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In: Plays/Films/Dramas·French Literature
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #1254.
This work is a 17th‑century French drama that begins not with a prologue but with a bustling theatrical backstage. The stage directions sketch a richly detailed theater: benches, tapestries, footlights, and a buffet laden with tarts and bottles. As the curtain rises, a noisy crowd of troopers, burghers, pages, pickpockets and marquises fills the pit, while musicians tune their violins. The door‑keeper bargains with soldiers, card‑players gamble, and a pickpocket instructs apprentices in thievery. Soon the audience is introduced to a parade of characters, Lignière, Ragueneau, Christian, and the mysterious Cyrano, who argue over costumes, poetry, and the absent actor Montfleury. The opening scene is a lively tableau of Parisian life, setting the stage for the tangled intrigues that will follow.
The language is flamboyant and fast‑moving, echoing the baroque exuberance of Edmond Rostand’s source material. Dialogue mixes coarse banter with poetic asides, while the stage directions are almost cinematic in their precision. Readers who enjoy fast‑paced, dialogue‑driven plays, especially those fascinated by the social rituals of the French salon and the theatrical world of the 1600s, will find this piece rewarding. Its blend of comedy, satire, and early modern spectacle appeals to lovers of classic drama and to anyone curious about the vibrant culture that birthed the legendary Cyrano.
The opening · free to read
On both sides of the stage are benches. The curtain is composed of two tapestries which can be drawn aside. Above a harlequin's mantle are the royal arms. There are broad steps from the stage to the hall; on either side of these steps are the places for the violinists. Footlights.
Two rows, one over the other, of side galleries: the highest divided into boxes. No seats in the pit of the hall, which is the real stage of the theater; at the back of the pit, i.e., on the right foreground, some benches forming steps, and underneath, a staircase which leads to the upper seats. An improvised buffet ornamented with little lusters, vases, glasses, plates of tarts, cakes, bottles, etc.
The entrance to the theater is in the center of the background, under the gallery of the boxes. A large door, half open to let in the spectators. On the panels of this door, in different corners, and over the buffet, red placards bearing the words, 'La Clorise.'
At the rising of the curtain the hall is in semi-darkness, and still empty. The lusters are lowered in the middle of the pit ready to be lighted.
Scene 1.I.
The public, arriving by degrees. Troopers, burghers, lackeys, pages, a pickpocket, the doorkeeper, etc., followed by the marquises. Cuigy, Brissaille, the buffet-girl, the violinists, etc.
(A confusion of loud voices is heard outside the door. A trooper enters hastily.)
THE DOORKEEPER (following him): Hollo! You there! Your money!
THE TROOPER: I enter gratis.
THE DOORKEEPER: Why?
THE TROOPER: Why? I am of the King's Household Cavalry, 'faith!
THE DOORKEEPER (to another trooper who enters): And you?
SECOND TROOPER: I pay nothing.
THE DOORKEEPER: How so?
SECOND TROOPER: I am a musketeer.
FIRST TROOPER (to the second): The play will not begin till two. The pit is empty. Come, a bout with the foils to pass the time.
(They fence with the foils they have brought.)
A LACKEY (entering): Pst. . .Flanquin. . .!
ANOTHER (already there): Champagne?. . .
THE FIRST (showing him cards and dice which he takes from his doublet): See, here be cards and dice. (He seats himself on the floor): Let's play.
THE SECOND (doing the same): Good; I am with you, villain!
FIRST LACKEY (taking from his pocket a candle-end, which he lights, and sticks on the floor): I made free to provide myself with light at my master's expense!
A GUARDSMAN (to a shop-girl who advances): 'Twas prettily done to come before the lights were lit!
(He takes her round the waist.)
ONE OF THE FENCERS (receiving a thrust): A hit!
ONE OF THE CARD-PLAYERS: Clubs!
THE GUARDSMAN (following the girl): A kiss!
THE SHOP-GIRL (struggling to free herself): They're looking!
THE GUARDSMAN (drawing her to a dark corner): No fear! No one can see!
A MAN (sitting on the ground with others, who have brought their provisions): By coming early, one can eat in comfort.
A BURGHER (conducting his son): Let us sit here, son.
A CARD-PLAYER: Triple ace!
A MAN (taking a bottle from under his cloak, and also seating himself on the floor): A tippler may well quaff his Burgundy (he drinks): in the Burgundy Hotel!
THE BURGHER (to his son): 'Faith! A man might think he had fallen in a bad house here! (He points with his cane to the drunkard): What with topers! (One of the fencers in breaking off, jostles him): brawlers! (He stumbles into the midst of the card-players): gamblers!
THE GUARDSMAN (behind him, still teasing the shop-girl): Come, one kiss!
THE BURGHER (hurriedly pulling his son away): By all the holies! And this, my boy, is the theater where they played Rotrou erewhile.
THE YOUNG MAN: Ay, and Corneille!
A TROOP OF PAGES (hand-in-hand, enter dancing the farandole, and singing): Tra' a la, la, la, la, la, la, la, lere. . .
THE DOORKEEPER (sternly, to the pages): You pages there, none of your tricks!. . .
FIRST PAGE (with an air of wounded dignity): Oh, sir!--such a suspicion!. . . (Briskly, to the second page, the moment the doorkeeper's back is turned): Have you string?
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