Part 14

In Italian pantomimes, Pagliaccio fills the place occupied by Pierrot in France; he no longer wears a mask, his face being merely covered with flour. He is the rival of Harlequin, and the lackey of Pantaloon. He is in love with Columbine, but—like the French Pierrot—he is never successful in carrying her off from Florindo, the lover who is always dressed in the latest fashion of his time and place. In these pantomimes the rôles of father fall to the lot of the Doctor or old Tabarino.

In 1670 Zaniazi, half Gilles, half Pulcinella, performed rôles which greatly resembled those of the doltish Harlequins.

In 1770 Natocelli achieved renown in Italy as a good Bajaccio, whilst in Paris in 1803 Martini was performing his farces with Podesta, Vanini and other Italian buffoons in the ancient gardens of Tivoli.

The French Paillasse is of very much more recent date. It would be towards the end of the eighteenth century that this character made its appearance in the Nicolet Theatre (La Gaîté) in a sort of satire upon the debauched young nobility, a piece based upon the _Festin de Pierre_, and coarsely adapted to the tastes of the boulevard public. Paillasse took the place of Sganarelle.

Reduced to the utmost misery in consequence of the follies and excesses of his master, having nothing left in which to dress himself, Paillasse would assume the tattered covering of an old mattress and successfully array himself in it to perform his tricks of equilibrium and juggling. Hence the costume, with blue and white or red and white squares, which from that date has been favoured by itinerant jugglers and knife throwers.

Paillasse neither wears a mask nor powders his face with flour. His Indian camisole in squares is short, tight to the figure, with shoulder-of-mutton sleeves fastened at the wrists; his breeches are wide and full, but tight below the knee. He wears the white collar and the black skull-cap.

Brazier says, in his _Histoire des Petits Théâtres de Paris_, when speaking of the Boulevard du Temple:

“This famous boulevard was a Parisian kermesse, a perpetual fair, an all-the-year-round market. Here you would find matter for laughter and amusement by day and by night; it was the rendezvous of the best society; a crowd of brilliant equipages were constantly stationed there. Cold and heat were braved for the sake of listening to a Paillasse who, in spite of Deburau, was not without merit. This Paillasse, who was named Père Rousseau, had made himself a reputation by singing in the open air:

“‘C’est dans la ville de Bordeaux Q’est z’arrivé trois gros vaisseaux, Les matelots qui sont dedans, Ce sont, ma foi! de bons enfants.’

“I myself have beheld the remains of this good fat Paillasse, and I have bowed respectfully before him.

“I can affirm that never was there a Paillasse more complete or more amusing; it was not a case of the pale and livid countenance of Deburau; it was not his wise and grave performance nor his artistic poses, nor his expressive winks. Here instead was a full, red, plethoric countenance; it symbolised the gaiety of the populace at its fullest. It was impossible not to laugh like a king’s fool at the sight of his grimaces, at the sound of his hoarse and broken voice; he achieved in song what Deburau achieved in pantomime, for this Paillasse of mine was also a great actor. Do not suppose that he recited like a pupil of the Conservatoire; he knew how to be witty and mordant in his declamation; his physiognomy was of an astounding mobility.... We would remain by the hour watching Père Rousseau, that classic Paillasse! We hardly dared to breathe, such was our fear of missing one of his gestures, one of his contortions!”

The farces performed by Rousseau in public at the close of the eighteenth century were very much what they are still to-day, a tissue of imbecilities and gross ineptitudes.

PAILLASSE. Sir, since you are so kind, I beg of you to do me a service.

CASSANDRE. What service?

PAILLASSE. To compose me a compliment for a lady with whom I am madly in love.

CASSANDRE. It is first necessary that I should know her qualities. Is she lovable, beautiful?

PAILLASSE. Oh, as for her beauty, there can be but one opinion. First of all, let me tell you that she has only one eye; but the one that remains is so engaging, so witty, so seductive, that it is without equal, and I really think that if it is alone it is because Nature was incapable of producing such another.

CASSANDRE. She has only one eye! Well, well, that at least is one charm.

PAILLASSE. Oh, and her mouth, sir! Oh! you cannot picture it. She can thrust a whole apple into it without the least trouble.

