But then Harel
himself was an oddity, and he may have felt bowels of compassion for a
_confrere_ so original. The story goes that once he tried to borrow
thirty thousand francs from King Louis-Philippe. "Ah! Monsieur Harel,"
replied the monarch, smiling, "I was thinking of applying to you for a
similar sum."
The subject that, after much cogitation, Balzac chose for Harel's
stage was _Vautrin_--the Vautrin of _Pere Goriot_ and the _Lost
Illusions_--back at his old trade of acting Providence to a presumably
fatherless and friendless young man, whose fortunes he sought to
advance by means similar to those that had brought Lucien de Rubempre
(we are anticipating a little) to so miserable an end. In the
concluding act of the play, the young man discovers that he has a
family, and a father who is a noble; and he marries the girl he loves.
But Vautrin is arrested, and, although he has been the instrument of
his protege's happiness, he is led off to prison once more. The theme,
as treated, was a somewhat hackneyed one, and was further spoiled by
ill-managed contrasts of the serious and comic, of which in any form
the French stage was not tolerant. Objection has been made on the same
score to the _School for Husbands and Wives_ at the Theatre Francais,
where it had been offered after its rejection by the Renaissance.
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