Project Gutenberg's Bataille De Dames, by Eugene Scribe and Ernest Legouve

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Title: Bataille De Dames

Author: Eugene Scribe and Ernest Legouve

Release Date: May 29, 2004 [EBook #12472]

Language: French/English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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[Illustration: EUGENE SCRIBE]

BATAILLE DE DAMES

PAR SCRIBE ET LEGOUVE

_WITH INTRODUCTION, NOTES, AND VOCABULARY_

BY BENJ. W. WELLS, PH.D. (HARV.) FORMERLY PROFESSOR OF MODERN LANGUAGES,
UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH.

INTRODUCTION

"BATAILLE DE DAMES" bears on its title-page the names of two authors,
Scribe and Legouve; and as we can determine the nature of their
collaboration from internal evidence alone, it is necessary to examine
somewhat the works and characteristics of each.

Eugene Scribe[A] was the most prolific, probably the most popular, and
proportionally the most wealthy, playwright of French literary history.
He was born on Christmas Eve, 1791, and died on the 20th of February,
1861. He lost both parents in early years, and for a time pretended to
study law in Paris; but before he was twenty his dramatic vocation had
declared itself unmistakably, though his first comedy, "Les Dervis"
(1811), and indeed the dozen that followed it, were unmistakable
failures. His mind seemed to flow naturally into all the lighter forms
of drama, and at last, after five years, success crowned his
perseverance in "L'Auberge;" and "Une Nuit de la garde nationale" gave
him notoriety and even a sort of fame, just as the Restoration
inaugurated that period of social lassitude so favorable to the
recognition of his peculiar talent; for during his whole career he was
an amuser far more than an instructor. He took the vaudeville[B], as it
had been developed during the eighteenth century by Le Sage, Regnard,
Piron, Marmontel, and even J.-J. Rousseau, and gave it a body and a
living interest, till it became the _comedie-vaudeville_, and then,
discarding even the little snatches of song, the _couplets_ that still
marked its origin, spread