How the French Invented Love

by Marilyn Yalom

  YOUR NAME RINGS IN MY HEART LIKE A BELL.

  Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac, 1897

  Taverne Olympia poster, La Revue blanche, 1899. Copyright Kathleen Cohen.

  The gay nineties is the term we English speakers use for what the French call la belle époque. In both English and French, these terms evoke images of the Eiffel Tower, the bicycle craze, the posters of Toulouse-Lautrec, Renoir’s paintings and Rodin’s statues, music halls, cabarets, operas and operettas, boulevard plays, art nouveau, the New Woman, courtesans, actresses, high fashion, high spending, and a host of other upbeat associations.

  It is also possible to think of the gay nineties as a time when romantic love made a comeback. After Flaubert’s depressing realism and Zola’s heavy-handed naturalism, after the demoralizing defeat of the French by the Prussians in 1870, the Third Republic was ready to prove to the world that it was still the home of fashion, food, art, literature, and love.

  To be sure, love could no longer be packaged in its earlier nineteenth-century forms. It had to be remodeled for a new age, one that had learned the lessons of its forebears and would neither wallow in the excesses of romanticism nor explore the moldy corners of the soul unearthed by Flaubert. Among the newly enriched café crowd, love was as effervescent and ephemeral as champagne bubbles. A man might lose a fortune on a celebrated courtesan, but he didn’t die for love—unless he was killed in a duel. Even though they were officially prohibited, duels proliferated around affairs of honor, which often meant around a woman. But even these could be lighthearted. Frequently, as soon as blood was shed from even a minor wound, the two men walked off the field arm in arm.

  Love took on the theatrical aspect that was characteristic of everything else during the gay nineties. It was staged in ritualized settings, such as drawing rooms, hotel rooms, and the private dining rooms of fashionable restaurants. Those dining rooms were frequented by well-heeled men who wanted to entertain their ladies in private—that is, with the help of a knowledgeable maître d’hôtel and accommodating waiters. You can get an idea of what these private spaces were like from visiting the restaurant Lapérouse on the quai des Grands Augustins, opened in 1766 and still a perennial favorite among the affluent.

  Men paraded with their mistresses or wives in horse-drawn carriages up and down the tree-lined Champs-Élysées or in the Bois de Boulogne. The women’s elaborate dresses, their plumed hats and boas, were designed to showcase hourglass figures propped up by serious whalebone corsets. The men in frock coats, monocles, and high silk hats proudly displayed their trophy women to the multitudes. As Pierre Darblay baldly stated in his 1889 Physiologie de l’amour: “A man gets respect depending on the mistress he has.”1

  Lovers were no longer interested in communing with nature, unless it was at one of the chic coastal resorts like Trouville, Dieppe, or Deauville, where the attractions of the beach included the sight of women and men in full-body bathing suits. Marcel Proust, soon to become the greatest French novelist of the twentieth century, wrote nostalgically of his childhood trips with his mother to the Grand Hôtel at Cabourg (fictionalized under the name of Balbec) and rhapsodized about “the young girls in flower” who sprung up each year on the beach. Even when my husband and I stayed at the Grand Hôtel in the 1980s, it had the formal aura of bygone days, and the beach featured women displaying their charms. My husband, who had never seen a “topless” beach before, expressed keen appreciation for the female descendants of Proust’s delectable young women.

  Fontainebleau, too, was a choice retreat for the moneyed class. Close enough to Paris for an overnight excursion, it was an ideal site for lovers who—like George Sand and Alfred de Musset in the 1830s—wanted to avoid publicity. Certain hotels became known for their discretion. To this day, high-placed government officials choose Fontainebleau for their trysts.

