THE ENGLAND OF THE FRENCH DRAMA.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IV, Issue 244, 1 December 1847, Page 3

THE ENGLAND OF THE FRENCH DRAMA.

[From Jerrold'a Magazine.] ♦ **#••*•• " You sell your wives." The English sell their wives. " 'Tis a known fact— an old institution of the country— women are brought every market morning along with bullocks and sheep, to be knocked down to the,'Eigbtfst

bidder. The sale is strictly legal — it is resorted to by the highest personages — it breaks the bonds of marriage. The altar joins a couple, the halter separates them. As the purchase-shillings* are reckoned over the wife loses her liberty — the husband his rights. The free woman is sold, and a slave !" Perhaps many of my readers start when I affirm that this is the firm creed of millions of French men and women, with respect to our customs and lives. They reckon up a long and visionary list of our failings, and the wifeselling part of the story is sure to be the climax of the tale of horror. 'Tis the grand bugaboo of our good neighbours. 'Tis like our old frog-eating, wooden shoe, hate the French, and the devil sort of feeling. But they are dead and gone, while the wife selling humbug still flourishes in the most pristine vigour. And it is difficult to blame the great mass of the ignorant badauds who believe these cock and bull stories. They are taught them, and encouraged in them, by those who ought to know better. The newspaper essayist, the popular romance weaver, and particularly, the popular dramatist, make copious use of these ingenious fictions, and serve them up in articles, novels, and melo-dramas, iv such profusion, and with such regularity, that the Epicier of the Rue St. Honore the ouvrier of the Faubourg de Temple, the grisette of the Quartier Latin, would as readily give up their belief of the geographical and physical existence of London, as in the astounding fact that in England a husband sells his wife exactly as he sells his horse or his dog. I have before me a drama, entitled, Le MarcM de Londres, produced about three months ago, at a theatre which holds a similar rank in Paris to the Adelphi here — L'Ambigu Comique. It is a five act piece, the joint composition of a M. Adolphe Dennery, a very noted and very prolific Parisian dramatist ; and M. Paul Fenal, a gentleman who, in a novel, the scene of which he laid in Ireland, made " Paddy" a female name — and is intended to convey to the good people ot Paris some notions of London life and habits. Now I dare say we make many blunders in laying the scene of a drama in Paris, but I should blush for the intelligence of England, were such a farrago of trash served up and accepted for a specimen of French manners — as the Parisian audience seems to have swallowed with the utmost complacency — as a representation of how we manage matters in England. ' l The plot of Le MarcM de Londres is very long — very complicated, and very extravagant. My readers would hardly thank me for an analysis of its vagaries, but a few random notices of the scenes which particularly turn upon French notions of English affairs may be curious and not uninstructive. The play, then, opens in a vast steam-engine manufactory, and in the course of the badinage proceeding amongst the workmen — one of them, Peterpatt, the type of low English life, characteristically observes, that all he cares for in the world is "roast beef, porter, and Miss Kitty." The proprietor ot the engineering establishment is a Lord Asbton. We do not hear how his lordship came by his rank, but he treats it with great contempt, and avowing the strongest democratic feelings, allows himself only to be called Sir George Maurice in one scene, and Sir Mau - rice in another. This species of compromise between the Peer and the Commoner would be curious, but the dramatist evidently believes the English "Sir," to be equivalent to French "Sieur," and to signify simply "Mister." Well, this steam-engine-making nobleman — I wish we had more of them — has just returned to London from his " Mines of Glascow," and visits his manufactory bringing with him his two wards — Anna and Lucy — whom he solemnly makes over in marriage to his two foremen in the engineering department ; two brothers, Richard and Simon Davis; Miss Kitty having, in the meantime, jilted a certain Tom Bob (observe the name,) a tiger in the service of Sir Maurice, for her admirer Peterpatt, the discarded lover incontinently leaviug England in the Fulton, a ship which Sir Maurice, who it seems is a merchant as well as a boiler-ma-ker, despatches to the East Indies, and with the departure of which the first act closes. Two years elapse ere we arrive at act the second. And here let me observe for the -sake of intelligibility, that Lucy, Richard's -wife, is a good meek creature, exposed to calumny on account of a faux pas of her mama's, and persecuted by the licentious addresses of a roue" Sir Edgard, the Don Juan of the piece, while Anna, the spouse of Simon, the second brother, gets credit for being everything, while in reality she is nothing but what she should be. The second act opens in a tavern at Blackwood, evidently meant for Blackwall; and with the arrival of a mysterious Sir Harry, who bringing the expatriated Tom Bob in'his train^comes to champion from calumny the 1 niemory of Lucy's mother. The tiger arrives in good time, Peterpatt has got tired of

