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In the first one that fell into my hands I find the influence of opera manifest in recitatives and airs put into the mouth of Mephistopheles, and comic songs sung by Kasperle, the Punch of the German marionette fraternity. The love tale which furnished forth the entire opera book of MM. Carre and Barbier is, as I have said, wholly the invention of Goethe.
MM. Michel Carre and Jules Barbier, who made the book for Gounod's opera "Faust," went for their subject to Goethe's dramatic poem. Out of that great work, which had occupied the mind of the German poet for an ordinary lifetime, the French librettists extracted the romance which sufficed them the story of Gretchen's love for the rejuvenated philosopher, her seduction and death.
Yakut has preserved for us the information that at Raishahar in the district of Arrajan there lived in the Sasanian times men, versed in a peculiar species of syllabary who wrote medical, astronomical and logical works. Wustenfeld, II, p. 887. This passage has been translated by Barbier de Maynard in his "Geographical, Historical and Literary Dictionary of Persia", in French, pp. 270-271.
The plot of 'Der Barbier' is long-winded and puerile, and the interest is entirely centred in the music, Noureddin loves Margiana, the daughter of the Cadi, and is bidden to an interview by Bostana, her confidante. He takes with him Abul Hassan, a talkative fool of a barber, who watches in the street while Noureddin visits his sweetheart.
For the Encyclopaedia, see Morley, Diderot, passim. Soberer, Diderot; the correspondence of D'Alembert and Voltaire in the works of the latter. Grimm, vii. 44, and especially ix. 203-217, an excellent article. Barbier, v. 159, 169; vii. 125, 138, 141; also in the work itself the word Encyclopedie in vol. v. Mr.
The last act is perhaps the weakest part of the opera. MM. Barbier and Carré's version of Shakespeare's magnificent poetry is certainly not inspiring; but in any case it is difficult to believe that Gounod's suave talent could have done justice to the piteous tragedy of that terrible scene. Gounod's last three operas did not add to his reputation.
The property left with the colonists consisted of seventy pigs, large and small, twenty hens and chickens, a few barrels of corn, which was carefully kept for the sick, a considerable quantity of powder and lead, and eight cannons, but without balls. The heroic and devout Father Membré remained as the spiritual guide. M. Barbier was left with the secular command.
The responsibility was declared to extend to all the members of the Institute, and public opinion triumphed over the condemnation with a " quasi-indecent " joy, says the advocate Barbier. Nor was it content with this legitimate satisfaction. One of the courts which had until lately been most devoted to the Society of Jesus had just set an example of severity.
It was to this feeling that the French poet Barbier, whose death we have but lately seen announced, gave expression in the terrible satire in which he pictured France as a fiery courser bestridden by her spurred rider, who drove her in a mad career over heaps of rocks and ruins. But after all, Carlyle's "carriere ouverte aux talens" is the expression for Napoleon's great message to mankind.
"He is much inconvenienced by a sciatica," writes the advocate Barbier, "and cannot walk but with the assistance of two men. He comes back with grand decorations: prince of the empire, knight of the Golden Fleece, blue riband, marshal of France, and duke.
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