Delsarte System of Oratory by Various

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After one of these scholastic contests, Delsarte withdrew confused and
heavy-hearted: he had received but one vote in the competition; and even
that exception roused a sort of cheer, as if it were given to some
contemptible competitor.

The defeated youth walked slowly away, dragging at his heels all the
sorrow of his discomfiture, when two persons approached him; one was the
famous Marie Malibran, the other the brilliant tenor, Adolph Nourrit.

"Courage!" said the prima donna, pressing his hand. "I enjoyed hearing
you very much. You will be a great artist!"

"My friend," added Nourrit, "it was I who cast my vote for you: to my
mind, you are an incomparable singer. When I have my children taught
music, you shall certainly be their teacher."

Delsarte blessed the defeat which had brought him such precious
compensations. These voices which sounded so sweetly in his ear, were
soon extinguished by death; but they vibrated long in the heart which
they had comforted. The artist associated their dear memory with every
success which recalled to him their sympathetic accents and their
clear-sighted prediction.

Chapter X.

Delsarte's Theatre and School.

When Delsarte had finished his studies, he entered the world unaided and
alone; disarmed by the hostilities which could not fail to await him, by
his very superiority, and by that honesty which refuses to lend itself
to certain transactions.

At the Opera Comique, where he was engaged, he did not succeed.
Exceptional talents require an exceptional public who can understand
them and make them popular by applauding and explaining them.

And yet certain people, gifted with penetration, discovered under the
artistic innovations peculiar to the beginner, that indescribable
fascination which hovers round the heads of the predestined favorites of
art.

Delsarte could not long confine himself to the stage, when everything
connected with it was so far from sympathetic to him, and seemed so
contrary to the true object of dramatic art. The theatre, to his mind,
should be a school of morality; and what did he see? Authors--what would
he say now-a-days?--absorbed in winning the applause of the masses,
rather than in feeding them upon wholesome food or in preparing an
antidote for vice and evil inclinations.

Whatever good intentions happened to be mingled with the play were lost
in the details of the action--or in the often mischievous interpretation
of the actors. With his wonderful perspicacity, Delsarte seemed to
foresee all the excesses of naturalism in certain forerunners of Adolphe
Belot and Emile Zola.

On the other hand, his comrades, who should have attracted him, showed
themselves to be envious and malicious. To sum it all up, it was very
hard for him to live with them. Some of them might please him by their
simple gaiety, their childlike ease, their lack of affectation, and
their amiability, but they were far from satisfying his lofty
aspirations!

An occupation of a higher order, he thought, the elaboration of his
method, demanded his thoughts. He seemed haunted by a desire to produce
what his spirit had conceived. He longed fully to enjoy that happiness
of creation that arises from useful discovery. He aspired to say: "In
accomplishing the task which I set myself, I have also done much for art
and artists."

Swayed by such thoughts, Francois Delsarte soon left the profession of
actor to follow that of teacher of singing and elocution. Then he found
himself in his element and, as it were, at the centre of all that
attracted him. His teaching enabled him to verify the value of his
axioms hourly, in the order of facts and to confirm the truth of his
observations.

And yet he had not attained to the supreme beatitude. If the elect of
plastic and practical art have to contend with appraisers of every
degree, inventors have to deal with enemies who make up in stubborn
resistance what they lack in numbers, and oppose the iron will of a
rival who will not see the limit of the _ne plus ultra_ which he
believes himself to have reached and even exceeded.

In every station of life, the bearers of "good news" are a prey to the
tyranny of interests and established prejudices. In our time, this
persecution becomes mockery or indifference. Delsarte did not escape
this debt of revelatory genius. Humble in regard to art and science, as
he was conscious of his strength when face to face with rivals and
competitors, he sometimes felt the doubt of himself, the sudden
weakness, which overtakes great minds and great hearts in the
accomplishment of their mission.

A special form of torture attacked our young innovator. He had proved,
connected and classed a number of psychological facts relating to the
theory of art, and he did not know the special terms which would make
them intelligible. Like those phenomenal children, who see countless
relations before they possess the words to express them, he had
discovered a law, created a science, and he was still ignorant of the
language of scientists. If he tried to demonstrate the bases of his
system and its rational evolution in ordinary words, the ignorant would
not understand him and the learned would not deign to listen.

