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Henrietta of England, to whom this romantic tale was carried, became desirous of seeing the heroine of it, and Louise Querouaille was therefore duly introduced to the Duchess. The fictitious Cherubino was cunning enough to represent herself as being the victim of a forcible abduction.
If any grisette of the Place Cambrai or the Rue Saint-Jean-de-Beauvais, seeing that face of a youth escaped from college, that page's mien, those long, golden lashes, those blue eyes, that hair billowing in the wind, those rosy cheeks, those fresh lips, those exquisite teeth, had conceived an appetite for that complete aurora, and had tried her beauty on Enjolras, an astounding and terrible glance would have promptly shown her the abyss, and would have taught her not to confound the mighty cherub of Ezekiel with the gallant Cherubino of Beaumarchais.
He was the beau-ideal of Cherubino. He held up his whip, with an arch sign, to the sweeper. "Follow, my man," he said, in a tone the very command of which sounded gentle, so blithe was the movement of the lips, and so silvery the easy accent; and without waiting, he cantered carelessly down Pall Mall. The sweeper cast a rueful glance at his melancholy domain.
"I was standing close to Mozart," says Kelly, "who, sotto voce, was repeating: 'Bravo, bravo, Benucci! and when Benucci came to the fine passage, 'Cherubino, alla vittoria, alla gloria militar, which he gave out with stentorian lungs, the effect was electricity itself, for the whole of the performers on the stage, and those in the orchestra, as if actuated by one feeling of delight, vociferated: 'Bravo, bravo, maestro!
The libretto-part and the melodies, taken together, constitute a new romantic ideal, consistent with experience, but realised with the intensity and universality whereby art is distinguished from life. Don Juan was a myth before Mozart touched him with the magic wand of music. Cherubino became a myth by the same Prospero's spell.
Then he had heard all that the Count had said to Susanna? Cherubino says he had tried his best not to overhear anything. Figaro is sent for and enters with the villagers, who hymn the virtues of their lord.
His passion still hovers on the borderland of good and bad. And this undetermined passion is beautiful because of extreme freshness; of infinite, immeasurable expansibility. Cherubino is the epitome of all that belongs to the amorous temperament in a state of still ascendant adolescence.
Before his accession to the pontificate, Lucrezia had been formally promised to a couple of Spanish grandees, Don Cherubino Juan de Centelles and Don Gasparo da Procida, who was a son of the Count of Aversa; but once in the Vatican, with the papal power in his hands, Alexander grew more ambitious, and looked for another alliance, which might give him an increased political power.
Cherubino, watched from different places of concealment by the Count, Figaro, and Susanna, appears, and, seeing the Countess, whom he takes for Susanna, confounds not her alone, but also the Count and Figaro, by his ardent addresses to her. He attempts to kiss her, but the Count steps forward and interposes his cheek.
Both characters have the universality, the symbolic potency, which belongs to legendary beings. That there remains a discrepancy between the boy-page and the music made for him, can be conceded without danger to my theory; for the music made for Cherubino is meant to interpret his psychical condition, and is independent of his boyishness of conduct.
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