Miss Kitty, she is advertised for sale, and Tom Bob determined to buy her. "What!" exclaims Sir Harry, who does not seem au fait to our customs, "Do the English laws permit such a sale ?" Mark his servant's reply. "Oh certainly. It's the simplest thing in the world. You tire of your house ; you sell your house. You tire of your horse ; you sell your horse. You tire of your wife; you sell your wife ; that's English civilisation." Sir Harry still in doubt appeals to Sir Edgard, who has come to see the auction. "The sale of a wife," replies that authority, "is one of our most ancient customs." " Which ought," rejoins Sir Harry, "to be abolished by law." There is a sad mixture of truth in the reply. "With us, Sir," says Sir Edgard, " with us custom is stronger than law. It is mainly by its old feeling of use and wont that England is governed. We respect even our worst customs in order to preserve our best. Our fathers sold their wives ; their right is our privilege." Meantime the sale goes on. The husband produces a list of the good and bad qualities of his wife, naively remarking that the abundance of the latier amply make up for the scarcity of the former; and the lady is knocked down for seven shillings. "A glo- j rious bargain !" as her new proprietor exclaims ; " such eyes, such hands, such feet, such a mouth, and all for seven shillings!" I pass over a long series of plot and intrigue carried on between Sir Harry and Sir Edgard, the latter attacking, the former defending, the reputation of Lucy, The result is a duel ; and where is it to be fought ? In \ St. James's Park ! reader ; in St. James's Park, at four o'clock of a summer afternoon ! And it is fought ; poor Sir Harry receives a severe wound, and is left bleeding and deserted in a remote thicket of that solitary spot, until he is discovered by Miss Alice, a sister oi the Brothers Davis, who has gone out in her carriage for an evening drive in that favourite locality for equestrian exercise of all kinds, and conducted by her to the " Hotel," in the French sense of the word, where her brothers with their wives reside. Meantime, Richard is about to become an M. P., and for where does the reader think ? For Wolverhampton perhaps, or Stockport, or Ashton-under-Lyne, or Staley Bridge, or some other manufacturing town of the north. Not a bit of it ; for Canterbury, of all the towns in EnglanJ. Well, during his absence, Sir Edgard, who is actually carrying on an intrigue with Anna, and trying to get one up with Lacy, enters the house in the middle of the night, is foiled in his purpose by Sir Harry, and a series of rope ladder exploits — forcible abductions in mysterious boats upon the Thamfes, masked bravoes and so forth, ensues — all of which would do very well for a medi»val Venetian story, but sounds somewhat strange in the London of 1846. The upshot is, that Richard Davis, Esq., millionaire, and M. P. for the cathedral town of Canterbury, believes that his wife has betrayed his honour, and determines to sell her in Smithfield market. This is the second wife sold in the piece. The first was disposed of by a mere biutal uneducated fellow ; the circumstance of the auction ef the second, however, teaches us that all ranks in England, all degrees of enlightenment, follow the same good old fashion. Smithfield, as I have said, is the scene of the second sale. The dramatist places its locality in the neighbourhood of Blackwall, or as he calls it, Blackwood, and of course quite close to the fashionable part of London ; the east, the middle, and the west end all jumbled together in one mass of glorious confusion. Well, the market is crowded, and Richard Davis, Esq., M. P., makes his appearance, leading Mrs. D. by a cord round her neck, but the scene is short, and immeasurably too rich to be lost. I shall translate it therefore entire — Richard Davis (to the crowd.) " Well, gentlemen, — you are aware that the lady is to be sold—" Lucy (falling on her knees.) " Lord have mercy on me !" Sir Edgard (from the crowd.) " I bid a thousand pounds!" Richard Davis. " Sir Edgard ?" Lucy. "Sir Edgard — Oh ! have I not suffered enough ?" j Richard Davis. — " That is your para- j mour — is it not ma'am ?" Lucy. "Oh God ! kill me ! kill me !" Richard Davis. " I shall — him" Sir Edgard. " No gentleman outbids me I believe ? Well — the woman's mine." Sir Harry. " Stop, stop. Fifty thousand guineas for Mrs. Davis." { Richard Davis. Who bids so high ?" Sir Harry. "You shail soon know. When Smithfield clock strikes three, your victim is my property." [The clock strikes. A man dressed in black appears, and • places himself between Richard and Lucy, touching the latter with a wand.] Sir Harry (to Lucy.) " Go, go, poor martyr!" " j