Sometimes he did find some one who would hear him, question him, even
criticize him, and who would go away bearing a fragment of conversation
or some few notes which he had copied to turn to his own profit.

At this time, there came one day to Delsarte, a pupil who--by a rare
exception--had been through a course of classical studies.

"Tell me, you who have studied (asked the teacher with the affability of
a great man), what is metaphysics?"

"Why ... just what you teach us!" said the astonished youth.

Delsarte was enchanted to learn, that he was only divided by words from
a science which had seemed to him to dwell on inaccessible heights. The
study of technical words, when intuition had provided him with important
ideas and new perceptions, was child's play to him; in a short time he
could teach his philosophy of art in the consecrated expressions.

His lectures grew rapidly in the Rue Montholon. A choice public soon
assembled to hear them, drawn thither by the admiring cry of the first
enthusiasts. At this period, the talent of the artist was enhanced by
the lustre of youth. Nature had endowed him generously. His figure,
which later assumed rather large proportions, was tall and elegant; his
gestures were marked by grace and nobleness; his hair, of a very light
chestnut, gave his face a fair softness; his brown eyes relieved this
expression and allowed him to give his face--when the interpretation of
the part required it--the signs of power and vigorous passion. A full
length portrait painted at this time and in the possession of Madame
Delsarte, gives us some idea of his grand face and form, allowing for
the disadvantages of every translation. Although, in singing, the organ
was often impaired, his speaking-voice was most agreeable in tone,
correct and persuasive in accent.

In acting various parts, Delsarte transformed himself to suit the
character that he represented. He was congratulated on bringing to life
for our age Achilles and Agamemnon, as Homer painted their types. Yet, I
think he was sometimes told: "You paint that wretch of a Don Juan a
little too faithfully." Certainly, art would never make that complaint!

If Delsarte was understood in that part of his method addressed
especially to the ear and the eye, it was not so with the theory which
prepared these striking demonstrations.

He was surrounded, it is true, by an assembly of men of letters, men of
the world, and amateur artists, rather than by scientists and
philosophers. Many in the audience and among the pupils did not pay an
undivided attention to the scientific part of the instruction. Thus the
first notes of the piano, announcing that the time for action had come,
always caused a repressed murmur of satisfaction and pleasure.

Sometimes, after the lecture, a discussion followed, for Delsarte often
left room for a controversy which was essentially incorrect and caused
many misunderstandings. This was because the innovator sometimes blended
with the clear hues of his art-principles certain tints of religious
mysticism which had no necessary relation with the synthesis of his
aesthetics.

It was one of the peculiarities of his character, amiable and benevolent
as it was, to take delight in the conflict of ideas. If he saw, in the
course of his lecture, a man whom he took for a philosopher or anything
like it, he never failed to direct some piquant phrase, some aggressive
sentence or some irritating thought that way--it was the gauntlet which
he flung for the final combat.

Nor were women exempt from these humorous sallies.

Although the master loved all grandeur--the artistic sense with which he
was so largely endowed inclining him that way--he had democratic, I
might almost say plebeian, instincts. The poetry of simple, humble,
small existences sometimes swayed him.

Thus, if among his hearers, a bright violet or an audacious scarlet gown
annoyed his taste; if the reflection of a ruby or a diamond vexed his
eye, he would choose that instant to improvise a rustic idyl or to
intone a hymn to poverty.

But everything ended well; neither the philosopher whom he had provoked,
nor the fine lady whom he had reproved, left him as an enemy. His
nature with its varied riches had quite enough feminine coquetry to
regain betimes the sympathy which he was on the eve of losing. A
gracious word, an affectionate clasp of the hand, and all was pardoned.

The opposition manifested outside the lecture-room to his ideas and mode
of instruction, was less courteous. There rival schools and jealousies,
ill-disguised under an affectation of disdain, contended against him. He
was accused of the maddest eccentricities; barbarous processes were
imputed to him, such as squeezing the chest of singers, his pupils,
between two boards--the _reason_ was hard to understand. Others claimed
that before Delsarte accepted a scholar, he required a profession of the
Catholic faith and an examination in the catechism.