CASSANDRE. Another advantage; so that, when she wishes to tell herself a secret, she can whisper it in her own ear.

PAILLASSE. True, sir. And then her nose! It is a model nose, a curiosity; it has something of the pear, something of the mulberry, and something of the beetroot.

CASSANDRE. Ah, I see; it is a rarity.

PAILLASSE. Oh, and then her feet! They are so small that I assure you I can hardly get her shoes on over my own boots.

CASSANDRE. And her figure?

PAILLASSE. Her figure? She is built like a tower; she is quite round. I beg you, sir, to compose me this compliment, which I am burning to address her.

CASSANDRE. I consent; but first invite the present company to come inside and see the extraordinary spectacle which we are going to give this evening.

PAILLASSE (_brusquely_). Hey, there, you others! come inside!

CASSANDRE (_kicking him_). Animal! Is that the way to address polite society?

PAILLASSE. You are right. I made a mistake. Hi, there, you others! come inside!

(_CASSANDRE chases him off._)

iii

At the end of the sixteenth century the French _enfariné_ or the _barbouillé_, as he was then called, was Robert Guérin, named _Lafleur_, but better known as GROS-GUILLAUME. He was a comedian of the Hôtel de Bourgogne, then managed by Valeran, named the _Picard_, which was as much as to say, a jester and a wit.

Valeran’s real name was Lecomte. “He was,” says Tallemant, “a tall handsome man. He was the head of the troupe and very generous towards its members, and he himself took the money at the door.”

Gros-Guillaume was more than a jester; he was a remarkable actor, greatly esteemed by Henry IV. and by Richelieu, and often commanded to the Louvre to amuse the Béarnais, who enjoyed performances which ridiculed the language and affectations of the gentlemen of his court, particularly those of the Marshal de Roquelaure, concerning whom Tallemant des Réaux relates the following anecdote:—

“One day the king held him between his knees whilst witnessing a command performance by Gros-Guillaume of the farce of the _Gentilhomme Gascon_. Every now and again, to amuse his master, the Marshal pretended to want to get away to thrash Gros-Guillaume, shouting, ‘_Cousis, ne bous fâchez_.’ It happened that after the king’s assassination, the comedians, not daring to perform in Paris in view of the general consternation there, repaired to the provinces and made their way to Bordeaux. There the Marshal was the king’s lieutenant. It was necessary for the players to obtain his sanction. ‘I give it you,’ said he, ‘on condition that you will play the farce of the _Gentilhomme Gascon_.’ They imagined that a sound cudgelling awaited them, and sought to excuse themselves. They were, however, prevailed upon to perform. The Marshal went to see the farce; but the memories it evoked of the good master he had lost occasioned him so much pain that he departed in tears almost immediately after the beginning of the play.”

Gros-Guillaume had been a baker. Fat beyond all measure, he wore two girdles, one above, the other below, his belly. Dressed in white, he discarded the usual mask of Pagliaccio, but covered his face with flour, which he would cause to fly all about him by blowing out his cheeks and by other grimaces. Turlupin, Gaultier-Garguille and he were the only real French buffoons. With Gaultier-Garguille and Gros-Guillaume, who died within a few months of each other, the French farce died also.

Gros-Guillaume wore a white linen blouse, pantaloons with wide brightly coloured stripes, and a red cap. “... This is my valet, Guillaume le Gros,” says Gaultier-Garguille when speaking of him, “and he is to be known by his piebald costume in the fashion of the Swiss of Francis I., and by his belly, copied from a calabash.”

iv

Pedrolino, Piero and Pierrot are all one and the same personage. Under the designation of Piero, a lackey, he was seen on the Italian stage as early as 1574 in a comedy of Cristoforo Castelletti; we find him filling the same character in _I Bernardi_, by Giovanmaria Cecchi, in 1563, and in the plays of Luigi Grotto, _La Altiera_ amongst others, in 1587. Under the name of Pedrolino we find him playing rôles of naïve lackeys with Bertolin (Zeccha). In the _Gelosi_ troupe, from 1578 to 1604 inclusive, the rôles of lackey are played by Pedrolino, Burattino and Arlecchino.

