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Updated: May 9, 2025
A listener did me the honor to question my statement that Voltaire's "L'Orphelin de la Chine" was taken from the Orphan of Chaou of this collection, which I thought every one knew.
For example, in L'Orphelin de la Chine a celebrated Chinese play, almost all the noble characters end by suicide; without the slightest hint anywhere, or any impression being produced on the spectator, that they are committing a crime. And in our own theatre it is much the same Palmira, for instance, in Mahomet, or Mortimer in Maria Stuart, Othello, Countess Terzky.
We were all eyes and ears in spite of that, and nothing in the play of the tragic actresses Madame Duchesnois, Madame Paradol, and Madame Bourgoin ever escaped us. I can see and hear yet all Corneille's plays, and Racine's too, and Zaire, and Mahomet, and L'Orphelin de la Chine, and many more. But what we longed for most impatiently were Moliere's plays.
For instance, in the famous Chinese play, L'Orphelin de la Chine, almost all the noble characters end by suicide, without indicating anywhere or it striking the spectator that they were committing a crime. At bottom it is the same on our own stage; for instance, Palmira in Mahomet, Mortimer in Maria Stuart, Othello, Countess Terzky. Is Hamlet's monologue the meditation of a criminal?
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