Lucy. " What have you done, Richard ?" Richard Davis (springing towards her.) " No— no." [The constable with his • wand prevents him from touching her.] Sir Harry (solemnly. " You have no right over her — you have sold your wife." Poor Lucy is indeed a victim. No sooner is she sold than her husband discovers her innocence,' and his agony closes the fourth act. The fifth opens not a whit less sadly. . The purchased wife is of course in a deplorable state, and her quondam husband no better ; but, although he thinks he has behaved like a scoundrel, the City of London thinks otherwise, and in Sir Harry's words — •" Proud of you, proud of your respect for their noble customs, the merchants and the people of London prepare for you new honours." While yet he speaks shouts are heard without : " Vive Sir Richard Davis — Vive the new Lord Mayor." Here is new light upon our civic institutions with a vengeance. " How to be Lord Mayor" is the problem proposed. The trench dramatist answers, "First sell your wife." I wonder whether, when the deputies of the Corporation were lately so well treated by Louis Phillippe, any of the worthy Parisians imagined that they had attained their municipal glory by leading their wives into Smithfield, and "selling them with halters about their necks ? But to continue. The Lord Mayor elect determines, instead of joining in the show, to shoot himself — instead of sitting in civic state I in Guildhall, to have the coroner sitting upon him. But matters have no such dismal termination. We suddenly hear — although, by | the way, there is no assignable reason I can see why we should not have heard it in the second act — that Harry, the purchaser of Lucy, is that lady's brother ; add that he has not only cleared up the character of his living sister, but proved the virtue of their common mother. Furthermore, we are informed that, although it is considered very disgraceful iv England for a married lady to be sold to an indifferent party, yet that her brother may buy her with perfect decorum. The denouement follows as a matter of course. The Lord Mayor proclaims the virtue of the Lady Mayoress to all Cheapside. Enthusiastic shouts grace the touching ceremony ; then the civic procession sets forth. The stage directions give us a vivid notion of the affair. The Lord Mayor leads her Ladyship by the hand : all the members of his family follow. We hear nothing of the city champions or the city macebearer, or the city marshal, or the city coach ; but we haye — after the Lord Mayor's family — the Aldermen with their families ; and after them — who does the reader think ? — why, the Members of the House of Commons, followed in their turn by some nameless individuals, dimly represented by " &c, &c, &c." But all is not over. Just as, the city procession has begun its march, a cry is raised o£ "The Queen — the Queen;" and our authority — still the stage directions — states that her Majesty having duly asked permission to enter the city, is seen approaching, preceded by heralds — not through Temple Bar, but over London Bridge ; it thus appearing that Royalty has varied the ordinary route from Buckingham Palace to the Mansion House, by crossing Westminster Bridge, and traversing the pleasant paths of Pedlar's Acre. And so, to a loud combined cheer of Vive la Reine, vive le noveau Lord Maire." the curtain falls upon this dramatic picture of England and the Engliah ; a picture intended to present the visitors of the Ambigu Comique with a full, true, and faithful account of how we pass our lives, how we trust the wives of bosoms, and how we elect the rulers of our choice. Bravo, Messieurs Adolphe Dennery and Paul Fenal. Other authors of your country may make their occasional, nay, their frequent blunders in describing us ; but to you — Macflecknoes of the Boulevard — is reserved the proud distinction of your prototype, so well hit off by Dryden, and capable, by a little change, of being so well applied to you :—: — Some men to wit — to truth, some make pretence; But you ! — your never deviate into sense.