8 PROLEGOMENA. beginning of a play, never finished, on Allori, and in 1845 // faut g’une porte soit onverte ou fermde, a little comedy for two characters, appeared in the Revue. In 1847, Un Caprice, a play already spoken of, was pro- duced at the Theatre Frangais, as the result of a somewhat singular coincidence. Mme. Allan, the great French actress, was in St. Petersburg when she saw a Russian piece which delighted her so much that she wished to have a French version made at once. It then turned out that the Russian piece was a version of Musset’s Un Caprice. The piece was completely successful, in spite of the alarm of some of the oldsters, one of the most distinguished of whom, Samson, exclaimed during a rehearsal, ’ Rebonsoir / What kind of a language is this ? ’ In 1848 the Theatre Francais gave repre- sentations of II faut git* tine porte soit ouverte ou fermee and of II tie faut jurer de rien, and the Theatre Historique pro- duced Le Chandelier. In 1849 the proverbe called On ne saurait penser a tout was produced at the Frangais with no great success, and Le Chandelier was played at the same theatre with complete success, until the Ministry forbad it on the score of immorality. Between this date and 1851 there were various proposals, which never came to anything, that Musset should write a play for Rachel, and how fine the play might have been if finished may be judged from the fragment of it published in the CEuvres Posthumes under the title Faustine. In 1850-51 Musset was elected an Academician, Bettine was played some thirty times at the Gymnase, and Carmosine appeared in the pages of the Constitutionnel. Cartnosine is one of the most beautiful and witty of Musset’s plays, and has not a touch in it that is disagreeable, while Bettine is worthy to rank with it, and is disagreeable only in that it contains one decidedly repulsive character. From this time onwards the illness from which Musset had always suffered more or less — an affection of the heart — gained upon him, and in 1854 he went to Croisic, and in the two following years to Havre, for his health’s sake. It is unfortunately im- possible to pass over in silence the fact that the poet was of careless and intemperate habits, which did not improve his condition ; but it is, luckily, possible to accept his friend
