[In the excerpt below, O'Neill traces Séjour's experiences with the French censors]

A free man of color born in New Orleans in 1817, Victor Séjour enjoyed a fascinating thirty-year career as a playwright in Paris. With Diégarias, staged by the national Théâtre Français in 1844, he made his début. More than twenty of his plays followed on the stages of Paris, including La Chute de Séjan (1848), which ran for three and one half months, and Le Fils de la Nuit (1856), dedicated to his friend Alexandre Dumas the Elder, which was the most successful of all. His Cromwell was played in 1875, seven months after the playwright's death in September 1874.

His life and work link Haiti, whence his father came; Louisiana, his own birthplace; and France, his cultural home. The biography and the literary status of Séjour must be the subject of a book rather than an article. For the moment be it sufficient to say that, although Victor Séjour was not a Victor Hugo or an Alexandre Dumas, he was more than a common playmaker. He was in the second echelon, but he was not just "second rate." Without him one cannot tell the literary history of Second Empire theatre. And without him we cannot complete the history of Louisiana or of Blacks in the United States.

However, within the limits of this article we will focus on only one dimension of that literary history and on only one aspect of Séjour's career, namely his experience in dealing with government censors. Séjour's experience will cast light upon the Second Empire's view of the stage; in particular we will see the government's intense concern over precisely what was said on the stage. We will also come to sense the caution and foresight a playwright probably kept in mind as he wrote—or revised what he had written. That there was cooperative dialogue between author and censor also appears; and, strangely, it is thanks to the censorship bureau that we have today the scripts of two Séjour plays which have until now been presumed lost.

Séjour and the Censors

Censorship by government-appointed readers was a normal part of theatre life in France under Louis-Philippe; it had been restored in 1835 after his regime had for a brief time experimented with removal of controls. The Republic of 1848 promptly abolished censorship of plays. However, the law of 30 July 1850 restored the earlier policy. Before a play could be staged, approval had to be obtained from the Minister of the Interior for Paris productions, from the prefects for those in the departments.¹ In 1853 and 1854 the responsibilities for administration of the national theatres as well as for censorship of Paris theatres were shifted from the Minister of the Interior to the Minister of State of the Household of the Emperor.²

The Minister's work was divided between [I] a five-member consultative Examining Commission, whose mission was to examine the manuscripts, confer with directors and authors, and censor the plays, and [2] two-member inspection teams, responsible for executing the decisions of the Examining Commission, seeing the production in rehearsal, and overseeing performances.³

Thus, prior to the Second Empire, controls had been removed in 1791, in 1830, and in 1848. Each time the system was reinstalled. General opinion agreed that absolute liberty on the stage was a risk "to the moral, religious and political life of a country."⁴

After the Second Empire fell, the Government of National Defense suspended censorship in September 1870. The "exceptional regime" restored controls in March 1871, and the Third Republic continued them for the rest of the century. The National Assembly in June 1874 provided for inspection of theatres under the Ministry of Public Instruction, Cults, and Fine Arts. The new Republic's administration expected the theatre to be a wholesome school "which would not corrupt … [but] would give France the moral greatness becoming to a democracy." The Third Republic intended to grant liberty compatible with public peace, but show severity toward immoral plays.⁵

In the run-of-the-mill operation of censorship, two copies of each play were to be presented to the Ministry of the Interior at least fifteen days before the intended first performance. The Examining Commission would report their conclusions to higher administrators who could bring them to the attention of the Minister himself. At times these conclusions were not followed "either because the [Ministry] did not share the view [of the Commission], or because particular motives or political reasons led [the Ministry] to show itself more indulgent." During the process, "the Commission would receive authors and directors so as to reach an understanding with them on changes it judged useful."⁶

Séjour was thus engaged in dialogue with Commission and Ministry for almost thirty years. Their concerns were expressed in office correspondence which makes it easy for us to follow the relations of Séjour and the censors. The Commission's files of submitted scripts have preserved for us two Séjour plays that were never printed and were presumed lost.

It was to the July Monarchy's censors that Séjour submitted Diégarias, his first play. It was approved—with some minor modifications made on the script.⁷ Similarly, only a few changes were required in his next few plays or, indeed, none at all, as in the case of L'Argent du Diable.⁸

André Gérard, however, was the object of close scrutiny. Its views on the suffering of an injured or disabled worker were allowed to pass, but the rascally Truphème could not be presented as a veteran who had received a decoration!⁹

When Séjour brought Le Martyre du Cœur to the theatre manager and the Censorship Bureau, it was entitled Pierre Labo[u]rie. The scenario, with a workingman devoted to the daughter of a nobleman whom his father had served as valet, would seem to be innocent, sentimental, even sweet. But in 1858, the scars of revolution and class strife were too fresh; certain elements of the original play might prick them raw.

