IX.

PATERNAL SELFISHNESS IN THE PARIA OF DELAVIGNE, AND IN THE PIECE OF COLLE ENTITLED DUPUIS AND DESRONAIS.

VICTOR HUGO is not the first who has endeavored to represent paternal selfishness. In Paria, Delavigne has made of this selfishness one of the subjects of his drama. Before Delavigne, Collé has also made of this sentiment the subject of a piece entitled Dupuis and Desronais. He did not himself invent this character of a selfish father: he found it in a romancer of the seventeenth century, now unknown, named Challes, the author of the Illustrious Frenchmen, a collection of novels which are particularly remarkable for the acuteness and truthfulness of their moral observations.

Let us briefly notice in these authors, very different in time and talent, the different shades of paternal selfishness, and let us see, first, in what manner Delavigne has represented it in his tragedy of Paria.

A young paria, named Idamore, has quitted his father and his native land, and has gone to Benares. He has become a soldier, and, by his exploits against the Portuguese, who attacked India, he has become the chief of a tribe of warriors. They are ignorant of his birth and his origin. He loves Neala, the daughter of the chief of the Brahmins, and is about to marry her. It is at this moment that the old paria, Zares, the father of Idamore, arrives. He has left his solitary abode in order to find his son, who was his only joy and his only happiness upon earth. He finds him, he embraces him, he relates to him, in beautiful verses, how much he has suffered when he was abandoned by him:

I walked, I ran, I cried, O my son !

My son ! Echo alone responded to my cries.

I returned home towards evening, saying to myself on the way: Near the paternal roof my son doubtless awaits me.

No person on the threshold, no footstep, no noise;
I found myself solitary and alone with the night.
How his star with regret seems to measure the hours!
How much my abode enhances my solitude!
My eyes, flowing with tears, were hopelessly fixed
Upon that empty place where you ought to sit.
I charged with your death, the tiger, the reptile,
Our rocks, whose sides ought to afford you a shelter,
These trees of the valley, my guests, my friends,
Mute witnesses of the crime which they permitted;
Every thing, the entire universe, mankind, and myself,
Before accusing you, O my supreme good,
You, the only support of an aged father,
You, whom I have nourished, you, my son,
You, my own flesh and blood.

Act iii. scene 4.

In those races which have been unjustly condemned by society, the domestic affections must be so much the more strong and enduring, as they take the place of all the other sources of enjoyment. This is the reason why Zares cannot bear the idea of again losing this son, who has, with so much difficulty, been restored to him. And, notwithstanding the marriage of Idamore with Neala, will carry him away with him, Idamore enters into the caste of the Brahmins; he will no longer be a paria, he will no longer be his son. It is in vain that Idamore offers to his father to share his honors. replies the old paria,

My honors are my cares for you; my only treasure

Is you; it is the happiness of continually conversing with you; To repose upon your bosom at night,

And to wake up to see you again.

What do you offer me? Days passed in constraint,

In groaning, in expecting you, in seeing you with fear,
When glory or love would, from pity,

Abandon you, for an hour, to my sad friendship.

I love you to excess; be entirely mine.

Act iii. scene 4.

No,

And, as Idamore, full of love for Neala, hesitates to leave her to follow her father, Zares, in despair, exclaims, in taking up his travelling cane:

Solitary and faithful prop which remains to your old master,
Come, be you at least my guide, since he is not willing.
O forests of Oraxa, whose sacred groves, pleasant fields,

And humble roof, which he swore never more to quit,
Neighboring sea, where my arms taught his courage
To sport among the waves breaking upon thy shore,
Here I am; receive an unfortunate father:

I return to die alone among the fields where I was born.
Act iii. scene 4.

This paternal selfishness has something natural and touching, especially in an unfortunate man; and yet we think that this selfishness is revolting to the spectator. Why did Zares not accept the brilliant lot which his son offered him? Why did he obstinately wish to carry him to his retreat, and force him to sacrifice his love? Paternal affection has been created by God, not to receive, but to give; not to require sacrifices, but to make them. Moreover, we believe that the poet has forgotten to give to Zares the only sentiment which can enable us to conceive his repugnance to share the honors of his son-religious fanaticism. The Jew of the middle ages, proscribed by the Christians, proscribed them in his turn; he hated them, not only as a people of oppressors, but as an infidel race; he preferred rather to see his son perish, than to see him a Christian. Such ought the parias to be, with regard to the Brahmins; they must have hatred for hatred, fanaticism for fanaticism; they ought to curse them from the depth of their misery, as the latter curse them from the haughtiness of their pride. Thus, when the old paria sees his son about to enter, by his marriage, into the ranks of this proud caste, why did he not reclaim his son only in the name of his paternal love? Ah! If it was in the name of religion, in the name of this legitimate hatred against the tyranny of the Brahmins, or in the name of God, that Zares reclaimed his son, then we would be no longer astonished at his obstinacy, for we know that it is the property of enthusiasm, or fanaticism, to extinguish the sentiments of nature; we could shed tears over the unhappy love of Idamore and Neala; but we would conceive that Zares wished to make Neala abandon this love, which seemed to him to be an impiety. This would be an eternal struggle between duty and passion, between heaven and earth; this would be the old Lusignan entreating his daughter to return to Christianity and to separate herself from Orasmenes. But the selfishness of Zares cannot, of itself, serve as a counterpoise to the love of Idamore for Neala; religion, as in Zaire, or honor, as in

