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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 January 2009
Scholars familiar with the lesser lights of the 1830s and forties will recall the name of Felix Pyat. A lithograph executed in the 1850s by the designer Nadar (Félix Tournachon) and depicting the best-known Romantics, shows Pyat shoulder to shoulder with the greats, Chateaubriand, Hugo, Dumas, Vigny, Lamartine, Béranger, Heine, and others, as their youthful associate. Today he evokes incidental remembrance as the Berrichon companion of George Sand and Jules Sandeau and, according to his own reminiscences, the person who converted Eugène Suë into a socialist writer. In his day Pyat enjoyed prominence as a journalist and especially as a writer of melodrama, or, as he called it, ‘people's theater’.
1. It may be seen in Gautier, Théophile, Ecrivains et artistes romantiques (Paris, 1933), opposite p. 8.Google Scholar
2. Sand, George, Correspondence, ed. Lubin, George (Paris, 1964), pp. 761, 767Google Scholar; Pyat, Félix, ‘Souvenirs litteraires; comment j'ai connu Eugène Suë et George Sand’, Revue de Paris et de Saint-Pétersbourg, II (02, 1888), 16–35.Google Scholar
3. Hunt, Herbert J., Le socialisme et le romantisme en France (Oxford, 1935), passimGoogle Scholar; Picard, Roger, Le romantisme social (New York, 1944), passim.Google Scholar
4. George, Albert J., The Development of French Romanticism (Syracuse, N.Y., 1955), pp. 140–57Google Scholar; Picard, , Romantisme social, pp. 241–9Google Scholar; Albert, Maurice, Les théâtres des boulevards (Geneva, 1969) pp. 316–41.Google Scholar
5. Draper, F. W., The Rise and Fall of the French Romantic Drama (London, 1923), pp. 164–71Google Scholar; Rahill, Frank, The World of Melodrama (University Park, pa., 1967), pp. 69–74Google Scholar; Lacey, Alexander, Pixerécourt and the French Romantic Drama (Toronto, 1928), pp. 26, 30–1.Google Scholar
6. The best sketches of Pyat are: Zévaès, Alexandre, ‘Figures d'hier, Félix Pyat, homme de lettres et homme politique,’ La Nouvelle Revenue, CIX (1 10, 15 10, 1 11, 15 11 1930), 161–74, 259–86, 60–8, 95–108Google Scholar; Dictionnaire des parlementaires français, (Paris, 1891), V, 60–3. Among many critical summaries of his life the most accurate is Paul Delion (Paul Bourde), Les Membres de la Commune (Paris, 1871), pp.172–80. Suggestive but unreliable is Eugène de Mirecourt, Histoire contemporaine, Portraits et silhouettes au XIXe siècle (Paris, 1869), pp. 5–25. For a literary estimate, see Racot, Adolphe in Figaro, 22 02 1885.Google Scholar No detailed summary exists in English.
7. Though he chose to run and be elected from Cher, he was an idol of the working-class districts of Paris, Bouton, Victor, Profils révolutionnaires (Paris, 1848–1849). p. 108.Google Scholar In 1849, in fact, he got elected from Paris.
8. They were: Une révolution d'autrefois (collaborator, a minor historian, Théodose Burette), 1832; Une conspiration d'auterefois (same collaborator), 1833, and published in Revue des deux mondes five years later; Arabella, 1833, and published in Europe littéraire during the same year; Le brigand et le philosophe (collaborator, the novelist Auguste Luchet), 1834; Ango (same collaborator), 1835; Les deux serruriers, 1841; Mathilde (dramatization of Eugène Suë's serialized novel), 1842; Cédric le norvegien, 1842; Diogène, 1846; Le chiffonier de Paris, 1847.
9. Pyat's name no longer appears in the histories of literature of the drama, turning up only in connection with specialized subjects, such as: Norman, Hilda L., Swindlers and Rogues in French Drama (Port Washington, N.Y., 1968), pp. 43, 84, 91, 101, 217–8Google Scholar; Nostrand, Howard L., Le théâtre antique et à l'antique en France de 1840 à 1900 (Paris, 1934), pp. 68–9, 206Google Scholar; Ihrig, Grace P., Heroines in French Drama of the Romantic Period, 1829–1848 (New York, 1950), pp. 139–40Google Scholar; Minor, Lucian W., The Militant Hackwriter (Bowling Green, Ohio, 1975), pp. 109, 117, 122, 128–9, 130, 132, 139, 147.Google Scholar
10. Unpuplished thirty-page MS by Pyat, ‘General Introduction to the Popular Theatre, p. 2, in the Descaves Collection, 1.3, International Instituut voor Social Geschiedenis, Amsterdam, Netherlands. Hereinafter cited as ‘General Introduction’.