  Still, no place rivaled Paris as the city of love. It had become, once again, a vast stage for all the enterprises that give piquancy to urban life—most notably, commerce, the arts, politics, and romance. The center of the city on both sides of the Seine possessed innumerable restaurants, cafés, hotels, shops, theaters, churches, public buildings, and parks where men and women of every social class could meet and fall in love. A letter in the mail, delivered the same day it was posted, could set up a rendezvous at the magnificent new Garnier Opera House. A few words across the counter with a pretty shop girl might result in a meeting later that night at a Montmartre cabaret. A working-class couple who had already set aside sufficient funds might go hand in hand to look over the restaurant where their wedding supper was to take place. Catholic fiancés on the verge of marriage met with their parish priests for the obligatory lessons on how to live in harmony with religious precepts. (How well I remember visiting the oldest church in Tours with a Catholic boyfriend, Pat McGrady, when we were both members of the Sweet Briar Junior Year in France, and a friendly priest took us for two sweethearts seeking premarital counsel!) Despite the extramarital freedom that many men and women enjoyed, most people did indeed marry. Bourgeois couples, tender and kitschy, looked forward to lifetime unions with the hope of domestic bliss. For, as Roger Shattuck succinctly remarked in his remarkable book The Banquet Years: “Love cannot last, but marriage must.”2

  The sense of Paris as the city of love was most explicit at the theater. There the staging of relations between the sexes pretended to mirror contemporary life, especially among the wellborn and the rich. Many of these plays revolved around what my French friend Philippe Martial (formerly the head librarian of the Senate), calls the great obsessive theme of the French: will they sleep together or not? Many others made light of the machinations employed by men and women intent on deceiving their spouses. The hilarious farces of Georges Feydeau were almost always triangular, with wives suspecting their husbands of infidelities and chastened husbands returning to their clever wives. Plots were stuffed with mistaken identities, improbable coincidences, lost fortunes, and happy endings. What saved these plays from soap opera tedium was the witty language and lively acting—qualities that still inspirit Parisian boulevard theater.

  Some plays, especially those imported from Scandinavia, were more serious. Ibsen and Strindberg were among the naturalistic playwrights whose works appeared at the avant-garde Théâtre Libre directed by André Antoine. In these plays, Parisians got a whiff of the cold air from the north, with its penetrating chill. Not surprisingly, they were less likely to support Antoine’s innovative productions featuring weighty subjects like the emancipation of women or hereditary syphilis, when they could be entertained elsewhere by frothy love affairs.

  In December 1897, a new play called Cyrano de Bergerac opened at the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin and made its author, Edmond Rostand, famous overnight. In comparison with the pseudorealistic fare to which Parisian theatergoers had become accustomed, Rostand’s heroic comedy was an anomaly. Who could have anticipated that this play, based on a grotesquely ugly real-life seventeenth-century character forgotten by history, would inspire the accolades usually reserved for handsome heroes? And who could have foreseen that a tale of neoromantic love would surpass in popularity the multitude of plays devoted to sweetly cynical romance? How and why did this happen?

  Between 1890 and 1897, Rostand had already created a book of verse, a farce-comedy, a play of youthful love titled Les romanesques (Romantics), a play with a medieval love theme titled La princesse lointaine (The Princess of Far Away), and a play with a New Testament theme titled La samaritaine (The Woman of Samaria). These last two plays had featured no less a star than Sarah Bernhardt, the most celebrated French actress in history. Still, Rostand at twenty-nine was totally unprepared for the sensational success of Cyrano de Bergerac, comparable only to the triumphant opening night of Victor Hugo’s Hernani in 1830. Cyrano catapulted Rostand into instant glory and would eventually become, throughout the world, the most frequently performed French play of all time.

 
Here was a character who incarnated many of the attributes that the French liked to claim as their own. He was articulate and witty—far too witty for his critics—with a dazzling vocabulary that taxes nonnative and even native French speakers. Arcane words like sarbacane (a long wood or metal pipe), rivesalte (a sort of muscatel wine), triolet (a poem of eight verses with a specific rhyming scheme); references to little-known historical figures like d’Assoucy (a seventeenth-century burlesque poet); fashionable colors like baise-moi-ma-mignonne (kiss-me-my-darling) and Espagnol malade (sickly Spanish); and a scattering of clever puns continue to surprise the ear and challenge the mind. (I still find it useful to consult the edition of Cyrano de Bergerac, with notes at the bottom of each page and a French-English vocabulary at the back, that was given to me by my French teacher when I graduated from high school.3) Cyrano is brave, heroic, generous, loyal, and independent, and, as he asserts in the last word of the play, he has panache—which literally means a plume on a helmet, but also dash, flair, assertiveness, and so much more that we use it in English just as it is written in French. It is true that his exceptionally long nose deforms his appearance and subjects him to ridicule, but without that nose, there would be no story. Cyrano reminds us that love attacks the heart of even the seriously ugly and asks that we look beyond physical appearance to the soul for a person’s true worth.

