An English setting was likewise given by Scribe to his play of
_Helene_, suggested by Balzac's _Honorine_, which was staged at the
Gymnase in 1846. Helene is a young orphan who draws and paints for her
living, and has the good fortune to have all her canvases bought at
advantageous prices by a rich dealer named Crosby. But suddenly she
learns that the dealer is acting in behalf of a certain Lord
Clavering, and, fearing some underhand designs, she refuses to keep
the money that has been paid her. Smitten by her disinterestedness as
well as by her beauty, Lord Clavering would gladly marry her, but is
bound by his word plighted to Lord Dunbar's daughter. However, the
latter elopes with another nobleman, and Clavering marries Helene.
This pretty theme, developed by the actress Rose Cheri, made a huge
hit.
Nearly as great was the actress's success at the same theatre in 1849,
when she played the principal role in Clairville's _Madame Marneffe_ a
version of _Cousin Bette_, but very much modified, since Bette is
eliminated altogether, and Valerie Marneffe, instead of being a
depraved creature, is merely a clever woman of the world, who avenges
her father's ruin on the Baron Hulot and Crevel, they being mainly
responsible for it. When Balzac was at Wierzchownia, on his last
visit, he wrote to his mother asking her to go to the theatrical
agent's in order to receive his third of the receipts produced by the
piece. These author's royalties must have helped his purse
considerably.
In the year after the novelist's death, the applauded representation
of _Mercadet_, at the Gymnase, stimulated other managers of theatres
to go on exploiting his _Comedy_. In September, the _Shagreen Skin_,
arranged by Judicis, was played at the Ambigu-Comique, with _tableaux_
of almost literal imitation, yet bringing to life again, in the
denouement, the chief _dramatis personae_, and making the whole drama
a dream.
At the Comedie Francaise, in 1853, Barriere and de Beauplan produced a
five-act prose play drawn from the _Lily in the Valley_. The novel was
an awkward one to dramatize, there being very few elements in it
capable of yielding situations for the stage. So the result was poor.
A better thing was made in 1859 by de Keraniou out of the _Sceaux
Ball_. On it he based an agreeable piece entitled _Noblesse Oblige_,
with a delicately interpreted love scene in it which met with
appreciative audiences at the Odeon.
One more example, that of _Cousin Pons_, may be given to close the
list of these adaptation, which are fully treated in Edmond Bire's
interesting book dealing with certain aspects of Balzac's life and
work. _Cousin Pons_ was staged at the Cluny Theatre in 1873. Alphonse
de Launay, the author of the play, keeps to his text fairly well; but
he adds a love episode which thrusts the friendship of the two
musicians into the second place. Moreover, after the death of Pons,
Schmucke lives to inherit his fortune and the Camusots are checkmated.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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