Those were the days when the author of "Les Orientales," in his legend
of the "Two Archers," spoke of

"That holy hermit who moved stones
By the sign of the cross."

But if, as an artist, Delsarte loved legends and was inspired by faith,
as a professor he could cut short this poetic part of his art, at the
point where science and the practical side of his teaching began.

The reproach, therefore, carried no weight.

Delsarte was amused by these exaggerated accusations; in another order
of criticisms, it was agreeable to him to hear "that he sang without a
voice, as Ingres painted without colors." The comparison pleased him,
although inexact.

Yes, I say _inexact_, Delsarte was not without a voice; he had one, on
the contrary, of great strength and range; of moving tone; eminently
sympathetic; but it was an invalid organ and subject to caprice. He was
not always master of it, and this caused him real suffering.

Let me give you the history of his voice as Madame Delsarte herself
lately told it to me. I must go back to his early days of study and
debuts.

Delsarte entered the Conservatory at the age of fourteen. Too young to
endure the fatigue of the regular school-exercises, his voice must have
received an injury. When the singer offered his services at the Opera
Comique---then Salle Vantadour--he was told that his voice was hollow,
that it had no carrying power. This was perhaps partly the fault of the
building, whose acoustic properties were afterward improved. However,
thanks to the flexibility which his voice retained and his perfect
vocalization, the pretended insufficiency was overlooked, and the young
tenor was admitted.

His mode of singing pleased the skilled public, and the special
abilities of this strong artistic organism--as I have already
observed--did not pass unnoted.

A _dilettante_, to whom I mentioned Delsarte long after this time, said:
"What you tell me does not surprise me, I heard him at his first
appearance, and he has lingered in my memory as an artist of the
greatest promise. He was more than a singer; he had that nameless
quality, which is not taught in any school and which marks a
personality; a tone of which nothing, before or since, has given me the
least idea."

The tenor, from the Comic Opera, went to the Ambigu Theatre, and thence
to the Varietes, where an attempt was being made to introduce lyric
works. Francois Delsarte's dramatic career did not, however, last more
than two years. During these various changes--I cannot give the exact
dates--this artist, on his way to glory, was forced to gain a living by
the least aristocratic of occupations. If he did not go so far as
Shakespeare in humility of profession (the English poet was a butcher's
boy), he strangely stooped from that native nobility--great
capacity,--which must yet have claimed, in his secret soul, its
imprescriptible rights.

If this was one more suffering, added to all the rest, it had its good
side. It was, perhaps, the source of the artist's never failing
kindness, of that gracious reception which he never hesitated to bestow
on anyone--from the Princess de Chimay and many other titled lords and
ladies, down to Mother Chorre, the neighboring milk-woman, whom he held,
he said, "in great esteem and friendship."

I return to his teaching. His lectures were given in Rue Lamartine and
Rue de la Pepiniere. There was always--aside from the school--an
audience made up of certain never failing followers and of a floating
population. The birds of passage sometimes came with a very distinct
intention to criticise; but if they did not readily understand the
learned deductions, they went away fascinated by what the professor had
shown them of his brilliant changes into every type of the repertory
which he held up as a model. Enthusiasm soon triumphed over prejudice.
Envy, alone, persisted in hostility.

These meetings were genuine artistic feasts. They were held at night, at
the same hour as the theatres, and no play was preferable to them in the
eyes of the truly initiated. They were a transcendent manifestation of
all that is most elevated, which art can produce.

Here is an extract from a newspaper, which I find among the notes sent
me:

"I heard him repeat, one evening, 'Iphigenia's Dream,' at the request of
his audience. All were held trembling, breathless by that worn and yet
sovereign voice. We were amazed to find ourselves yielding to such a
spell; there was no splendor and no theatric illusion. _Iphigenia_ was a
teacher in a black frock coat; the orchestra was a piano striking, here
and there, an unexpected modulation; this was all the illusion--and the
hall was silent, every heart throbbed, tears flowed from every eye. And
then, when the tale was told, cries of enthusiasm arose, as if
_Iphigenia_, in person, had told us her terrors."

These lines are signed "Laurentius." I am very glad to come across them
just as I am giving vent to my own feelings. I also find that Adolphe
Gueroult, in his paper, the "Press," calls Delsarte _the matchless
artist_, and recognizes _a law_ in his aesthetic discoveries. I shall
have occasion to set down, as opportunity offers, a string of
testimonies no less flattering and no less sincere; but I hasten to
produce these specimens, lest the suspicion of infatuation follow me.

