Page:Once a Week June to Dec 1863.pdf/71

11, 1863.]  on that eventful night still living?” I asked.

“Not one, Monsieur. Thérèse Nodier died four years ago, and she was the last. She married Jacques, the survivor; but their son is living in Orbec. Monsieur can question him. He will tell Monsieur what he heard from his mother.”

It was now late in the afternoon. I had no time to make further inquiries. I bade farewell to La Vieille Femme de Normandie, and marched hastily inland. My host had heard the story, but had thought little of it. He had no idea that any of the actors in the tale survived. All the party to whom I repeated what I had heard were deeply interested; and several impulsive ladies, influenced as well by my description of the charms of the Orbec beach as by my incredible narration, determined to make a pilgrimage to the little port as soon as possible. For some cause or other it was a week before I was in Orbec again. We made a great commotion as we drove in to the little square by the church. We asked first for Jacques Nodier, found him, and I began to question him on the subject of the wreck.

“But let us go to the old woman first,” said one of the party, in English. “What’s her name? Barjac? Where is it? Come down to the sea.”

“Is it Widow Barjac that madame wishes to find? Ah! Madame is too late. The Widow Barjac was interred yesterday, madame. They did not know what age to put on her grave, Monsieur. She was very old. They called her the Old Mother of Orbec. She was the last of the hearers of the noise of the distant wreck. Monsieur can see her grave.”

So we went to the rude black and white wooden heading which covered the old woman’s corpse.

The pious hands of Jacques Nodier had hung a wreath on the tomb.

I added another; nor do I think I shall ever forget Orbec, or Widow Barjac, or her strange story.

the years 1726 and 1727, Madame Violante, an Italian rope-dancer, famed for her grace and agility, had been entertaining London with frequent repetitions of her marvellous feats. In 1728 she moved to Dublin, opening a booth there. For some time she was successful, and her exhibitions were resorted to by people of the best fashion. But gradually the receipts dwindled—the tight-rope had ceased either to amaze or to amuse. Madame Violante found it necessary, in order to retain the favour of her patrons, to provide a novel entertainment. So she introduced the “Beggar’s Opera” to a Dublin audience, and attracted the town to an extraordinary degree.

She procured fitting scenery, dresses, and decorations; but as her theatre was unsanctioned by the authorities, she did not venture to engage a regular troop of comedians. She formed a company of children, however, little more than ten years of age, and drilled and instructed them carefully in the parts they were to play. Probably the success of a similar entertainment recently given by children in London stimulated her exertions if it did not originate them. The “Lilliputian actors” played with remarkable ability; the performance was agreed on all hands to be vastly new, pretty, curious, altogether admirable; the children attracted crowded houses night after night. Several of the little performers adhered to the profession of the stage and achieved further distinction in their maturer efforts. Miss Betty Barnes, the Macheath, was afterwards, as Mrs. Martin and (by a second marriage) Mrs. Workman, known as a good actress. The representative of Peachum, Isaac Sparks, was subsequently an excellent low comedian and a favourite clown in pantomime. Master Barrington, who played Filch, made at a later date a considerable figure in Irishmen and low comedy. Miss Ruth Jenks, was Lucy. Miss Mackey was Mrs. Peachum; and the little girl, aged ten, whose mother kept a huckster’s shop on Ormond Quay, and who made her first appearance on any stage in the character of Polly Peachum, was famous afterwards all the world over as.

After a few years Madame Violante let her booth, and an attempt was made to present there dramatic performances by a regular company. The success of these excited the jealousy and alarm of the managers of the old-established theatre in Smock Alley; they applied to the Lord Mayor, who interposed his authority, and forbade the representations in the booth. A new theatre was therefore built in Rainsford Street, which was out of the jurisdiction of the mayor; and another new theatre was shortly afterwards constructed in Aungier Street. No time was lost in completing it, the opening performance being presented within ten months of the foundation-stone having been laid. Mrs. Woffington was a member of the company; but for some time her exertions were limited to the execution of dances between the acts. The public, however, had already begun to look upon her with favour. On the 12th February, 1737, she made her first appearance in a speaking character. She played Ophelia at the Aungier Street Theatre to a loudly applauding audience.

“She now,” says a critic, “began to unveil those beauties, and display those graces and accomplishments which for so many years afterwards charmed mankind.”

Her next triumph was as Lucy, in Mr. Fielding’s farce of the “Virgin Unmasked.” On the occasion of her benefit, she first undertook one of those characters of which the assumption of male attire is the most prominent and popular charm. She appeared in the farce of the “Female Officer,” by H. Brooke, after having acted Phillis in Sir Richard Steele’s comedy of the “Conscious Lovers.” In her second season she was recognised as an established favourite. The severe winter of 1739, and the suffering and distress it entailed