Thus the scheming antagonist, who is out to snare Clarisse, and who, in opposing Pierre, shows only vice in comparison with the worker's virtue, must not be a duke. So "Le Duc" of the original becomes "Lerdac" of the approved play. The transformation is effected by lines written in for Placide, when Lerdac says that he "represents" the now-off-stage Duc de Valmartin. Placide upbraids the schemer for lifting himself up on an honorable name "like a dwarf on stilts. You are a merchant's son, a commoner, and a bit of a usurer besides."¹⁰

The censor explained his requirements and his reasons: "Following my observations, a number of radical modifications have been carried out on the work. It seemed indispensable to me that the two personages set in opposition be placed on a level less unequal. On one side Pierre Laborie, instead of being of a line of valets, had as father a manager. He is no longer a laborer but an engraving artist." The erstwhile Duke would now be a dishonest agent of the Duke; that is why Le Duc became Lerdac.

This modification, the censor judged, would remove the obnoxious element that was found in the original, and that it was the particular mission of the Censorship Bureau to eliminate. The original version would prolong and aggravate that social antagonism which the government was persistently trying to remove from the national scene. With these changes effected, the Bureau approved the play in time for its opening in mid-March of 1858.¹¹

When Séjour and co-author Jean-François Mocquard readied La Tireuse de Cartes for production, the Examining Commission was concerned: A dying Jewish infant is baptized by a Christian maid, unexpectedly recovers, and is hidden and raised as a Christian; the Jewish mother, acting as a fortune-teller, seeks relentlessly until she finds the child, who had been adopted into a noble family. The Examining Commission's role was to foresee trouble-causing elements, and here was a play wrought in the heat of controversy. However, Mocquard was of the Emperor's staff. What was the Commission to do? It seems that the play was given exceptional treatment, for, strangely, although a text of every other Séjour play of the Second Empire can be found in the censorship files, La Tireuse is not there.

It was, of course, submitted, and a first report was made in late November of 1859. The Examining Commission found that the play "raise[d] a pre-judgment question which [they did] not think they were qualified to resolve. It is a question whether, on the one hand, one wishes to permit the theatre to become henceforth an arena open to religious antagonism, even when that antagonism is not produced except for purely dramatic interest, and whether, on the other hand, in the present political situation on the international and religious scene, it is proper to stage a subject evidently inspired by a recent event, whose repercussions are at the present moment being felt anew."¹² (The recent event was the Edgardo Mortara case.)

Invited by the Minister "to effect modifications … of a nature to diminish the dangers and obstacles," the Examining Commission went to work, but they did not expect "to arrive at a completely satisfactory result." They toned down elements that "highlighted religious antagonism." They eliminated lines that seemed blasphemous. They removed a parish priest, and omitted mention of his church and sermon; in the kidnapping there would not even be a superior of a monastery, because he too would be a priest. "We did accept a superioress, because she does not have the sacred character [of ordination]; besides she does not appear, but is spoken of only in the exposition of the action."

"As much as possible," the censors explained, "we tried to concentrate the dominant interest of the play on the tenderness, the rivalry of the two mothers."¹³ The Minister responsible gave his approval for performance because he "saw nothing in it that could prevent it" from being played. Outside observers, however, seeing the reflection on Pius IX, were surprised, because a play that could have given offense to the Austrian Emperor was blocked at about the same time.¹⁴

Following the Paris run, La Tireuse went out en province, where it became a cause of concern to the departmental prefects. In February 1860 the Prefect of the Upper-Garonne Department declined to approve the play in Toulouse; yet he consulted Paris lest he be too severe. His reasoning was that, during the international controversy over the Question of Rome, Toulouse was quiet; no discontent or hostility toward the Emperor or his policy was being manifested by clergy or laity. There was, of course, watchful waiting. The Prefect wanted to keep the quiet tone, wanted to avoid the stirring of recrimination. "I need not add," he wrote to the Minister, "that I intend in no way to fault the work itself and that I am concerned exclusively with the significance that would be given it here."¹⁵ Since the play had not been announced, it was not exactly "cancelled." The Prefect was willing to approve the performance if Paris said to go ahead.¹⁶