PEDROLINO is a very complex type, presenting, in point of character, the greatest resemblance to the modern French Pierrot; his especial characteristic is his honesty. In the fifty scenarii of Flaminio Scala he is almost always the preferred lover of the soubrette Franceschina, who, none the less, receives the homage of Pantaloon without prejudice to that of Arlecchino and Burattino. Sometimes he is the husband of Franceschina, and then he plays the rôle of a Sganarelle; betrayed by his wife and discovering it, he rebukes her coquetry, but ends by recognising that the fault is his own, and begs her pardon, which he obtains only after a deal of trouble.

Lackey to the coquette Flaminia, he refuses to undertake the delivery of her love letters to her lover Orazio. Flaminia and Orazio abuse him and call him a rascal. He becomes furiously enraged, whereafter he weeps upon the bosom of Harlequin, bewailing the loss of his reputation.

As the lackey of Pantaloon, and trusted to keep watch over the wife of his master whilst the latter sleeps, Pedrolino also falls asleep, or else he drinks with Captain Spavento and the Doctor, and all three, “drunk as monkeys,” commit the wildest extravagances and end by falling to the ground, “where they remain.” On the morrow, Pantaloon, furious to learn that whilst he slept his wife has been abroad, reproaches Pedrolino, who is still somnolent and weary from yesterday’s drunkenness. Pedrolino, remembering nothing, understands nothing of his master’s complaints. Pantaloon, beside himself with anger, beats him and bites him, to wrest him from his torpor, and ends by leaving him in tears; but the first pangs of sorrow being over, Pedrolino swears vengeance. He contrives so cleverly that all the characters of the piece mystify Pantaloon, and persuade him that his breath is very unpleasant. Pantaloon ends by believing it, and submits to the extraction of four excellent teeth. After that he understands that he has been fooled, and that Pedrolino is the author of this practical joke. Pedrolino simulates madness to escape the blows which threaten him.

He is a poltroon and a boaster. Bent upon avenging the wrong done him by Harlequin, he arrives armed to the teeth, perceives his enemy and hurls himself upon him with drawn weapons. Harlequin, armed with a door-bar, receives him firmly. Then, face to face, they heap abuse each upon the other, whilst depending upon those present to hinder them from coming to blows. The Captain seeks to separate them, whereupon they strike out furiously, with the result that it is the Captain who receives this shower of blows.

Elsewhere, after having boasted that he fears nothing, Pedrolino perceives Harlequin covered by a white garment, lantern in hand; at sight of him he interrupts his conversation and flees as fast as his legs will carry him.

His sorrows do not affect his appetite. We behold him weeping and complaining after having received a beating. He meets Harlequin, who brings him on behalf of the Captain a plate of macaroni. Pedrolino accepts it and continues to weep uninterruptedly whilst eating like an ogre; Harlequin, deeply affected, weeps also and begins to eat with him. Burattino arrives and, beholding them eating and weeping, he too bursts into tears and puts his hand into the dish. Not one of them says a word. The macaroni, watered by their tears, is soon swallowed, whereafter Pedrolino, weeping, turns to Harlequin. “Kiss the Captain’s hands for me,” he says, and goes off. Burattino entrusts Harlequin with a like commission on his own behalf and makes his exit on the other side, also weeping. Harlequin, bursting into fresh sobs, goes off licking the plate.

Pedrolino is utterly the slave of fear. Whilst dining under a tree with Harlequin and the beautiful Dorinda, the repast is interrupted by a gigantic bear which advances upon them. Pedrolino leaps up; the bear does the same; and whilst Harlequin, to hold its attention, throws at it one by one all the apples of the dinner, which the bear very adroitly catches in its jaws, Pedrolino decamps; Harlequin follows him and the bear carries off Dorinda, who lends herself without protest to this abduction.

Arrayed in a long white shirt, wearing a straw hat and carrying a huge staff, Pedrolino is entrusted by his master with a love letter which he is to deliver to Isabella; but as a result of his habitual absent-mindedness he loses the letter; he perceives his loss and, in casting about him for some means of discharging his commission, he is inspired with the happy notion of committing a theft upon a letter-carrier. He purloins from the basket the first letter that comes to his hand and delivers it to Isabella, whence ensues an intrigue of extreme complication.

