A MON AMI DÉSAUGIERS. (PAGE

* Peu de temps après la seconde Restauration, Désaugiers fut nommé directeur du théâtre du Vaudeville. Béranger voyait encore fréquemment cet homme aimable, qui, jusque-là, avait semblé respecter les opinions de ceux qui ne pensaient ni n'agissaient comme lui. Il se fit un plaisir de lui adresser cette chanson, où à des éloges mérités se mêlaient quelques1 idées patriotiques.

'Dans les éditions de 1821 et suivantes, Béranger eût éprouvé de la peine, quoique toute intimité eût cessé entre Désaugiers et lui, à effacer le mot ami placé en tête de cette chanson. Il connaissait trop bien Désaugiers pour lui en vouloir de quelques torts de conduite qui tenaient à la faiblesse de son caractère, et que même il n'aurait jamais eus, s'il n'eût été entouré que d'amis véritables.' (Note by Béranger.)

1. 1. Bon Désaugiers. Désaugiers (1772-1827) was the son of a now entirely forgotten operatic composer; he began to write plays and contribute to the Almanack des Muses in 1791, and established his reputation both as a dramatist and as a song-writer about 1805. He joined the newly founded Caveau moderne in 1806, and soon occupied the presidential chair. Béranger had been elected to the Caveau in 181 3, and the two poets were close friends for a time. Béranger's notes to this song and to V Académie et le Caveau give a sufficient account of their estrangement, due to political differences. Désaugiers, who had become a whole-hearted supporter of the Bourbons, chose to take to himself Béranger's song entitled Paillasse, written at the end of 18 16, and which

l68 CHANSONS CHOISIES DE BERANGER

might be called the French ' Vicar of Bray.' This was practically the end of the intimacy between them.

The Vaudeville theatre prospered under Désaugiers' administration until 1820, when the newly opened Gymnase won the favour of the public and made it difficult for Désaugiers to maintain the prosperity of his theatre. He resigned his post in 1822, resumed it in 1827, but died soon after of disease and of despair at the success of another newly licensed theatre, the Nouveautés. His numerous plays — comedies, vaudevilles, and parodies — were soon forgotten ; his Chansons, which showed both talent and wit, maintained their popularity much longer ; they were published between 1808 and 1 81 6, and reprinted as late as 1858. Like their author, they were good-humoured and kindly, and showed none of the acerbity of Béranger's political songs.

1. 3. en versant rasade. 'Verser rasade' is to fill a glass 1 à ras le bord,' or to the brim.

1. 8. boute-en-train = ' Celui qui boute en train (i. e. met en gaieté) ceux avec qui il se trouve,' a mirth-inspirer, a merry companion. The verb bouter is found with the general meaning of mettre as late as the seventeenth century.

Quelle fantaisie s'est-il boutée dans la tête ?

(Molière, Médecin malgré lui, I. iv.) Boutez dessus ! (Mettez votre chapeau sur votre tête).

(Op. cit., I. vi.)

1. 10. Vaudeville. On the songs called vaudevilles, see Introd., § 23.

From the beginning of the eighteenth century this name was given also to short and light plays, entirely written in : couplets,' or verses, and sung from beginning to end. They were acted at the Théâtres de la Foire (foire Saint-Germain, foire Saint-Laurent, foire du Boulevard du Temple), and later at the Comédie Italienne. Before the Restoration, the vaudeville had already assumed a more extended form, and become a comedy intermingled with verses, which were sung to popular tunes. Scribe and his collaborators wrote an infinite number of vaudevilles of this kind, as did also Labiche.

Among the many theatres which made a speciality of the vaudeville we have already mentioned the Gymnase, the Nouveautés, and also the Théâtre du Vaudeville, founded in 1792 by Barré and Piis, and located in the so-called Vauxhall d'Hiver, near the Louvre. During the Revolution its fondness for political satire more than once brought its managers and

actors within prison gates ; under the Empire it was severely gagged, actualities and satires being forbidden, but it flourished uninterruptedly until 1820. From that time it has had a chequered career. Burnt down in 1838, it removed to the Place de la Bourse, and again in 1868 to the Boulevard des Capucines, where it is still located. It opened its doors in 1852 to drama and serious comedy, and its periods of stagnation have been redeemed by many brilliant successes, among which may be mentioned La Dame aux Camélias (Dumas fils), Les Faux Bonshommes (Barrière and Capendu), and many of Sardou's plays, such as La Famille Benoiton, Rabagas, and Madame Sans-Gêne (1892).

1. 11. Ses grelots et son tambourin. On grelots see above, L'Académie et le Caveau. The tambourin was a natural accessory of the open-air parade of the Théâtres de la Foire.