Tétrell was more elegant than ever on this evening; he wore a blue coat with large lapels and gold buttons, and a white piqué vest, which turned back until it covered almost the whole front of his coat. A tri-color belt, with gold fringe, encircled his waist, and in it he had stuck pistols with ivory-chased butts and barrels inlaid with gold. His sabre with its scabbard of red morocco, insolently thrown over the balcony, hung over the parterre like another sword of Damocles. Tétrell began by striking the railing of the balcony until the dust flew from the velvet. Then he cried angrily:
"Citizens, what does all this mean? I thought I was at Laced?mona, but it seems that I am mistaken, and that this is Corinth or Sybaris. Does a republican woman dare shelter herself behind such excuses in the presence of Republicans? We mistake ourselves for those miserable slaves on the other bank of the Rhine, these dogs of aristocrats, who, when we have whipped them, tire their lungs out, crying "Libra!" Two men have died for their country, leaving a memory of immortal glory. The women of Sparta when[Pg 62] they presented their shields to their sons and husbands, did so with these words: 'With them, or upon them!' And when they returned upon them, that is to say dead, they attired themselves in their most gorgeous raiment. Citizeness Fromont is pretty; she will not long want for lovers! All the handsome fellows have not been killed at the Haguenau gate; as for her father, there is not an old patriot but envies him the honor of his death. Therefore, citizen Fleury, do not hope to move us with the pretended grief of a citizeness favored by the destiny of war, who, by a single cannon-shot, has acquired a crown for her dowry and a great people for her family. Go tell her to appear; go tell her to sing; and, above all, bid her spare us her tears; to-day is the people's feast-day, and tears are aristocratic!"
Every one was silent. Tétrell, as we have said, was the third power in Strasbourg, and more to be feared, perhaps, than either of the others. Citizen Fleury retired behind the curtain, and five minutes later it rose upon the first scene of "Filial Love," thus proving that Tétrell had been obeyed.
The play opens with the following well-known lines:
Young lovers, pick flowers
For the brow of your love;
Love gives sweet reward
In tender favors.
An old soldier has retired to his hut at the foot of the Alps; he was wounded on the battlefield of Nefeld, and his life was saved by another old soldier whom he has not seen since. He lives with his son, who, after having sung the four preceding lines, follows them up with these, which complete the train of thought:
Full of a sweet hope,
When the sun rises
I also pluck flowers
For my father's brow.
An occupation still more absurd for the great fellow of twenty, from the fact that the old soldier awakes before the[Pg 63] wreath is finished, and we do not see how the water-lilies and myosotis, of which the wreath is composed, would have become him. Instead, we enjoy a duet in which the son repudiates all idea of love and marriage which the old fellow seeks to implant in him, saying only:
The sweetest love in all the world
Is the love I have for you!
But he is soon to change his mind; for while, after picking flowers for his father's brow, he is plucking fruit for breakfast, a young girl rushes upon the scene, singing:
Ah, good old man,
Ah, share my grief!
Have you seen a traveller pass this way?
This traveller, whom the girl is pursuing, is her father. The old man has not seen him; and, as she is inconsolable, she eats her breakfast and then goes to sleep; then every one else goes in search of the lost father, whom Armand, the young man who picks flowers for the paternal brow, finds all the more easily from the fact that the man he is looking for has a wooden leg and is sixty years old.
Louise's happiness at sight of her recovered father can be imagined—a happiness all the greater because Armand's father, after a short explanation is made, recognizes in him the old soldier who saved his life at the battle of Nefeld, and thereby lost the leg which royal munificence has replaced with a wooden one. This unexpected turn of fortune justifies the double title, "Filial Love, or the Wooden Leg."
As long as poor Madame Fromont's part required her to rouse the echoes of the Alps with her demands for her father, and to mourn because she had lost him, her grief and tears stood her in good stead. But as soon as she found him, the contrast between her actual and her theatrical situation, since she had lost her father forever, looked her in the face with all its appalling truth. The actress ceased to be an actress, and the woman became wholly the daughter and wife. She uttered a cry of agony, repulsed her stage father,[Pg 64] and fell fainting into the arms of the young man, who carried her from the stage.
The curtain fell. Then a great tumult filled the hall.
The majority of the spectators took sides with poor Madame Fromont, applauding her madly, and shouted: "Enough! Enough!" Others called: "Citizeness Fromont! Citizeness Fromont!&qu............