In another scenario, dressed as a beggar, with a patch over one eye, he meets the Captain and begs alms from him whilst regarding him fixedly with his uncovered eye. The Captain, wearied and rendered impatient by his steadfast glance, demands the reason of it.

“It is,” replies Pedrolino, “that I am a physiognomist and that I perceive from your face that you will shortly be hanged.”

The Captain, to rid himself of such disagreeable prognostications, gives him some money. Another person, for the sake of peace, gives him bread and wine. Pedrolino sits down in a corner to eat and drink, but, finding the bread not clean and the wine not good, he throws one and the other at the legs of him from whom he received them, and goes off to get drunk at the hostelry.

He is mischievous and he plays practical jokes upon everybody. He dons the clothes of Cassandre, his master, and impersonates him; he dresses up as a woman and induces the Captain to abduct him; he gives Harlequin or Burattino filth to drink; he dresses Pantaloon as a woman to lead him to a supposed rendezvous, assuring him that such is the caprice of the lady who awaits him, in her anxiety to save appearances; at the same time he relates some fable to the Doctor, to lure him to the same rendezvous at which he himself is present in hiding. After many amorous proposals between the two cozened old men they finally recognise each other and almost come to blows.

In some pieces he is an intriguer and a lackey in the service of young people. But even then his real nature is preserved and he conforms to his type by his mischievousness and his buffooneries, when, for instance, morion on head and sword at his side, he imitates the roaring furies of Captain Spavento.

Such is the rôle of Pedrolino in the collection of Flaminio Scala. It will be seen therefore that it is quite wrong to attribute to the type of Pierrot a modern and entirely French origin.

“Down to the middle of the seventeenth century,” says M. Édouard Fournier in a recent article on the subject of Molière, “the Italian comedy had but one doltish character, Harlequin: it was always he who was the butt of practical jokes, it was always he who received the beatings. But with the advent of Domenico, all this was changed. As you know, he played Harlequin parts; but he played them like the man of wit that he was; well-read, and the friend of men of letters, he found it impossible, even under a mask, to accommodate himself to a character of imperturbable doltishness. Moreover he recognised, as has been wisely remarked by Léris in his Dramatic Dictionary, the humour of the French public, which insists upon wit in all performances. Therefore he infused wit into the rôle of Harlequin, and from then onward Harlequin was a completely metamorphosed character. Since Domenico justified himself by his success, none interfered with him. Thus Comedy gained a character; but on the other hand it also lost one, and one very much more indispensable than this charming intruder. How, without the necessary fool, was it possible to sustain Comedy’s repertory? Obviously an imbecile was essential to the repertory, to the by-play of the characters and to the lesser pleasures of the public. A fortunate chance, the inspiration of Molière, gave him to the world one fine day in the person of Pierrot.

“It was under these circumstances that Pierrot arrived, it was thus, as has been well said by des Essarts, that this singular character made his appearance, ‘French-born, in the Italian theatre.’”

It was Molière who, first, in his _Don Juan, ou le Festin de Pierre_, gave a peasant the name of Pierrot. He based this piece upon an Italian scenario entitled, _Il Convitato di Pietro_ (Peter’s Guest), which had already been performed in Paris in 1659 by the Sieur de Villiers, a comedian of the Hôtel de Bourgogne, and elsewhere by others.

“Molière was tempted,” says M. Édouard Fournier, “by the success of the Italian piece, to write his _Don Juan_. The success obtained by his comedy again in its turn tempted the Italians. He was inspired by them, they were inspired by him. In the early part of February, 1673, a bare fortnight before the death of that great author, the Italians performed in their theatre a new plot made up of the best scenes of their old piece, _Il Convitato di Pietro_, and, particularly, of the most amusing passages appropriated by them from the comedy of Molière. This comic medley, made up like the dress of Harlequin, was entitled _Aggiunta al Convitato di Pietro_.