Paris would not take the responsibility. The play had been staged in Paris because, it was judged, no trouble would follow. "If you think it would be otherwise in Toulouse," the Minister responded to the Prefect, "it is for you by the terms of the law itself to make a decision in that regard."¹⁷

From Grenoble, later that month, the Prefect of the Isère Department also tried to shift the burden to Paris. He too was told to make his decision in the light of local circumstances which he alone could judge.¹⁸

A different play, also entitled La Tireuse de Cartes, a vaudeville work with words by Letellier and music by Abadie, was entered on the government's "List of forbidden plays" as early as 30 December 1853, years before the Mortara affair and the Séjour play.¹⁹ In departmental prefectures these homonyms could easily have been confused.

With minor touches to various lines Les Aventuriers (1860) and Les Massacres de la Syrie (1860) sailed through censorship. However, in 1861 Séjour's Les Volontaires de 1814 first went before the censors, carrying the title of L'Invasion. In this drama Napoleon I is defeated by the Allies, who march on Paris. The script was rejected outright by the Examining Commission; the head of the Bureau des Théâtres (Cabanis) agreed with the examiners, and the Minister (Waleski) endorsed the rejection.

The trio of examiners was clear and firm: "We cannot propose the authorization of the play entitled The Invasion, which with unsettling realism recalls one of the most disastrous periods of our contemporary history. Despite the brilliant comeback which France has made, despite the glorious place which Emperor Napoleon III has reconquered for her among the nations, the deeply painful and humiliating portrayal of the calamities which partisan spirit blames on the First Empire, and presents as the cause of its fall, cannot be laid before the eyes of the public."²⁰

The ensemble, rather than particular passages, created the problem. Yet some details were pinpointed. For example, the censors regretted that in one scene "a workingman attributes to the Emperor all the ills that weigh on France, for in going to Moscow, he showed the enemy the path to Paris."²¹

Much reworking was done on this play. Its title was changed from The Invasion to The Volunteers of 1814. A key aim in the revision was to eliminate scenes and lines that could trigger an anti-regime outburst of scoffing laughter or of insulting catcalls. Finally, the Volunteers were allowed to march on stage in April 1862.

Six years later a revival of the play in Laval prompted the Prefect of the Department of the Mayenne to consult Paris. He was advised to assess the circumstances and do as he judged best.²² This was getting close to the year when another invasion of northeastern France would bring down another Napoleon.

In 1876 the Theatre of Roubaix wanted to stage Les Volontaires. The Prefect of the Department of the North consulted Paris, which this time did make the decision—in the negative. The Minister of the Interior asked the Minister of Public Instruction what was the status of Séjour's play. The latter responded that the portrayal on stage of the Emperor Napoleon I, the Emperors of the coalition, and the invasion "would without any doubt produce scandals which the most elementary prudence commands us to avoid."²³ The national wound that was sore and painful in 1861 was—after Sedan—raw and gory in 1876.

The apparently innocent Les Mystères du Temple (1862) called forth "numerous observations" from the censors in line with the policy of preserving social harmony. "The author yielded to these observations, and effected the changes which seemed [to the censors] necessary." The play was approved.²⁴

Although the censorship office was satisfied with changes of some individual lines in Les Fils de Charles-Quint (1864) and the Le Marquis Caporal (1864), one republican reviewer would have made the author revise the whole role of Gourdier, the corrupt civil administrator of the revolution.

Séjour's Les Enfants de la Louve (1865), set in fifteenth-century England's War of the Roses, awakened "certain scruples" in the Examining Commission, but, nonetheless, won their approval. (One of the examiners was Victor Hallays, who would later write a history of censorship in France.) Two points worried them. "We asked ourselves," they reported, "first, whether in this struggle of exiled princes claiming the throne, some ill-intentioned minds would not be on the lookout for allusions." (Then those minds could lead cheers or jeers in the theatre.) "We asked ourselves, secondly, whether this portrait of a debauched and bloodthirsty king stayed within the bounds of what is admissible in the theatre without becoming a danger for the respect due to the very principle of sovereignty."

But further reflection and a few changes sufficed to clear the play, which seemed "too clearly set in time and place to allow the audience to see anything other than the play itself: England, York, Lancaster, the barbarous fifteenth-century manners, and so on. Besides, it was noted, Séjour's Richard III, "raising analogous questions, had been performed some years previously without difficulty."²⁵

Séjour's late-career plays, La Madone des Roses and Henri de Lorraine, passed censorship easily—with the usual touching up of individual lines. His posthumous Cromwell's story is a drama all in itself.

