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Indeed, it is Merimée that M. Halévy would hail as his master, and not Flaubert, whom most of his fellow French writers of fiction follow blindly. Now, while the author of Salamnbo was a romanticist turned sour, the author of Carmen was a sentimentalist sheathed in irony.
And of one-act plays Meilhac and Halévy have written a score or more delightful little genre pictures, like the Été de Saint-Martin, simple pastels, like Toto chez Tata, and vigorous caricatures, like the Photographe or the Brésilien. The Frenchman invented the ruffle, says Emerson: the Englishman added the shirt. These little dramatic trifles are French ruffles.
M. Meilhac has the strength of marked individuality, he has a style of his own, one can tell his touch; while M. Halévy is merely a clever French dramatist of the more conventional pattern. This we detect by considering the plays which each has put forth alone and unaided by the other.
He shook Varhely's hand, entered a cab, and, casting a glance at the journal in his hands, he ordered the coachman to drive to the office of 'L'Actualite', Rue Halevy, near the Opera.
It is nevertheless true that Halévy composed works which will retain a high rank in French art. "La Juive," "Guido," "La Reine de Chypre," and "Charles VI." are noble lyric dramas, full of beauties, though it is said they can never be seen to the best advantage off the French stage.
It would be necessary to have the resounding renown of a personality like that one who, if I am to believe Monsieur Halévy, alone enjoyed the privilege of revolutionizing the foyer of the ballet, in order to boast of having been someone, or of having accomplished something.
"She, whom the Rabbi loved, was a woe-begone poor darling, a mourning picture of desolation ... and her name was Jerusalem." Jehuda ben Halevy, like the Crusaders, makes his pilgrimage to Jerusalem; and there, amid the ruins, sings a song of Sion which has become famous among his people:
Balfe led the orchestra, and its popularity caused the basso Lablache to write the following epigram: The "Tempest" of Halévy Differs from other tempests. These rain hail, That rains gold.
I will stop here at the greenroom of the Ballet commended by Monsieur J.-J. Weiss, to give a slight sketch, clever as a drawing by Saint' Aubin or a lithograph by Gavarni, which Monsieur Ludovic Halévy has contributed to a journal and in which he also praises the romance that the feuilletoniste of the Débats has criticized with an authority so discriminating and a benevolence so profound.
With a Preface by E. LEGOUVE, of the French Academy Ludovic Halevy was born in Paris, January 1, 1834. His father was Leon Halevy, the celebrated author; his grandfather, Fromenthal, the eminent composer.
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