  The real Cyrano de Bergerac was a writer and a military man, who fought at the battle of Arras during the Thirty Years War, as in the play. In 1640, he retired from the military and thrust himself onto the Parisian literary scene, where he soon became known for his independent spirit and flamboyant temperament. His published works included poems, dramas, narratives, and essays. Many of the traits and incidents attributed to Cyrano in the play, such as his skill with the sword and his fantastic reflections on reaching the moon, were based on the real Cyrano and his writings. What is not linked to the historical Cyrano is the love story, invented to serve the interests of the play. For who at the turn of the century could imagine a successfully produced comedy or tragedy without a romantic core?

  The novelty of Cyrano’s love for Roxane is that he is willing to sacrifice himself for Christian, the good-looking new member of Cyrano’s own Cadets, a company of volunteers from the noble families of Gascony. Christian becomes the physical vessel for Cyrano’s soul, and Cyrano becomes the animating spirit for Christian’s body. Roxane, whom they both adore, loves both of them without knowing that Cyrano is the secret half of her beloved Christian.

  Christian and Roxane fall in love with each other on the exclusive basis of their looks. He does not approach her verbally, because, as he admits in his first conversation with Cyrano, he does not know how to speak of love. Since Roxane is a known précieuse and would expect witty speech from a suitor, he is sure he would disillusion her. Cyrano proposes himself as an “interpreter.” He will invent the language that Christian will learn by heart and recite to Roxane. He will mastermind “a hero of a novel” by combining his eloquence with Christian’s physical appeal.

  With letters and speeches authored by Cyrano, Christian succeeds in winning Roxane, but the minute he becomes tired of borrowed words and abandons the prepared script, he falls into disgrace.

  Consider act 3, scene 5, with Roxane and Christian in the garden.

  ROXANE: Let us sit down. Speak. I’m listening.

  CHRISTIAN: I love you.

  ROXANE: Yes, speak to me of love.

  CHRISTIAN: I love you.

  ROXANE: That’s the theme. Embroider it.

  CHRISTIAN: I . . . you . . .

  ROXANE: Embroider!

  CHRISTIAN: I love you so much!

  ROXANE: Undoubtedly, and then?

  CHRISTIAN: I would be so happy

  If you loved me! Tell me, Roxane, that you love me!

  ROXANE: You offer me broth when I was hoping for cream.

  Tell me a little how you love me.

  CHRISTIAN: But . . . a lot.

  ROXANE: Oh! Explore the labyrinth of your feelings.

  CHRISTIAN: Your neck!

  I would like to kiss it!

  ROXANE: Christian!

  CHRISTIAN: I love you.

  ROXANE: Again!

  CHRISTIAN: No! I don’t love you!

  ROXANE: That’s better.

  CHRISTIAN: I adore you!

  ROXANE: Oh!

  CHRISTIAN: Now I’m becoming stupid.

  ROXANE: And that displeases me.

  Just as it would displease me if you became ugly.

  CHRISTIAN: But . . .

  ROXANE: Go and collect your lost eloquence.

  CHRISTIAN: I . . .

  ROXANE: You love me, I know. Adieu.

  After this failure, Christian begs Cyrano for help, and together they create the famous balcony scene. Cyrano stands in the shadows and whispers words to Christian, which he repeats to Roxane leaning on the balcony above. When the words become too garbled, Cyrano takes over, and it is his voice she hears without seeing him.

  ROXANE: Your words are hesitating. Why?

  CYRANO: That’s because it’s night.

  In this shadow, they grope to reach your ear.

  ROXANE: Mine don’t have the same difficulty.

  CYRANO: They find their way with ease. Of course.

  Because I receive them in my heart.

  And I, I have a large heart, while you have a small ear.

