NAPOLEONIC LITERATURE

Commentary

William Wordsworth's sonnets to Andreas Hofer which contributed to the romanticisation of the innkeeper's image and the legend surrounding the insurrection.

Extracts

IX 1
HOFER
[Composed 1809. -- Published Oct. 20, 1809 (The
Friend); 1815.]
OF mortal parents is the Hero born
By whom the undaunted Tyrolese are led?
Or is it Tell's great Spirit, from the dead
Returned to animate an age forlorn?
He comes like Phοbus through the gates
of morn  5
When dreary darkness is discomfited,
Yet mark his modest state! upon his head,
That simple crest, a heron's plume, is worn.
O Liberty! they stagger at the shock
From van to rear -- and with one mind
would flee,  10
But half their host is buried: -- rock on
rock
Descends: -- beneath this godlike War­
rior, see!
Hills, torrents, woods, embodied to bemock
The Tyrant, and confound his cruelty.
 
X
[Composed 1809. -- Published October 26, 1809
(The Friend); 1815.]
ADVANCE -- come forth from thy Tyrolean
ground,
Dear Liberty! stern Nymph of soul un­
tamed;
Sweet Nymph, O rightly of the moun­
tains named!
Through the long chain of Alps from
mound to mound
And o'er the eternal snows, like Echo,
bound;  5
Like Echo, when the hunter train at dawn
Have roused her from her sleep: and
forest-lawn,
Cliffs, woods and caves, her viewless steps
resound
And babble of her pastime! -- On, dread
Power!
With such invisible motion speed thy flight,
Through hanging clouds, from craggy
height to height,  11
Through the green vales and through the
herdsman's bower -
That all the Alps may gladden in thy might,
Here, there, and in all places at one hour.
 
XI
FEELINGS OF THE TYROLESE
[Composed 1809. -- Published December 21, 1809
(The Friend); 1815.]
THE Land we from our fathers had in
trust,
And to our children will transmit, or die;
This is our maxim, this our piety;
And God and Nature say that it is just.
That which we would perform in arms -
we must!  5
We read the dictate in the infant's eye;
In the wife's smile; and in the placid sky;
And, at our feet, amid the silent dust
Of them that were before us. -- Sing aloud
Old songs, the precious music of the
heart!  10
Give, herds and flocks, your voices to the
wind!
While we go forth, a self-devoted crowd,
With weapons grasped in fearless hands,
to assert
Our virtue, and to vindicate mankind.
 
XII
[Composed 1809. -- Published November 16, 1809
(The Friend); 1815.]
ALAS! what boots the long laborious quest
Of moral prudence, sought through good
and ill;
Or pains abstruse -- to elevate the will,
And lead us on to that transcendent rest
Where every passion shall the sway attest
Of Reason, seated on her sovereign hill;
What is it but a vain and curious skill,
If sapient Germany must lie deprest,
Beneath the brutal sword? -- Her haughty
Schools
Shall blush; and may not we with sorrow
say,  10
A few strong instincts and a few plain rules,
Among the herdsmen of the Alps, have
wrought
More for mankind at this unhappy day
Than all the pride of intellect and thought?
 
XIII
[Composed 1809. -- Published December 21, 1809
(The Friend); 1815.]
AND is it among rude untutored Dales,
There, and there only, that the heart is
true?
And, rising to repel or to subdue,
Is it by rocks and woods that man prevails?
Ah no! though Nature's dread protection
fails,  5
There is a bulwark in the soul. This knew
Iberian Burghers when the sword they
drew
In Zaragoza, naked to the gales
Of fiercely-breathing war. The truth was
felt
By Palafox, and many a brave compeer,
Like him of noble birth and noble mind;
By ladies, meek-eyed women without
fear;  12
And wanderers of the street, to whom is
dealt
The bread which without industry they
find.

Commentary

On 10 September, 1860, the premiere of Eugène Labiche's Le Voyage de Monsieur Perrichon, a comedy in four acts, was held at the Théâtre du Gymnase in Paris. The play, considered by many to be representative of the bourgeoisie during the Second Empire, ran until 15 September (cf. the issues of the Moniteur Universel from 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15 September, 1860) and featured one of the Second Empire's most famous actors, Geoffroy,* in the role of Monsieur Perrichon.
 