How was it that amidst such warm plaudits, Delsarte failed to win that
popularity which, after all, is the supreme sanction? It must be
acknowledged that he took no great pains to gain the place which was his
due. If he loved glory like the true artist that he was, "he never tired
himself in its pursuit." Perhaps he had an instinctive feeling that it
would come to him some day unsought.

He might, in this regard, be reproached for the tardiness of his
successes; he himself made difficulties and obstacles which might be
considered as the effects of extreme pride.

Halevy once suggested his singing at the Tuilleries before King Louis
Philippe and his family.

"I only sing to my friends," replied the artist.

"That is strange," said the author of "The Jewess," "Lablache and Duprez
go whenever they are asked."

"Delsarte does not."

"But consider! This is to be a party given by the Crown Prince to his
father."

This last consideration touched the obstinate heart.

"Well! I will go," he said, "but it is only on three conditions: I must
be the only singer; I am to have the chorus from the Opera to accompany
me; and I am not to be paid."

"You will establish a dangerous precedent."

"Those are my irrevocable terms."

All were granted.

From his youth up Delsarte manifested this, perhaps excessive, contempt
for money. On one occasion it was quite justifiable. Father Bambini had
taken him to a party where he was to sing on very advantageous terms.
The scholar was treated with deference; but the teacher who had neither
a fine face nor the claims of youth to shield him against aristocratic
prejudice, was received much as a servant would have been who had made a
mistake in the door.

The young singer felt the blood mantle his brow, and his heart rebelled.

"Take your hat and let us go!" he said to his old master.

"But why?" replied the good man. He had heeded nothing but his pupil's
success.

Delsarte dragged him away in spite of his protests, and lost by his
abrupt departure the profits of the evening.

Chapter XI.

Delsarte's Family.

Delsarte married, in 1833, Miss Rosina Andrien. The young husband felt a
high esteem for his father-in-law (primo basso cantante at the Opera);
but we must not suppose that this consideration influenced his choice.
He made a love marriage such as one makes at the age of twenty-two, with
such a nature as his. Moreover, reason was never in closer accord with
love.

Miss Andrien was remarkably beautiful. She was fifteen; her talent as a
pianist had already won her a first prize at the Conservatory. She was
just the companion, wise and devoted, to counterbalance the flights of
imagination and the momentary transports inherent in the temperament of
many artists.

I pause, fearing to wound a modesty which I know to be very sensitive:
the living cannot bear praise with the indifference of the dead; but I
must be allowed to insist upon the valuable assistance which the young
wife lent her husband in his professional duties; this is a special part
of my subject.

Mme. Delsarte started with a genuine talent. The situation in which she
was placed, soon made her a perfect accompanist. Never was there more
perfect harmony between singer and player. Amid the incessant
interruptions necessary to a lesson, the piano never lagged a second
either in stopping or in going on again. The note fell promptly,
identical with the first note of the piece under study. To attain to
this obedient precision, one must possess indomitable patience, must be
willing to be utterly effaced. Delsarte appreciated this self-denial in
proportion to the merit of her who practiced it.

In everything that concerned him, he relied especially upon the opinion
of his accompanist; he felt her to be an abler and more serious judge
than the most of those around him. But--with the shy reserve of merit
unacknowledged even to itself,--the young woman shrank from expressing
her impressions. If I may judge by the anecdote which follows, the
artist was at times distressed by this.

One day Delsarte, granting one of those favors of which he was never
lavish, consented to sing a composition of which he was particularly
fond, to a few friends. It was the air from Mehul's "Joseph:" "Vainly
doth Pharaoh ..."

Mme. Delsarte, always ready at the first call, took her seat at the
piano.

The master was in the mood--that is, in full possession of all his
powers. His pathos was heartrending.

"You won a great triumph," I said to him; "I saw tears in Mme.
Delsarte's eyes."

"My wife's eyes," he cried as if struck by surprise, "are you quite
sure?"

"Perfectly," I replied.