11. These were the first three plus Ango.
12. The societal plays were Les deux serruriers, Diogène, and Le chiffonier de Paris. The monarchophobe one was Cédric le norvégien. Mathilde was a standard melodrama.
13. Though Les deux serruriers and Le chiffonier de Paris were more clearly ‘socialist’ plays, it was Diogène that was described by a Fourierist critic, Victor Hennequin as the first true socialist play, Hunt, Socialisme et romantisme, p. 281.
14. Pyat, , ‘General Introduction’, pp. 3–4.Google Scholar
15. Lacey, , Pixerécourt, pp. 1–23Google Scholar; Rahill, , The World of Melodrama, pp. 53–60Google Scholar; Ginisty, Paul, Le Mélodrame (Paris, 1910), passim.Google Scholar
16. Evans, David-Owen, Le drame moderne à l'époque romantique (1827–1850) (Geneva, 1974), pp. 173, 182–3, 233–6Google Scholar; Hunt, , Socialisme el romantisme, pp. 218–20, 278–9.Google Scholar Hunt discusses the extent of these writers' socialism. Aspects of Soulié's Les étudiants suggests that this play may have influenced Pyat in composing Le chiffonier de Paris.
17. Rahill, , The World of the Melodrama, pp. 155–6Google Scholar; Lacey, , Pixérécourt, pp. 21, 75–7.Google Scholar
18. Lemaître, Frédérick, Souvenirs (Paris, 1880), pp. 281–4Google Scholar; Baldick, Robert, The Life and Times of Frederick Lemaître (London, 1959), pp. 198–200.Google Scholar
19. Zévaès, , ‘Figures d'hier, Félix Pyat’. 267.Google Scholar
20. At the time socialist writers rated Les deux serruriers, Diogène, and especially Le chiffonier de Paris highly, but it is interesting that Proudhon, a really acute radical observer, did not. He remarked of Chiffonier that ‘on analysis I do not discover either strength of thought or of style in this piece, but a bad example of popular literature’, Proudhon, Pierre-Joseph, Carnets (Paris, 1961), II, 97.Google Scholar
21. Royer, Alphonse, Histoire universelle du théâtre (Paris, 1878), V, 392Google Scholar; Lemaître, , Souvenirs, p. 282.Google Scholar
22. Egbert, Donald D., Social Radicalism and the Arts (New York, 1970), pp. 117–60Google Scholar; Picard, , Romantisme social, pp. 358–9, 365–6, 368–9.Google Scholar It is possible that Pyat was influenced by the Pierre Leroux branch of Saint-Simonianism, for several of his ideas corresponded to those propounded by Leroux. It might be noted that Utopian Socialists' particular form of didacticism in the arts, including the drama, derived from the eighteenth-century greats, Crocker, Lester G., The Embattled Philosopher, Denis Diderot (East Lansing, 1954), pp. 180–1Google Scholar; Evans, David-Owen, Le socialisme romantique; Pierre Leroux et contemporains (Paris, 1948), pp. 61, 62, 71, 77, 200.Google Scholar
23. Pyat and Louis Blanc were so close in 1848 that, when in August of that year legislative persecution forced Blanc to leave for exile, Pyat helped to tidy his personal effects and to accompany him on the start of his journey, Dictionnaire des parlementaires, V, 60–1.
24. Hunt, , Socialisme et romantisme, pp. 166–9Google Scholar; Loubère, Leo, Louis Blanc, His Life and His Contributions to the Rise of French Jacobin-Socialism (New York, 1961), pp. 19–22, 54.Google Scholar
25. Pyat, , ‘General Introduction’, pp. 26, 30.Google Scholar
26. In the Archives de la Préfecture de Police, Paris, Ba 1230, 1231, are materials on Pyat, In Ba 1230 there is a copy of L'Ordre, n.d., 1873, in which the writer quotes from a letter, Pyat to Adolphe Thiers, written in 1845, concerning the latter's private art collection, in which Pyat used the phrase. See also, Hunt, , Socialisme et Romantisme, p. 170.Google Scholar
27. Pyat, , ‘General Introduction’, p. 30.Google Scholar
28. Pyat, , ‘General Introduction’, pp. 2, 24, 27Google Scholar; Pyat, Felix, ‘Romantisme et naturalisme’. Revue de Paris et de Saint-Petersbourg, I (11, 1887), 77–8, 90.Google Scholar
29. Pyat, , ‘Souvenirs litteraires’. 17–18.Google Scholar
30. ibid.