the Cid, can alone counterbalance the influence of love.

On the stage, paternal selfishness ought, in our opinion, to be represented with much reserve, rather as a defect which appears, notwithstanding our efforts to conceal it, than as a legitimate sentiment which has a right to show itself; and this rule should be observed, more especially, in comedy, where the characters are not proposed as examples, than in tragedy, where the characters seek to interest us.

It is in this manner that Collé has represented it to us in the piece entitled Dupuis and Desronais. His selfish father seems to be ashamed of his fault; he dissembles it as much as he can, and the efforts which he makes to conquer or conceal his passion, because after all this passion is next to a good quality. The spectator at the same time excuses and censures this father, who loves his daughter so much that he does not wish to have a son-in-law, that is to say, any one whom his daughter will love as much as or more than himself. The mixture of hatred and interest which suit this character makes of this piece a particular kind of comedy which Collé in his Mémoires endeavors to define by saying, that it does not resemble the pieces of La Chaussée, which are dramas; nor those of Marivaux, although they resemble them very much; nor the pieces of Regnard and Du Fresny; and he modestly concluded that this kind of comedy is entirely new and original. Collé in thus speaking forgot the Misanthrope; for the misanthrope is also a character which the poet wished us to love and censure at the same time. Only in the Misanthrope, the comic tone is always dominant, and in that lies the great art of Moliere ; while in Dupuis and Desronais, the dramatic tone appears every where, although Collé detested the drama.

Before examining the piece of Collé, let us say a word concerning the author.

Collé ought to have his place in the history of the literature of the eighteenth century. He does not belong to the school of the Encyclopædists, for he often ridicules them; he has nevertheless the ideas of the eighteenth century, and yields more than he is aware to the influence of the men I whom he censures. It is even in this respect that Collé faithfully represents one side of the society of the eighteenth century. Whatever, indeed, at this epoch, was the ascendant of the philosophers, there was a considerable portion of society

which had a repugnance for this school, still more for its men than their ideas. Thus attached to the grand philosophic school of the eighteenth century was a numerous school of writers, who without being the adversaries of the Encyclodist party, censured its insolent pretensions and its religious intolerance; who loved liberty, but the reserved discreet liberty of private life, and not political liberty, with its rage for governing the world; not devotees, but on the contrary, they were a little skeptical, and censured severely pedantic or fanatical incredulity; men who attached themselves to the opposition; but only in songs, and never went so far as to publish pamphlets. In other respects they were good citizens, and accommodated themselves very well to the social hierarchy in which they were neither the first nor the last; employing themselves willingly in diverting princes, and endeavoring to enrich themselves with their assistance or at their expense, without renouncing the privilege of abusing them behind their backs.

Such was this school, which attached itself at a respectable distance to Montesquieu himself, who always knew how to keep himself apart from the sect of Encyclopædists, although he had written the Persian Letters; and to Duclos, who although a philosopher, censured the declamatory temerity of the apostles of impiety; a school which has for its principal representatives Lesage, the first among those freetalkers who did not wish to be freethinkers, Marivaux, Piron, Crebillon the younger, Panard and Collé; and who in our opinion faithfully represented the mind and character of what may be called the middle class of the society of the eighteenth century. In this class were united, as it often happens, contradictory opinions, which were tempered the one by the other: a little philosophy and a little religion; a little love of liberty and a little anxiety to be employed in the service of princes; a little impudence and a little complaisance. The Memoirs of Collé, entitled a Historical Journal, afford a singular evidence of this curious mixture of opposite opinions, which compose, we may say with propriety, the true wisdom of the public.

Collé at first wrote songs, burlesque scenes, and pieces of verse in pure bombast. But these songs and burlesques were not intended for the public; they were only written to amuse the society which Collé frequented. This society was