“Among the characters transformed and adapted by the Italians in this extraordinary scenic hotch-potch was Pierrot, with his simpleton ways, his naïve love affairs and his unaltered name. Little attention was paid to this new-comer, so that, haphazard and, as it were, out of charity, the part was entrusted to a low-salaried member of the company named Giaratone. He did marvels. The others had the good sense not to be jealous and thus, in one stroke and by the one success, the character and the comedian alike acquired rights of citizenship.

“From this moment Pierrot never again left the Italian Comedy. In spite of his newness, in spite of his French name, he became as much a type as any of the others, as Mezzetin, Lelio, Cassandre, or even Harlequin himself, whose emancipation was justified by his advent, and who very willingly accepted him as the inheritor of his old-time stupidity and the victim of his malice of more recent date. Since there was nothing to show that he was a character of recent importation, so quickly and usefully was he employed in all the pieces as a type now acquired and naturalised for all time, Pierrot had his successes and his actors, who appropriated his flour-covered mask and the doltishness which became traditional.

“Amongst these was Hamoche, who did marvels somewhere about 1712, and for whom I am inclined to think was composed the air _Au Clair de la Lune_, always attributed, but without the least evidence, to Lulli.

“The costume of Pierrot was already that with which we are acquainted. Molière, in his _Don Juan_, had given him the white blouse of a French peasant, such as is still worn by Colin, the sleepy boy in the last scenes of _Georges Dandin_. Upon being turned into an Italian character Pierrot was compelled to change this garment; but he preserved at least the colour. The garb which he then took, and has never since abandoned, was borrowed from the Neapolitan Pulcinella. But in the case of Pulcinella the tunic is shorter, and fits the figure more closely, whilst the pantaloons are not so wide.[6] Finally Pierrot covered his face with flour.”

Notwithstanding these ingenious assertions it is impossible to think that Giaratone should not have possessed the traditions of Pedrolino, since the character which he introduced into the Franco-Italian theatre accords in every particular with that Italian ancestor of his: we discover the same poltroonery, the same gluttony, the same naïveté, so often malicious, the same stupidity mingled with good sense, and the same fundamental honesty and candour. As for the costume, nothing is discoverable to inform us exactly of that which was worn by the Pedrolino of Flaminio Scala. It is stated in a scenario that Pedrolino is dressed in a long shirt and wears a straw hat. Was his face floured like Pagliaccio’s and was he already dressed in white? That is very possible. Caprice has determined far less than is supposed in those costumes of classic fantasy which, however transformed, never absolutely abandon the lines of tradition. Giaratone, informed of the true character of the old Pedrolino, would no doubt be equally informed on the score of his make-up, and his dress; as for his Gallicised appellation, it is beyond doubt the same name, for in the scenarii of Gherardi the characters address him indifferently as Pierrot or Piero.

It would therefore seem that Giaratone did no more than rejuvenate and adapt to the Franco-Italian theatre the character of the old Pedrolino, taking for his performances those shades of character dominant in the greater number of the scenarii of Scala and abandoning the intriguing qualities sometimes, but exceptionally, attributed to him. He approached the type of Bertoldino, a type which, long before his day, had been confounded with that of Pedrolino. He floured his face after the fashion of the old French _badins_, who themselves—like Pagliaccio with his white mask and his flour, Pulcinella and Harlequin with their black masks, Pantaloon and Brighella with their brown masks, Coviello and the Doctor, each with his mask of a distinctive colour—derive from the ancient mimes with their countenances blackened, browned, reddened or whitened, who are alleged to have been resurrected during the Renaissance, but who in all probability had never disappeared from the Italian boards.

Just as Pedrolino had been the incarnation of the Italian peasant, so Pierrot was that of the French peasant, and he became with the French public the most popular type after Polichinelle.

In the scenarii and theatrical pieces of Gherardi, Pierrot is always a servant of the Doctor, of Brocantin or of Cinthio, just as in French pieces and pantomimes he is always the servant of Cassandre. He is a fellow who always says what he thinks and who recognises no social distinctions. This privilege of speaking his mind, accorded to the finesse and astuteness of the soubrette, is similarly granted to the simplicity and awkwardness of Pierrot. He never fails to lecture his master.