31. Pyat, , ‘General Introduction’, p. 26.Google Scholar
32. Pyat, , ‘Souvenirs littéraires’, 18.Google Scholar Interestingly, Rousseau used the phrase, ‘the will of the people is the will of God’.
33. Pyat, , ‘Souvenirs littéraires,’ 17Google Scholar; ibid., ‘General Introduction’, p. 29; interview in La Revanche, 31 10 1882.
34. Pyat, , ‘Romantisme et naturalisme’, 90Google Scholar; ibid., ‘General Introduction’, pp. 26, 30.
35. Pyat, , ‘Souvenirs littéraires’, 18.Google Scholar
36. Pyat, , ‘General Introduction’, p. 26.Google Scholar
37. Rahill, , The World of Melodrama, p. xiv.Google Scholar
38. In his forty-years' connection with French politics, directly or at a distance, he delivered himself of unending preachments and exhortations. Three typical and varying examples are Lettre aux électeurs de la Seine, du Cher et de la Niève (Paris, 1849; dealing with his social Christianity; an editorial in Le Combat, 12 10 1870, describing his self-sacrifice in the newspaper he published during the Franco-Prussian War; and an oft-printed speech in which he saluted the people for their revolution at the beginning of the Commune of Paris, quoted in Mason, Edward S., The Paris Commune (New York, 1930), pp. 157–8.Google Scholar
39. Illustrative of this viewpoint is Clère, Jules, Les hommes de la Commune (Paris, 1871), pp. 134–41Google Scholar; a sketch of Pyat in d'Alméras, Henri, La vie parisienne pendant le siège et sous la Commune (Paris, 1927), pp. 385–90.Google Scholar
40. While his conservative detractors frequently charged him with attention-seeking, his political colleagues sometimes took note of this as well, Prosper Lissagaray, Histoire de la Commune de 1871 (Paris, 1947), p. 139; Vuillaume, Maxime, Mes cahiers rouges au temps de la Commune, n.p., n.d., p. 181.Google Scholar
41. Pyat, , ‘Romantisme et naturalisme’, 90.Google Scholar
42. ibid., 85.
43. ibid., 32–87; Pyat, , ‘General Introduction’, pp. 16–19.Google Scholar It is interesting to note that this was exactly the same view of Romanticism that was held by Pixerécourt, Lacey, Pixerécourt, p. 67.
44. Hunt, , ‘Socialisme et romantisme’, pp. 167–8.Google Scholar
45. Pyat, , ‘Romantisme et naturalisme’, 81–2Google Scholar; ibid., ‘General Introduction’, pp. 16–17.
47. Typical references outside his plays, Pyat, , ‘Souveniis littéraires’, 19Google Scholar; ibid., Le proscrit et la France; vision et réalité, mal et remède (Paris, 1869), pp. 7–10.
48. Le Figaro, 20 02 1885. This Play, L'homme de peine, had a short run. The blasé public of the 1880's was not in a mood for forties-type melodrama. Pyat wrote two other plays, one Le médecin de Néron, which would have been performed had not Louis Napoleon's coup of 2 December 1851 occurred, and another, La famille anglaise, which never found a producer. Copies of these are in the Descaves Collection, 1.6, loc. cit.
49. Pyat, , ‘Romantisme et naturalisme’, 78–81Google Scholar; ibid., ‘General Introduction’, pp. 8 –13.
50. For instance, Hugo, Victor, Actes et paroles (Paris, 1883), II, 209Google Scholar, referred to one of Pyat's political manifestoes, pointing to its author's eloquence, irony, and wit.
51. Among radicals concerned with the visual arts this same perspective at first prevailed, but was gradually replaced by a broader outlook. One of Pyat's associates, Théophile Thoré, an art critic, illustrated the broadening process, Grate, Pontus, Duex critiques d'art de l'époque romantique, Gustave Planche et Théophile Thoré (Stockholm, 1959), pp. 146, 182, 252.Google Scholar