[In the following excerpt, Roussève provides an introduction to Séjour's life and works.]

If Camille Thierry was the greatest Negro non-dramatic poet in Louisiana before the Civil War, Victor Séjour, the dramatist, considering his works from the point of view of their volume and quality, and the popularity which came to them during his lifetime, was the greatest Louisiana-born Negro poet of his age. Like Thierry, he is represented in Les Cenelles.

The story of his rise to glory reads like a romantic novel. The son of Juan François Louis Victor Séjour, native of Santo Domingo, and Éloise Phillippe, of New Orleans, he was born probably in New Orleans June 2, 1817, according to his baptismal record at Saint Louis Cathedral. Some believe, however, that he was born as early as 1809; and the Dictionnaire Larousse du XXe Siècle states that his birth occurred in Paris in 1821. While his full name was Juan Victor Séjour Marcou et Ferrand, he chose to be called Victor Séjour. His father operated a prosperous cleaning and dyeing establishment at "25, rue de Chartres," in New Orleans. Séjour studied, as has been mentioned earlier, under Michel Séligny.

Victor Séjour became a member of "Les Artisans," an organization of free colored mechanics incorporated in 1834¹ and still in existence. When he was seventeen years old, Séjour, on the anniversary of the founding of the society, wrote a poem which much impressed the members. In 1836, convinced of his literary talent, his parents sent him to Paris to complete his education and to remove him from the wretched conditions to which his people were then a prey.

After his graduation he wrote in 1841 an ode, "Le Retour de Napoléon," the quality of which was sufficient to admit him into the literary circles of Paris. There he met Alexandre Dumas and Émile Augier. Diégarias, his first drama, was staged at the Théâtre-Français July 23, 1844. His Chute de Séjan was also presented there in 1849. Following the production of these heroic dramas in verse, he gravitated toward melodrama. Twenty-one of his works in this style were played in the theatres of Paris. They immediately proved immensely popular, for the Paris theatre-goers came in droves to their premières. Victor Séjour had "arrived."

Really devoted to his mother, when word reached him that she was in need he sailed to New Orleans to her rescue, and thence he returned to Paris.

For an extended period Victor Séjour was the idol of the Parisian theatres. Among his friends was Louis Napoleon, who made him his private secretary. Eventually tastes changed, however; and both his popularity and his purse suffered. Poor and ill, he evinced difficulty in finding directors to present his Cromwell and Le Vampire, Grand Drame Fantastique. At last, before his Vampire could be staged at La Gaieté, Séjour died in a hospital, a victim of galloping tuberculosis, on September 21, 1874. Kind and lovable, he was mourned by many. He is buried at Père La Chaise.

Tall, handsome, and distinguished, with sparkling brown eyes, and with a complexion too dark and lips too large for him to be taken for a Caucasian, Séjour was an impressive figure at Paris in the heyday of his glory. An admirer of Shakespeare and Hugo, he was conversant with the literature of the drama, and he knew all the secrets of the psychology of stagecraft. Kind and generous toward his actors, he earned their love, admiration, and esteem. He continually sought to improve his works, often presenting revised passages on slips of paper to players on their way to the stage.

In the catalogue of his works are dramas in prose and in verse. Among his pieces in prose are Richard III, Les Noces Vénitiennes, André Gérard, and Le Martyr du Coeur, all of which are in five acts. Le Fils de la Nuit and the comedy L'Argent du Diable are in three acts. Le Paletot Brun is a comedy in one act. Included among his dramas in verse are La Chute de Séjan and Diégarias, both of which are in five acts. His Cromwell and Le Vampire were never published. Séjour wrote only one play with an American setting—Les Volontiers de 1814, a drama in five acts and fourteen tableaux, dated 1862 and featuring the Louisiana volunteers against the British at the Battle of New Orleans.²

Diégarias, the five-act drama in verse with which Séjour started his career as playwright, has its setting in Castile. Its principal characters are Diégarias, a Jew who kept secret, even from his daughter Inès (the only female character), his name and creed; Don Juan de Tello, husband of Inès; Henry IV, king of Castile; and Abdul-Bekri, Moorish spy. The quality of Séjour's style at this early period and the nature of the title-character of the play are revealed in the following passage, spoken by Diègarias to Inès:

   Ta mère … ? Elle me dit un mot,
Et mon coeur étonné se rendit aussitôt.—
"Fuyons!"—Ma haine avait fait place à ma tendresse.
Heureux et confians [sic] nous partîmes—La Grèce
Nous reçut.—Lǵ mon sort s'adoucit, je devin
Riche et puissant. Je fus honoré; mais en vain,
Le repos me fuyait! mon injure passée,
Comme un crime, un remords, pesait sur ma pensée.
Bianca mourut, laissant, dans ses derniers adieux,
Le désir d'être transportée un jour dans ces lieux.—
Ce désir fut ma loi.—Je partis.—Par prudence,
Je pris un autre nom, je cachai ma croyance,
Si bien qu'après vingt ans … vingt ans d'exil enfin,
Nul ne revit en moi Jacob-Eliacin.—
.…³

Victor Séjour's Richard III was presented for the first time at the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin on September 29, 1852. The work is respectfully dedicated to the dramatist's father, to whose rectitude and loftiness of spirit Séjour attributed whatever success had crowned his art. In the play, whose background is the War of the Roses, the corpse-strewn career of Richard III unrolls itself to its wretched close. In a gripping scene Richard, asking in marriage the hand of his niece Elizabeth, daughter of the queen dowager, and sister of the murdered children of Edward, is answered thus by the angry princess:

