Salluste, comedy in Don César, tragedy in Ruy Blas. The drama ties the knot of the plot, the comedy tangles it, the tragedy cuts it.

All these various aspects are exact and true, but no one of them is complete in itself.

Absolute verity is to be found only in the work as a whole. Let each one find therein what he seeks, and the poet, who does not flatter himself that such will be the case, will have attained his end. The philosophical subject of Ray Blas is the aspiration of the people to things above them; the human subject is a man who loves a woman; the dramatic subject is a lackey who loves a queen. The multitude which throngs night after night to witness this work, —for in France public interest never fails to respond to sincere efforts of the intellect, whatever may be their other qualities—the multitude, we say, sees in Ray Blas only the last, the dramatic subject, the lackey, and it is right.

What we have said of Ruy Blas seems to us to apply to every other work. The great works of the masters of the art are remarkable in this, that they present more aspects in which they may be studied, than do other inferior works. Tartuffe makes this one laugh and that one tremble. Tartuffe is the domestic serpent, or he is the hypocrite, or he is hypocrisy personified. Sometimes he is a man, sometimes he is an idea. Othello, to some people, is a black man who loves a white woman; to others, an upstart married to a patrician; to this one, he is a jealous husband, to that one he is jealousy personified. Nor does this diversity of aspects detract in any respect from the fundamental unity of the composition.

As we have said elsewhere, a thousand branches go with a single trunk.

If the author of this drama has insisted particularly upon the historical signification of Ruy Blas, it is for the reason that to his mind, in its historical aspect, and, it is fair to say, in its historical aspect only, Ruy Blas is related to Hernani. The great fact of nobility appears in Hernani as in Ruy Blas, beside the other great fact of royalty. The distinction lies in this: in Hernani royalty has not yet achieved absolute power, the nobility is still struggling against the king, here with pride, there with the sword; half feudatory, half rebellious. In 1519 the nobleman lived far from the court among the mountains, a bandit like Hernani, or a patriarch like Ruy Gomez. Two hundred years later all is changed. The vassals have become courtiers; and if perchance the nobleman still feels called upon to conceal his real name, it is not to evade the king, but to evade his creditors. He does not become a bandit, but a Bohemian. We feel that the absolute power of royalty has passed over these noble heads during the long years that have elapsed, bending this one, crushing the other.

Finally, if we may be allowed a word more, between Hernani and Ruy Blas lie two centuries; two great centuries, during which it was given to the descendants of Charles V. to rule the world; two centuries, which Providence, strangely enough, chose not to extend by a single year, for Charles V. was born in 1500, and Charles II. died in 1700. In 1700 Louis XIV. inherited from Charles V., as in 1800, Napoleon inherited from Louis XIV.

The rise and fall of these magnificent dynasties which from time to time cast a bright light upon the page of history are to the author a superb, but melancholy spectacle, upon which his eyes are often fixed. He endeavors sometimes to embody some reflection of it in his works. Thus he aimed to fill Hernani with the glory of dawn, and to envelop Ruy Blas in the shadows of twilight. In Hernani the sun of the House of Austria is rising above the horizon; in Ruy Blas it is setting.

Paris, 25th NOVEMBER, 1838.

CONTENTS:

Ruy Blas

PREFACE

DRAMATIS PERSONAE