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NANINE

OU

LE PRÉJUGÉ VAINCU

Comédie en trois actes, en vers

Répresentée pour la première fois à la Comédie-Française le 16 juin 1749

VOLTAIRE AND COMEDY

Voltaire essayed to cover the field of comedy as well as other forms of literature. He made use of all vehicles at his disposal, sometimes because it suited his disposition to do so, sometimes for purposes of propaganda in favor of his ideas. So far as comedy was concerned, his personal inclination led him in the direction of comédies de société, farces, comédies satiriques et personnelles; his ability to lay hold of whatever might serve his ends led him also in the direction of comédie larmoyante. He could never have become a great writer of comedy in the manner of Molière, not because he lacked the vis comica or an abundance of esprit, but because his personality overflowed and imposed itself on whatever it touched; yet several of his efforts in this direction were successful in their day, and are not devoid of permanent interest.

One of his early attempts at comedy is l'Indiscret (1725), an act in verse in the style of l'Impertinent of Desmahis. It was hardly successful, with only six performances; but it was played at Fontainebleau at the marriage of Louis XV and Marie Leczinska, when the young queen "wept at Marianne and laughed at l'Indiscret." The play however deserves the oblivion into which it has fallen. A little later he associated himself with some others in the composition of a hodge-podge entitled la Fête de Bélébat, which was played at the Château de Bélébat. It was little more than a divertissement and a farce indicating the kinds of folly to which men and women of the day gave themselves. What Voltaire enjoyed most was his own part in the play, wherein he received a crown of laurel from the hands of la marquise de Prie. It is the buffoonery of society, the sister of popular farce, a thing in which Voltaire delighted in his earlier days. Likewise he played on a private stage les Originaux, in three acts and in prose, in 1732, in the very midst of his success in tragedy. Similarly in 1734 he put on at Cirey, in collaboration with Mme. du Châtelet, l'Échange ou le comte de Boursoufle, likewise a comedy, and later used for the fête of la duchesse du Maine in 1749. This time Voltaire adds a prologue in which he discusses the comic type and style, making Madame Dutour say:

Non, j'aimerais mieux Arlequin
Qu'un comique de cette espèce:
Je ne puis souffrir la sagesse,
Quand elle prêche en brodequin.

L'Écossaise (1760) is Voltaire's example of satirical and personal comedy, a personal vengeance against a literary enemy, Fréron, editor of l'Année Littéraire. Voltaire used all his ingenuity and influence to get permission from the censors to put the play on, and he succeeded, partly because les Philosophes of Palissot had recently been allowed. It was cast in the mould of a sentimental

comedy or drame bourgeois, based on the old story of Romeo and Juliet, the story of two lovers separated in their love by family feuds; but the main purpose was to present the despicable character of Wasp. On account of the animosities of the day the play was an immense success.

In 1736 Voltaire had produced l'Enfant prodigue. By then, comédie larmoyante had been permanently established, and Voltaire had realized its popularity. A favorable opportunity presenting itself, he seized upon it and produced his first sentimental comedy. Mlle. Quinault had seen the old theme of the prodigal son on the stage of the théâtre de la foire St. Germain, and was about to suggest the subject to Destouches, when Voltaire persuaded her leave it to him. He used his usual methods of camouflage and anonymity in the first performance, and did not declare his authorship when he wrote the preface to the edition of 1738. Although he later condemned the mélange des genres, he now declared himself in favor of it, using the famous phrase: "Tous les genres sont bons, hors le genre ennuyeux." The play had thirty consecutive performances and was also played at the court with Mme. de Pompadour in the rôle of Lise, the virtuous lover of the prodigal son.

A second attempt at the comédie larmoyante was Nanine in 1749, in which Voltaire again wrote a preface in defense of the type, illustrating it by a witty anecdote. "On défendit à un régiment, dans la bataille de Spire, de faire quartier. Un officier allemand demande la vie à l'un des nôtres, qui lui répond: 'Monsieur, demandez-moi toute autre chose, mais pour la vie, il n'y a pas moyen.' Cette naïveté passa de bouche en bouche et l'on rit au milieu du carnage." The theme of the play is taken from Richardson's Pamela (1740), although Voltaire did not mention either the author or the story by name. L'Abbé Prévost had made a good translation of the original novel which was very popular with the French public. Boissy had already used the story on the stage under the name of Paméla, but with no success. La Chaussée, undaunted by the failure of Boissy's Paméla in 1743, produced his own at the ComédieFrançaise in the same year. He did not much disguise the English story nor speed up the action, and the result was another failure, followed by burlesques on the stage of the Théâtre-Italien and the Comédie-Française. Voltaire's only reference to the original is to the reading of a certain English book. He also tempers and softens the characters and teachings of the original, and makes them more adaptable to the French mind and stage. Mr. B. is a much milder personality with the title of Comte d'Olban. Lady Davers becomes La Baronne de l'Orme, the ill-tempered woman whom the count is under obligation to marry. Pamela is tempered down to Nanine, the daughter of Philippe Hombert. The latter is the Andrews of the original, but he is now an old soldier and no longer a peasant. The play succeeded, with twelve consecutive performances.

The Pamela theme has been used in original drama or in translation in many different languages with many variations. Unlike Richardson, Voltaire was not by temperament a sentimentalist, but he saw an opportunity to cultivate a genre that had now become popular, and at the same time insidiously to convey some of his social philosophy. Avoiding the tendency to drag, manifest in previous Pamela plays, he used all his theatrical skill, even employing ten-syllable verse in place of alexandrines, to give movement to the plot and to win applause for the play; the play remained tearful, but not dull. Although Voltaire disclaims any philo

sophic intent by allowing Nanine to say that it cannot be possible that, as this English book asserts, all men are born brothers, all are born equal, and although he insists that the marriage at the end must not be taken as a precedent, yet the play is a philosophical and social theory set in action. The préjugé vaincu is that of birth; it is much more a question of the mélange des classes than of the mélange des genres, a social document rather than a dramatic innovation.

Bibliography (see also introduction to Zaïre): C. LENIENT: La Comédie au XVIIIe siècle, Paris, 1888. H. S. CANBY: Pamela Abroad, in Modern Language Notes, November, 1903. E. DESCHANEL: Le Théâtre de Voltaire, Paris, 1886.

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LA BARONNE. Il faut parler, il faut, monsieur le comte,

Vous expliquer nettement sur mon compte.

Ni vous ni moi n'avons un cœur tout neuf;

Vous êtes libre, et depuis deux ans veuf:
Devers ce temps j'eus cet honneur moi-
même ;

Et nos procès, dont l'embarras extrême
Etait si triste et si peu fait pour nous,
Sont enterrés, ainsi que mon époux.

LE COMTE. Oui, tout procès m'est fort in-
supportable.

LA BARONNE. Ne suis-je pas comme eux fort haïssable?

1 Text of Moland edition.

LE COMTE. Qui? vous, madame?

LA BARONNE. Oui, moi. Depuis deux ans,
Libres tous deux, comme tous deux pa-
rents,

Pour terminer nous habitons ensemble;
Le sang, le goût, l'intérêt nous rassemble.
LE COMTE. Ah! l'intérêt! parlez mieux.
LA BARONNE.
Non, monsieur.

Je parle bien, et c'est avec douleur;
Et je sais trop que votre âme incon-

stante

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