Séjour died at a moment when France was wavering between monarchy and republic. He left behind him the manuscript of a play on Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of England, a personage whom Séjour's mentor Victor Hugo had also dramatized. Cromwellian Puritans had beheaded Charles I, and changed England from monarchy to a sort of republic. This was an explosive theme to stage in Paris in the period of doubt that followed the Second Empire, the Franco-Prussian War, and the Commune!

It was the actor, Paul-Félix-Joseph Taillade, who brought Séjour's last opus to the stage. Recalling how the playwright had yearned to have it played, Taillade spoke for the script with the management of the Théâtre du Châtelet.²⁶

Maurice Drack (nom-de-plume of August-Alfred Poitevin) readied the manuscript for the Châtelet.²⁷ Opening night was postponed when the Châtelet called in Marc Fournier, the old pro from the Porte-Saint-Martin, to perk up the stage effects—as in the old days of Séjourism. Cromwell opened on 24 April 1875.

Later writers have claimed that the play was never staged! Some wondered whether we would ever know the contents of the drama. Thanks to the government censorship bureau's preservation of scripts, we can read Séjour's Cromwell in two versions, one an earlier draft of the other. It would be rash to affirm that government censorship rather than artistic judgment is responsible for all the structural changes in the play. But problems aplenty were posed for censors who were expected so to filter a play that it would cause no outcry in the theatre.

Cromwell, in the impassioned rhetoric of a Séjourian protagonist, would hardly have soft lines on royalists! Yet, given the tensions of Paris in the spring of 1875, Séjour's Cromwell had to mind his manners even in outbursts.

In one speech the Protector is in a rage over royalist attempts to assassinate him—"these royalist vampires who have sucked and gone mad with the rich blood of England." Given the royalist-versus-republican tensions, the censors contested the line. Drack proposed to drop "bloodsucking" and to say "these royalist wretches." The censors held their ground; even the word royalist had to go.

Onstage that first night Taillade was carried away with his dramatic fervor, and let fly with the suppressed phrase—milder, doubtless, than old Cromwell in reality spoke, but too explosive for Paris in April 1875. "Those royalist wretches!" Republicans in the audience cheered. Royalists whistled—the French version of booing. Uproar! For five or ten minutes bedlam drowned out actors.

In this city still under martial law (état de siège) the reaction of the public authorities was immediate. The Governor of Paris, General Louis Paul de Ladmirault, notified the management: "Given the disorder of which the Châtelet was the scene in the course of the performance of 24 April we decree that the performance of Cromwell is forbidden."²⁸

The press accepted in general the role of censorship in the theatre, but felt that the financial loss suffered by the 800 persons who lived off the Châtelet's revenues was too heavy a penalty for the deed of one actor. Conservative Jules Clarétie expressed confidence that the order would soon be revoked.

In the interim perceptive observers pointed out the ambivalence of the play. The restoration of the Stuarts was foreshadowed. Thus Séjour's Cromwell was neither republican nor royalist: it was historical. The audience—or rather a fraction of the audience—had over-reacted. Then others had reacted to the reaction.²⁹

Taillade publicly apologized. "I regret a slip which has had such fatal consequences for a director with whom I am on contract, for the authors whose friend I am, for the players whose comrade I am. I am not at all ashamed to admit I made a mistake in altering a text, of which the actor, whatever may be his personal ideas, should remain the faithful interpreter. The only excuse I can offer the public, my sovereign judge, is that, in a stirring situation, I lost my head, and let myself be carried away by an unfortunate accident of improvisation."³⁰

Taillade's amende honorable, the management's repentant apologies, the cast's willingness to review the entire play carefully in the presence of the censors—all persuaded the Governor of Paris to rescind his order. Cromwell reopened on 4 May. With the excitement already gone, with the play censored beyond the normal range, the public did not turn out in numbers sufficient to make up the box-office losses.

Clément Caraguel judged that Cromwell was "one of the best dramas staged on the boulevards for two or three years, and it can play for a long time without the public peace being troubled."³¹ Peace was troubled no more, but the play lasted only through 24 May.³²

"Poor Victor Séjour!" Sarcey exclaimed, "Assuredly he did not suspect five or six years ago when he was working on this drama (interrupted by death), that there would be found in it mischievous allusions to a situation that did not yet exist."³³ …

This examination of Séjour's experience with the censors has given us insight into the mind of the Second Empire. We see particularly how nervous or sensitive Napoleon III and his government felt vis-à-vis the stage. We are surprised to see the official attention to detail, to certain words, to what seem minutiae. Must not this very sensitivity in itself have given heightened political significance to stage dialogue?