  And on and on in rhyming couplets that invigorate the dialogue. At the end Roxane admits: “Yes, I’m trembling, and crying, and I love you, and am yours.” Christian, who has stood aside during this heady display of love talk, now comes forward and asks Cyrano to procure for him a kiss. “Since she is so stirred, I must profit from it.” Then Christian climbs up the trellis against the wall and embraces Roxane, while Cyrano comforts himself below with this thought: “She kisses the words that I just pronounced.” It’s almost a sacrilege to paraphrase this delicious scene in English, especially in prose. Unfortunately, there is no rhymed translation I know of that truly captures its nimble word play.

  From this high point at the center of the play, the action moves very fast. Roxane and Chistian succeed in being wed that very night, but he is immediately sent off to war along with the other cadets, including Cyrano. At the front, Cyrano risks his life every day by going across enemy lines to post letters to Roxane, which are ostensibly from Christian. These letters are so compelling that Roxane finds her way to the front in an extraordinary pumpkinlike carriage filled with victuals for the soldiers. Cyrano is obliged to tell Christian that he has sent more letters than Christian was aware of—in fact, two a day. When Roxane reveals to Christian that she now loves him more than before based on the power of his letters, and that she no longer loves him for his beauty but for his soul, he is devastated. He confronts Cyrano, saying: “She doesn’t love me. . . . It’s you whom she loves . . . and you love her too!”

  CYRANO: Me?

  CHRISTIAN: I know it.

  CYRANO: It’s true.

  CHRISTIAN: You love her like a crazy man.

  CYRANO: More.

  Christian urges Cyrano to declare his love to Roxane so that she can choose between them, but before Cyrano can fully explain the situation to her, the first enemy shot puts an end to Christian’s life. Cyrano barely has time to ease Christian’s death with a lie: “It’s you she still loves.” Henceforth Cyrano’s lips will be forever sealed.

  Well, not exactly forever. Fifteen years later, Cyrano comes for his weekly visit to Roxane at the convent where she has lived as a widow since Christian’s death. In the fifth act, with Cyrano himself on the verge of dying, he gives himself away. Roxane finally discovers his earlier subterfuge.

  ROXANE: Those dear crazy words,

  It was you all the time!

  CYRANO: N
o!

  ROXANE: The voice in the night, it was you!

  CYRANO: I swear it was not!

  ROXANE: The soul, it was yours.

  CYRANO: I never loved you.

  ROXANE: You loved me.

  CYRANO: It was he, Christian.

  ROXANE: You loved me!

  CYRANO: No!

  ROXANE: Already your protests grow weaker.

  CYRANO: No, no, my dear love, I never loved you!

  As he is dying from a head wound inflicted by one of his enemies, Cyrano credits Roxane for his unique love experience: “Thanks to you, a dress has passed through my life.” And she, her eyes finally opened, realizes: “I loved only one person and have lost him two times.”

  It may seem from this brief summary that Cyrano de Bergerac is too sentimental and melodramatic, and hardly great literature. Granted that it may be all of those things, and yet it continues to enchant spectators worldwide. Anyone who has seen it well staged or in the French film version starring Gérard Depardieu knows how miraculously it works as a theater piece. One laughs, one cries, and, despite two onstage deaths, one comes away uplifted. At heart, we are all romantics. In the best tradition of noble heroes, Cyrano holds onto his love for Roxane without destroying her feelings for Christian. And in the end, the recognition scene satisfies everyone. It doesn’t matter that Cyrano never becomes Roxane’s lover; what matters is that he has never stopped adoring her and that she, at last, can love him too.

  I think of Cyrano, with his panache, viewed from afar, leading a charge of amorists against all the enemies who conspire to destroy romantic love. For the French of the 1890s, these would have included cynics and debunkers, people interested only in fleeting affairs and physical enjoyment, and those willing to compromise love for other goals, such as money, social position, or political glory. And today’s enemies? In both France and the United States, the ideal of only one true love is under attack. We live in a disposable society that mandates change and replacement. You don’t have the latest apps on your cell phone? Throw it out and get a new one. You are tired of your partner and want someone younger or sexier or more exciting? Throw her out and get a new one. Your husband has put on twenty pounds and lost his job? Throw him out and get a new one. My God! Cyrano is infectious! He’s got me saying things I would not normally say for fear of appearing tacky.