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Updated: June 17, 2025
This one solitary man was General Bonaparte, the same young man who in the first bloody days of the French Revolution beheld the storm at the Tuileries, and expressed his regret to his companion the actor Talma that the king did not command his soldiers to mow down the canaille with grape-shot.
After another winter in Göttingen he set out for Paris, which city he reached early in April, 1817. One of the first things he did was to go to the theatre, where he saw Talma and Mademoiselle Mars play together. But stronger tastes drew him more frequently into the best society that capital afforded him.
Their stay at Amsterdam was marked by extraordinary pomp; the company of the Theatre Francais was brought thither from Paris, and Talma appeared as Bayard and as Orosmane. The court made a stay of a fortnight, the Emperor making short excursions to Helder, one of his creations, to Texel, and to the dykes of Medemblik, which protect the country against the Zuyder Zee.
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.
With a little laugh and a shrug of her shoulders she proceeded to open the envelope. It contained nothing but the sketch made upon the fly-leaf of a novel. Christian was watching her face. She continued to smile as she unfolded the paper. Then she suddenly became grave, and handed the open sketch to him. At the foot was written: "Max Talma look out! Avoid him as you would the devil!
And, in his delicate and generous endeavor to remind Napoleon of one of his moments of grandeur, Talma continued: "Your majesty perhaps remembers that evening at Tilsit, when the Emperor of Russia made you so tender a declaration of his love, publicly and before the whole world? But no, you cannot remember it; for you it was a matter of no moment; but I I shall never forget it!
Then she passed two or three hours in his apartment, but never more. Sometimes the Emperor invited Talma or Mademoiselle Mars to breakfast. One day, in a conversation with this admirable actress, the Emperor spoke to her concerning her debut. "Sire," said she, in that graceful manner which every one remembers, "I began very young. I slipped in without being perceived."
This individual was a mulatto, who would assuredly have given Talma a model for the part of Othello, if he had come across him. Never did any African face better express the grand vengefulness, the ready suspicion, the promptitude in the execution of a thought, the strength of the Moor, and his childish lack of reflection.
Talma, our last great tragic actor, in my opinion surpassed all the others. There was genius in his acting.
But Talma was never content with his triumphs; he awaited eagerly the rise of a new drama; and when I confided to him my ambitions, he would urge me to be quick and succeed within his day. Art was all that he lived for. How wonderful a thing is art, more faithful than a friend or lover!
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