He seemed greatly pleased. Putting aside all other feeling, it was no
slight triumph to move to such a point one who assisted at and sat
through his daily lessons for hours at a time.

A few years sufficed to form a family around this very young couple. It
was soon a charming accessory to see children fluttering about the
house; slipping in among the scholars; showing a furtive head--dark or
light--at one of the doors of the lecture-room. Let me recall their
names: The eldest were Henri, Gustave, Adrien, Xavier, Marie; then came
after a long interval, Andre and Madeleine.

Delsarte loved them madly; for their future he dreamed all the dreams of
the Arabian Nights. Meantime, he played with them so happily that he
seemed to take a personal delight in it.

He gave them all the joys of this life that were within his reach, and
it was well that he did so! Alas! of the dreams of glory cherished for
these beloved beings, some few were realized, but many faded promptly
with the existence of those who called them forth.

But we must not anticipate. At the time of which I speak the children
were growing and developing, each according to its nature, in full
freedom. Those who felt a vocation seized on the wing--rather than they
received from irregular lessons--some fragments of that great art which
was taught in the school.

Marie learned while very young to reproduce with marvelous skill what
were called _the attitudes_ and the physiognomic changes. Madeleine
delighted in making caricatures which showed great talent. The features
of certain pupils and frequenters of the lectures were plainly
recognizable in these sketches made by a childish hand.

Gustave was a child of an open face and broad shoulders. One incident
will show his originality.

A strange lady came to the master's house one day either to ask a
hearing or offer a pupil. She met this charming boy.

"M. Delsarte?" she asked.

"I am he, madam!" replied Gustave without flinching.

"Very good," said his questioner, laughing, "but I wish to speak to your
father."

This same Gustave who, to a certain degree, followed in his father's
footsteps, was struck down a few years after him, at the age of
forty-two.

What a striking application of Victor Hugo's lines:

"And both are dead.... Oh Lord, all powerful is thy right hand!"

Gustave's career seemed to open readily and smoothly. Not that he could
approach his father from a dramatic point of view; he had not his
absolute synthesis of talents, and his figure was not suited to the
theatre; as a singer, his voice was weak, but what a charm and what a
style he had! Although his voice was not adapted to every part,
although he had not that range of the vocal scale which permits one to
attack any and every composition, still, its sympathetic, tender and
penetrating quality did ample justice to all that is most exquisite in
romance. When you had once heard that voice, guided by the force of his
father's grand method, you never forgot its sincerity and melancholy; it
haunted you and left you impatient to hear it again.

As a concert-singer and teacher, Gustave Delsarte might have won high
rank. An ill-assorted marriage and his misanthropic character prevented.
As a composer, he left some few songs, masses and religious fragments
which are not without merit. When he was to produce any of his sacred
works, the composer-singer never took a part; but he would lead the
orchestra. If he came to a rehearsal and the performers appeared weak, a
holy wrath would seize upon Gustave. Then he flung a firm, incisive,
accentuated note into the midst of the choir, vivid as a spark bursting
from a fire covered with ashes. He would accompany it with a glance
which seemed to flash from his father's eye; at such moments, he
resembled him; but this transformation never lasted more than a second;
the fictitious power disappeared as all which was Gustave Delsarte was
doomed to disappear.

At least, his father did not live to mourn his loss. And yet he knew
that worst of heart-suffering: the loss of a beloved child. Alas! In
that radiant family, whose mirth, fresh faces and luxuriant health
seemed to defy death, the implacable foe had already twice swept his
scythe.

The first to go was Andre, one of the latest born. He was at the age
when the child leaves no lasting memories behind; but we know the grace
of innocence, the privilege of impeccability by which infancy atones for
the lack of acquirements. Then these little creatures have the
mysterious entrancing smiles, which mothers understand and adore--and
Delsarte loved his children with a mother's heart.

Time lessens such pangs; but when a fresh sorrow re-opened the era of
calamity, it seems as if the sad events trod upon each other's heels and
the interval between seems to have been but one unmitigated agony.

The loss undergone in 1863 was even greater. Xavier Delsarte was a tall,
handsome young man. The master was content with the profit which his son
had derived from his tuition. He was successful as a singer and
elocutionist. He was attacked by cholera during an epidemic. The night
before he had taken several glasses of iced orgeat in the open air.

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