A Heroic Death

Fancioulle was an admirable buffoon, and almost one of the friends
of the Prince. But for persons professionally devoted to the comic,
serious things have a fatal attraction, and, strange as it may seem
that ideas of patriotism and liberty should seize despotically upon the
brain of a player, one day Fancioulle joined in a conspiracy formed by
some discontented nobles.

There exist everywhere sensible men to denounce those individuals
of atrabiliar disposition who seek to depose princes, and, without
consulting it, to reconstitute society. The lords in question were
arrested, together with Fancioulle, and condemned to death.

I would readily believe that the Prince was almost sorry to find his
favourite actor among the rebels. The Prince was neither better nor
worse than any other Prince; but an excessive sensibility rendered
him, in many cases, more cruel and more despotic than all his fellows.
Passionately enamoured of the fine arts, an excellent connoisseur as
well, he was truly insatiable of pleasures. Indifferent enough in
regard to men and morals, himself a real artist, he feared no enemy but
Ennui, and the extravagant efforts that he made to fly or to vanquish
this tyrant of the world would certainly have brought upon him, on
the part of a severe historian, the epithet of "monster," had it been
permitted, in his dominions, to write anything whatever which did not
tend exclusively to pleasure, or to astonishment, which is one of the
most delicate forms of pleasure. The great misfortune of the Prince
was that he had no theatre vast enough for his genius. There are young
Neros who are stifled within too narrow limits, and whose names and
whose intentions will never be known to future ages. An unforeseeing
Providence had given to this man faculties greater than his dominions.

Suddenly the rumour spread that the sovereign had decided to pardon all
the conspirators; and the origin of this rumour was the announcement of
a special performance in which Fancioulle would play one of his best
roles, and at which even the condemned nobles, it was said, were to
be present, an evident sign, added superficial minds, of the generous
tendencies of the Prince.

On the part of a man so naturally and deliberately eccentric, anything
was possible, even virtue, even mercy, especially if he could hope
to find in it unexpected pleasures. But to those who, like myself,
had succeeded in penetrating further into the depths of this sick
and curious soul, it was infinitely more probable that the Prince
was wishful to estimate the quality of the scenic talents of a man
condemned to death. He would profit by the occasion to obtain a
physiological experience of a capital interest, and to verify to what
extent the habitual faculties of an artist would be altered or modified
by the extraordinary situation in which he found himself. Beyond this,
did there exist in his mind an intention, more or less defined, of
mercy? It is a point that has never been solved.

At last, the great day having come, the little court displayed all its
pomps, and it would be difficult to realise, without having seen it,
what splendour the privileged classes of a little state with limited
resources can show forth, on a really solemn occasion. This was a
doubly solemn one, both from the wonder of its display and from the
mysterious moral interest attaching to it.

The Sieur Fancioulle excelled especially in parts either silent or
little burdened with words, such as are often the principal ones in
those fairy plays whose object is to represent symbolically the mystery
of life. He came upon the stage lightly and with a perfect ease, which
in itself lent some support, in the minds of the noble public, to the
idea of kindness and forgiveness.

When we say of an actor, "This is a good actor," we make use of a
formula which implies that under the personage we can still distinguish
the actor, that is to say, art, effort, will. Now, if an actor should
succeed in being, in relation to the personage whom he is appointed to
express, precisely what the finest statues of antiquity, miraculously
animated, living, walking, seeing, would be in relation to the confused
general idea of beauty, this would be, undoubtedly, a singular and
unheard of case. Fancioulle was, that evening, a perfect idealisation,
which it was impossible not to suppose living, possible, real. The
buffoon came and went, he laughed, wept, was convulsed with an
indestructible aureole about his head, an aureole invisible to all,
but visible to me, and in which were blended, in a strange amalgam,
the rays of Art and the martyr's glory. Fancioulle brought, by I know
not what special grace, something divine and supernatural into even
the most extravagant buffooneries. My pen trembles, and the tears of
an emotion which I cannot forget rise to my eyes, as I try to describe
to you this never-to-be-forgotten evening. Fancioulle proved to me,
in a peremptory, an irrefutable way, that the intoxication of Art is
surer than all others to veil the terrors of the gulf; that genius can
act a comedy on the threshold of the grave with a joy that hinders it
from seeing the grave, lost, as it is, in a Paradise shutting out all
thought, of the grave and of destruction.

The whole audience, blase and frivolous as it was, soon fell under
the all-powerful sway of the artist. Not a thought was left of death,
of mourning, or of punishment. All gave themselves up, without
disquietude, to the manifold delights caused by the sight of a
masterpiece of living art. Explosions of joy and admiration again and
again shook the dome of the edifice with the energy of a continuous
thunder. The Prince himself, in an ecstasy, joined in the applause of
his court.

Nevertheless, to a discerning eye, his emotion was not unmixed. Did
he feel himself conquered in his power as despot? humiliated in his
art as the striker of terror into hearts, of chill into souls? Such
suppositions, not exactly justified, but not absolutely unjustifiable,
passed through my mind as I contemplated the face of the Prince, on
which a new pallor gradually overspread its habitual paleness, as snow
overspreads snow. His lips compressed themselves tighter and tighter,
and his eyes lighted up with an inner fire like that of jealousy or
of spite, even while he applauded the talents of his old friend, the
strange buffoon, who played the buffoon so well in the face of death.
At a certain moment, I saw his Highness lean towards a little page,
stationed behind him, and whisper in his ear. The roguish face of the
pretty child lit up with a smile, and he briskly quitted the Prince's
box as if to execute some urgent commission.

A few minutes later a shrill and prolonged hiss interrupted Fancioulle
in one of his finest moments, and rent alike every ear and heart.
And from the part of the house from whence this unexpected note of
disapproval had sounded, a child darted into a corridor with stifled
laughter.

Fancioulle, shaken, roused out of his dream, closed his eyes, then
re-opened them, almost at once, extraordinarily wide, opened his mouth
as if to breathe convulsively, staggered a little forward, a little
backward, and then fell stark dead on the boards.

Had the hiss, swift as a sword, really frustrated the hangman? Had
the Prince himself divined all the homicidal efficacy of his ruse?
It is permitted to doubt it. Did he regret his dear and inimitable
Fancioulle? It is sweet and legitimate to believe it.

The guilty nobles had enjoyed the performance of comedy for the last
time. They were effaced from life.

Since then, many mimes, justly appreciated in different countries, have
played before the court of ----; but none of them have ever been able
to recall the marvellous talents of Fancioulle, or to rise to the same
favour.