Ah! gardez votre trône!—Votre trône? Quelle est la femme qui voudrait s'y asseoir? Votre trône?—Non, ce n'est pas une compagne que tu peux avoir, c'est une accomplice; ce n'est pas un coeur candide et pur, c'est une furie qui puisse dormir en paix sous ton toit, dans l'enivrement de tes cruautés! …

Oui, tu t'es fait du meurtre une distraction! Oui, tu as tué mes deux frères, Edouard et Richard. Oui, tu as tué mon oncle Rivers, tué mon oncle Clarence, ton frère. Tu t'es fait un marchepied de cadavres pour escalader ce trône que tu viens m'offrir, à moi dont le coeur est morcelé par tes crimes. Oh! l'insensé tyran! la vapeur du sang t'a enivré! Je suis heureux de pouvoir te le dire en face: je ne te hais pas, je te méprise; je ne te hais pas, je te brave; je ne te hais pas, je te chasse!⁴

Just before the fall of the curtain in the last scene, as Richard, dead, is ordered placed into the sepulchre in which he had meant, had his plans succeeded, to seal the remains of Elizabeth, the happy people, rid of the ruthless tyrant, cry out hosannas to Elizabeth and her victorious lover Richmond:

Vive Richmond! vive Elizabeth!5

Les Noces Vénitiennes, first staged March 8, 1855, is a tale of hate, jealousy, revenge, intrigue, assassination, and heroism, into which is woven, like a golden thread, a beautiful story of love and devotion. The scene is principally in Venice, toward 1553. The principal characters are Orséolo, chief of the Council of Ten; his daughter Albone; and her beloved, Galiéno, a Venetian general. The mortal hatred, centuries old, between the families of Orséolo and Galiéno forms the source of the plot. Some insight into the nature of the play and its characters may be gained from the reading of a few passages. Raspo, a spy, speaks thus, soon after the curtain rises:

Où est-elle, la différence, entre un homme brusquement assassiné et un homme mort douloureusement dans son lit?⁶

A few Unes later Raspo says tersely, "Langue légère, tête de trop."⁷ In the act following, Albone, the noble seventeen-year-old beauty, now a captive, declares, "La mort n'est rien, la honte seul est à craindre.…"⁸ Orséolo, in the fourth act, speaks in this wise to Galiéno: "Dieu a mis les morts entre nous."⁹ In the last scene Orséolo dies showering maledictions upon Galiéno, who after many adventures is at last happily united with the beautiful Albone.

While Victor Séjour achieved fame as the author of numerous plays, it must not be forgot that his initial work in Paris was the heroic poem, "Le Retour de Napoléon." Probably because it was his only production of sufficient brevity, this ode is the only piece by which he is represented in Les Cenelles.… The poem illustrates the extent to which the sympathies and interests of Séjour, as well as those of other free people of color in ante bellum Louisiana, were associated with France.

Notes

¹According to the present secretary, some of its ante bellum members were white men.

²Desdunes, op. cit., pages 38-43; Fortier, op. cit., page 43; Tinker, op. cit., pages 427-31; Gillard, John T., The Catholic Church and the American Negro, page 18; and Dictionnaire Larousse du XX^eSiècle.

³Op. cit., Act I, Scene vii, page 9. Prose translation: Thy mother? She told me a word, and my astonished heart immediately understood. "Let us flee!" My hate had given way to tenderness. Happy and confident, we departed. Greece received us. There my fate became less harsh, I became rich and powerful. I was honored; but in vain, rest forsook me! my past suffering, like a crime, a remorse, weighed upon my mind. Bianca died, expressing, in her last farewell, a wish to be brought one day to this land. That wish became my law. I departed. Through caution I took another name, I hid my creed, so well that after twenty years—twenty years of exile, after all—none saw in me Jacob-Eliacin.…

⁴Op. cit., Act II, Scene ix, pages 36-37. Translation:

Ah! keep thou thy throne! Thy throne? Where is the woman who would sit thereon? Thy throne? No, 'tis no companion that thou canst have, 'tis an accomplice; 'tis not a heart sincere and pure, 'tis but a fury who could slumber in peace under thy roof, in the frenzy of thy cruelties! …

Yes, thou hast made of murder a pastime! Yes, thou didst kill my two brothers, Edward and Richard. Yes, thou didst kill my uncle Rivers, didst kill my uncle Clarence, thy brother. Thou didst make for thyself a footstool of corpses with which to climb to that throne which thou comest to offer to me, to me whose heart has been torn by thy crimes. Oh! the brutish tyrant! the smell of blood has made thee drunk! I am happy to be able to tell it to thy face: I do not hate thee, I scorn thee; I do not hate thee, I defy thee; I do not hate thee, I drive thee hence!

⁵Ibid., Act V, Scene v, page 101.

⁶Op. cit., Act I, Scene i, page 2. Translation: Where is the difference between a man brusquely assassinated and a man painfully dying in his bed?

⁷Ibid., Act I, Scene ii, page 2. Translation: Light tongue, superfluous head.

⁸Ibid., Act II, Scene vii, page 10. Translation: Death is nothing, shame alone is to be feared.…

⁹Ibid., Act IV, Scene vii, page 24. Translation: God has placed the dead between us.