INTRODUCTION TO ’ FANTASIO.’ 39 spearean retorts between Claudio and Octave in the Caprices de Marianne, and it may be noted that a person called Henri Fantasio, dwelling at no particular time at the court of Munich, is not more remarkable than a person named Sir Toby Belch, dwelling at the court of Illyria under the reign of Duke Orsino, also at no particular period. For my own part, although Fantasio is one of the few acted pieces of Musset’s which I have not seen, yet I can by no means agree with a critic (M. Georges D’Heylli) to whose work I owe the chance of reproducing the observations of MM. Sarcey and Foucher. ’Of all Alfred de Musset’s pieces,’ writes M. D’Heylli, ’ Faniasio is the last that should have been taken from the study to the stage. This brilliant ne’er-do-weel, who seems by-the-by to be the very incarna- tion of the poet, is neither interesting nor dramatic. A cynic weary of the world, of his fellow-creatures and of himself, he loves nothing, he admires nothing, he laughs at all that is great, noble, fine; and he is an odious personage, even though he delivers, as if in a fairy tale, the Princess of Bavaria from the persecution of an importunate suitor.’ , M. D’Heylli goes on to say that the piece had no brilliant success, although a new ending (in the stage version Elsbeth ended the play with the words Tu reviendras, which Musset would never have written) was put to it. For ’although’ I should be disposed to substitute ’ because.’ To put such an ending to it was to hopelessly vulgarize, with one stroke of the pen, one of the most exquisite pieces of drama that this century has seen. No one but Musset could have written the play, and to one actor at least who took part in the representation the added words must have seemed as gross an impertinence as I think they do to all true lovers, English or French, of Musset’s delicate and fiery work.