The play's history
By 1860, Eugène Labiche was one of France's most successful dramatists. His first play, La Cuvette d'eau, was most likely written in 1837, but his first success came in 1851 with Un chapeau de paille en Italie. Le Voyage de Monsieur Perrichon, written in collaboration with Edouard Martin, was quite unlike any of Labiche's other plays. Whilst his previous works usually saw the plot unfold in domestic surroundings, Labiche's latest work saw the Perrichon family take the audience on a journey from Paris' Gare de Lyon to Savoie's glaciers.
 
The play, written over the course of 1860, did not take long to complete and clearly took its inspiration from current affairs, namely, France's annexation of Nice and Savoie. The parallel ends there however. Le Voyage de Monsieur Perrichon is a comedy of manners, featuring comic and absurdist situations. The author was more concerned with portraying the Parisian bourgeois individual than Savoyard society. And it was the railway, not the current political situation, that interested him the most.
 
Although the introduction and development of the railway in France was slow, by 1860 it was well established within the empire. The Compagnie des chemins de fer de Paris à Lyon et à la Méditerranée (known more simply known as the PLM) was founded in 1857 following the amalgamation of the Paris-Lyon and Lyon-Méditerranée companies. The network proceeded to expand, including a line to Geneva via Lyon (as seen in the play), and developments in equipment continued apace, with locomotive speeds soon reaching 60 km per hour.
 
Following its opening at the Théâtre du Gymnase on 10 September, Le Voyage de Monsieur Perrichon was a triumphant success, earning Labiche the nickname "king of the Vaudeville". This success has proved long-lasting and in 1906, the play was added to the Comédie Française's repertory.
 
Summary
Monsieur Perrichon, a rich coachbuilder by profession, is an honest but vain member of the bourgeoisie who decides to take a pleasure trip in the company of his wife Caroline and his daughter Henriette. The family, deciding on a train journey to the Swiss Alps, arrive at Gare de Lyon in Paris where they happen upon two young suitors, both with the same goal of marrying Henriette. Over the course of the journey, the two men are involved in an honourable but fierce struggle for the young lady's hand in marriage.
 
* Note
Jean Marie Geoffroy (1813-1883), known simply as "Geoffroy", joined the Théâtre du Gymnase in Paris in 1844 and very quickly became one of its mainstays. His performances were, on the whole, critically well received: "He is positively brimming with unexpected brio. His fame has become almost a source of renown in itself". (J. Arago, 1852); "He has a laugh that is his own, a pleasant laugh that fills the auditorium. Other comic actors draw from that which is serious for their effect, using it to sell the jokes, good or bad, that make up their roles; Geoffroy's approach is the opposite".
 
In 1863, after nineteen years of service, he left the Théâtre du Gymnase to work with the Théâtre du Palais-Royal. It was there that his career blossomed, making him one of the most successful actors of his time.

Extracts

Act One
Gare de Lyon, Paris. Upstage, a barrier opens into the waiting rooms. Upstage left, a ticket office. Upstage right, benches. Stage right, pastry seller; stage left, book seller.  
Scene one:
Majorin, a railway employee; a porter, travellers, station agents
 
Majorin, pacing impatiently
"That Perrichon isn't coming! I have been waiting an hour. Yet it is definitely today that he leaves for Switzerland with his wife and daughter... (Bitterly) Coachbuilders holidaying in Switzerland! Coachbuilders with incomes of forty thousand pounds! Coachbuilders owning carriages! What a century we live in! Whereas I, I earn two thousand four hundred francs... A hardworking, intelligent employee, always at my desk... Today I requested leave... I said that I was on duty... I absolutely must see Perrichon before his departure... I am going to ask him to advance me this quarter's pay... six hundred francs! He will assume his most beneficent manner and adopt a self-important air!... a coachbuilder! What a pitiful sight! He still isn't here! One would think he is doing it deliberately!..."

Emmanuelle Papot (September 2010, tr. & ed. H.D.W.)

Sources

- Full text (external link in French)
- Eugène Labiche, Le Voyage de Monsieur Perrichon, Classique Larousse, 1987
- Henri Lyonnet, Le Dictionnaire des comédiens français, vol. 2, Geneva, 19e, sd.