Yet Victor Séjour was not a threat to the regime. A man attuned to the cry for justice, Séjour was not in favor of violent revolution but rather of orderly evolution in a social climate of stability and harmony. Since he was generally in favor of Bonapartism, and what Bonapartism said it favored, we can be satisfied that his experience with censors was rather typical, or at least that his work received no harsher treatment than that of others.

Notes

¹Albéric Cahuet, La Liberté du Théâtre en France et à l'Etranger (Paris: Dujarric, 1902), pp. 215-216; Circulaire Ministérielle, 3 août 1850, in La Censure Dramatique ["Administration Théâtrale" at head of title] (Paris: Sagnier, 1873), pp. 82-84.

²Cahuet (note 1 above), pp. 218-219.

³Victor Hallays-Dabot, Histoire de la Censure Théâtrale en France (Paris: Dentu, 1862), pp. 331-332; Cahuet (note 1 above), p. 219; Circulaire aux Directeurs des Théâtres de Paris, 3 août 1850, in La Censure Dramatique (note 1 above), pp. 85-87.

⁴Hallays-Dabot (note 3 above), pp. 332-333.

⁵Cahuet (note 1 above), pp. 244-246.

⁶Victor Hallays-Dabot, La Censure Dramatique et le Théâtre, Histoire des Vingt Dernières Années (1850-1870) (Paris: Dentu, 1871), p. 6.

⁷Paris, Archives Nationales, Série F21, Numéro 966, 22 juin 1844. These documents are cited hereinafter as AN—thus, AN, F21, 966.

⁸AN, F18, 899, Richard III, 3 août 1852; AN, F18, 798, L'Argent du Diable, 8 mars 1854; AN, F21, 975, Noces Vénitiennes, 6 mars 1855; Fils de la Nuit, 8 juillet 1856.

⁹AN, F18, 713, André Gérard, décision signifiée 21 avril 1857.

¹⁰AN, F18, 953, Martyre du Cœur, Act I, scene 7.

¹¹AN, F21, 974, Pierre Laborie.

¹²AN, F21, 975, Commission d'Examen, 25 nov. 1859.

¹³Idem.

¹⁴AN, F21, 996, Ministre d'État de la Maison de l'Empereur to Préfet du Département de l'Isère, 23 mai 1860.

¹⁵AN, F21, 996, 6 fév. 1860.

¹⁶Idem.

¹⁷Idem.

¹⁸AN, F21, 996, Préfet to Ministre, 24 fév. 1860; Ministre to Préfet, 23 mai 1860.

¹⁹AN', F21, 996, Liste des pièces interdites, dated Paris, 30 déc. 1853; 7 déc, 1857; 1 mai 1863; 28 déc. 1866.

²⁰AN, F21, 975, report on L'Invasion, 5 sept. 1861; Cabanis to Waleski, 6 sept. 1861. Undated marginal notation of Ministre.

²¹AN, F21, 975, report of 5 sept. 1861.

²²AN, F21, 996, Préfet to Ministre, 26 mai 1868; Ministre to Préfet, 29 mai 1868.

²³AN, F21, 997, 27 oct. 1876; 3 nov. 1876.

²⁴AN, F21, 974, report, 12 août 1862.

²⁵AN, F21, 977, report, Les Enfants de la Louve, 12 avril 1865.

²⁶Figaro, 25 avril 1875.

²⁷Ibid.; also Edouard Noël and Edmond Stoulig, Annales du Théâtre et de la Musique, 1875 (Paris, 1876), p. 356.

²⁸Journal des Débats, 27 avril 1875.

²⁹Figaro, 25 and 26 avril 1875; Le Temps, 27 avril and 3, 10, and 17 mai 1875; Journal des Débats, 27 avril 1875; Gazette de France, 5 mai 1875; La Presse, 27 and 28 avril 1875; Noël and Stoulig, Annales (note 27 above), pp. 353-357.

³⁰Figaro, 30 avril 1875, p. 3 (letter to editor).

³¹Journal des Débats, 10 mai 1875.

³²Figaro, 24-25 mai 1875.

³³Le Temps, 10 mai 1875, feuilleton.