CYRANO DE BERGERACTHE FACT AND THE LEGEND

Northern Advocate, 23 July 1938, Page 12

CYRANO DE BERGERACTHE FACT AND THE LEGEND

The Library

WAS it not Sir Robert Walpole who said “History must be false”? Doubtless much of its detail is so, because we try to interpret this through our qwu eyes, being unable to do so through the gaze of the past. It is much the same with biography, certainly i;' written by strangers to the subject, very probably if penned by contemporary friend or foe. How difficult it is to really know and' comprehend even the few in our own nearer circles of acquaintances, and how much more difficult to form an adequate conception of those of some past generation or age, who saw things not as we do; who lived lives so different in externals, however similar the man or woman beneath the skin may have been. Comparison of Judgments. Not the most uninteresting of a reader’s many byways of enjoyment is that of comparing the judgments and presentations of different writers concerning some one personage; Should this be a prominent and world-famous or age-surviving man or woman, the lives, the essays, the endeavours to interpret his or her motives, actions, desires, reasons for success or failure, and the like grow bewildering in their number. Better is it, if one wishes to follow upon this path of reading, to select a less famous portrait for study; one that is not overwhelmed the

very effort to bring him again before an audience, long years, maybe, after he has finished with his earthly problems and troubles. By no means a bad example is he whose name heads this essay—Savinien de Cyrano, or, as he is known almost invariably/Cyrano de Bergerac, from the French custom of assuming as final name that of some landed estate possessed by the family. He had the good fortune to find a biographer, almost immediately after his death, in a personal friend, one Henri le Bret. Friends ho had many, both among military and literary men. and this, who wrote an account of his life as preface to some of his, Cyrano’s own works, approximated to both classes. Unfortunately, as near friends are apt to do, and perhaps even more so in that XVII century than in ours, the biography too closely resembled a panegyric.

The result was what might be expected; there followed other writers who belittled as much as le Bret extolled. Some described Cyrano as a madman, others as a free-thinker, if not worse, and some again as a braggart, none of which charges were justified. Again Exalted. Then with the opening of the XIX century* he was again exalted, by at least two successive writers to whom the world readily lent ear, Charles Nodier and Theophile Gautier. These however depended largely for their facts upon the enthusiastic de Bret. They did very much to revitalise the legend which had grown about the man. Finally, at the century’s closo came the fine play by Rostand, “Cyrano de Bergerac.” Naturally enough, Rostand elected to take the purely romantic view, and, if anything, enhance it. That his presentation is not the very man need trouble us little; him we can find elsewhere. Rostand’s work is a fine literary effort, which rightly won great praise and applause.

The “Bookman’s ” Review

' As for Cyrano himself, ho may bo taken, briefly, as a man of generous Impulses, outstandingly brave, even in an age when this was a general attribute among men who carried a sword, brave, too, alike in battle, siege or escalade, and on the duellingfield, As regards the last, he was no quarrelsome swashbuckler; of the hundred duels he fought between the time when he arrived at Paris at the age of eighteen, and his death when thirty-five, not one was on his own account or of his own seeking: all were fought on behalf of friends, and in their quarrels. As a soldier he fought well, was highly thought of by his superiors, was at least twice wounded seriously, and served with much distinction. Everyone who has heard his name associates it with a huge nose. That his was particularly noticeable can hardly bo doubted, but the facetious have tended to increase its measure foolishly and absurdly. Further, everyone thinks of,

and usually claims Cyrano as a Gascon, and indeed a typical Gascon, a fire-eating adventurer from that province. Actually he was nothing of the kind; there is a Bergerac there, but this was not the Bergerac from which he took his name. That estate, so designated, and held by his family for nearly half a century, was and is still situated not far from Paris. Probably the belief was largely increased by the fact that the regiment he elected to join was commanded by a Gascon of Gascons, and consisted almost wholly of those fiery and somewhat braggart southerners. Possibly our man caught some of their provincial mannerisms; they would not assort badly with his natural inclinations. An Eloquent Quotation. An excerpt from Rostand will not be amiss. DE GUICHE. a „ Here are the rebels! Ay, Sirs, on all sides I hear that in your ranks you scon at me; That the Cadets, these loutish, mountain-bred, Poor country squires, and barons or Perigord,

Scarce find for me —their Colonel a disdain Sufficient! call me plotter, wily courtier! It does not please their mightiness to see A point-lace collar on my steel cuirass— And they enrage, because a man, in sooth, May be no ragged-robin, yet a Gascon! (Silence. All smoke and play.) Shall I command your Captain punish you? No. CARBON. I am free, moreover —will not punish— DE GUICHE. Ah! CARBON. I have paid my company —his mine. I bow but to headquarters. DE GUICHE. So? In faith! That will suffice. (Addressing himself to the Cadets.) I can despise your taunts; ’Tis well known how I bear me in the war. At Bapaume, yesterday, they saw the rage

With which I beat back the Count of Bucquoi; Assembling my own men, I fell on his, And charged three separate times! CYRANO, without lifting his eyes from his book. And your white scarf? DR GUICHE, surprised and gratified. You know that detail? . . . Trotn, it happened tnus: While caracoling to recall the troops For the third charge, a band of fugitives Bore me with them, close by the hostile ranks: I was v in peril—capture, sudden death! — When I thought of the good expedient To loosen and let fall the scarf which told My military rank; thus I contrived —Without attention waked—to leave the foes, And suddenly returning, reinforced With my own men, to scatter them! And now, —What say you, Sir? (The Cadets pretend not to be listening, but the cards and the diceboxes remain suspended in their hands, the smoke of their pipes in their cheeks. They wait.) CYRANO. I say, that Henri Quatre Had not, by any dangerous odds, been forced To strip himself of his white helmet plume. (Silent delight. The cards fall, the dice rattle. The smoke is puffed.) DE QUICHE. The ruse succeeded, though! (Same suspension of play, etc.) CYRANO. Oh! may be! But One does not lightly abdicate the honour To serve as target to the enemy. (Cards, dice, fall again, and the Cadets smoke with evident delight.) Had I been present when your scarf fell low, —Our courage, Sir, is of a different sort — I would have picked it up and put it on. DE GUICHE. Oh, say! Another Gascon boast! CYRANO. A boast? Lend it to me. I pledge myself, tonight, —With it across my breast —to lead th’ assault. DE GUICHE. Another Gascon vaunt! You know the scarf Lies with the enemy, upon the brink Of the stream, . . . the place is riddled now with shot — No one can fetch it hither! CYRANO, drawing the scarf from his pocket, and holding it out to him. Here it Is.