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Napoleon knew it better when he said to Talma, after seeing his representation of Nero in Britannicus "You are quite wrong in your idea of Nero; you should conceal the tyrant. No man admits he was guilty either to himself or others." Alfieri himself is a proof of it: he recounts, in his life, many criminal acts he committed, but never with the slightest allusion to their having been wrong.
I will not say that he would never have elevated himself to more serious and dignified conceptions than are to be found in his Britannicus and Mithridate; but here we must distinguish between that which his subject suggested, and what he painted with a peculiar fondness, and wherein he is not so much the dramatic artist as the spokesman of his own feelings.
Sometimes, indeed, on great public occasions, both Nero and Britannicus appeared together, but even in these cases the arrangements were so made as to impress the public mind more forcibly than ever with an idea of the vast superiority of Nero, in respect to rank and position.
The great Condé wept at the generosity of sentiment portrayed in his Britannicus. It is impossible to conceive any thing more dignified and elevated, more calculated to rouse the generous and lofty feelings, to nourish that forgetfulness of self and devotion to others, which is the foundation of every thing great and good in this world, than his finest tragedies. They are, however, very unequal.
She immediately went to Claudius with earnest and angry complainings. "Your own edict," said she, "sanctioned and confirmed by the Senate, is disavowed and annulled, and my son is subjected to public insult by the impertinence of this child." Agrippina farther represented to Claudius, that Britannicus never would have thought of addressing her son in such a manner, of his own accord.
He assured Nero that the failure of their attempt was owing entirely to some accidental cause, and that if he would give Locusta one more opportunity to make the trial, he would guarantee that she would prepare a mixture that would kill Britannicus as quick as a dagger would do it. Nero ordered that this should immediately be done.
Here reposed the dust of Agrippina, after years of exile, by the side of her husband, Germanicus; here Nero and his mother, Agrippina, and his victim, Britannicus; here Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and all the other Caesars to Nerva. Then the marble door was closed, for the sepulchral cells were full."
When Jean Perliez and Esperance entered the auditorium there was a flattering stir, as much in pleasure at seeing the young girl again, as in welcome to the future actor. "Scene from Britannicus, M. Jean Perliez, 'Nero'; Mlle. Esperance Darbois, 'Junia," proclaimed the usher. The scene was so very well enacted that a "Bravo" broke from the learned group around the table.
Giving out that the Emperor was getting better, Agrippina took care to keep Britannicus and his two sisters, Octavia and Antonia, under her own immediate eye.
Are you sure? Agrip. Go see his corpse there, and assure yourself. Nero. Dead? Poor Britannicus! who might have sat Upon this very throne instead of me! Agrip. Nero! Nero. My mother! Agrip. Ah! I understand. Nero. Take him and make him emperor if you can. This has what the French call the coup de fouet.
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