Page:The Cambridge History of American Literature, v4.djvu/180

 592 Non-English Writings I paper published in the United States. His plays followed the French romantic tradition, and were extremely popular because of their gaiety and enthusiasm. The best known are Qui perd gagne (1849), Le Comtede Carmagnola (1856), Grand d'Espagne, Gaston de Saint-Elme (1840), Le Maudit Passeport (1839), Don Juan ou une histoire sous Charles-Quint (1849), Le Comte de Monte Christo (1848), and L' Ambassadeur d'Autriche. Canonge shares with Lussan, Dugue, Testut, and others the honour of creating an indigenous drama based on local history and manners. Both he and Lussan treated a famous crisis in colonial history, the Revolution of 1768, in which leading French colonists unsuccessfully opposed the accession of the new Spanish governor and were led to execution. Plays on this and kindred subjects found eager audiences from about 1840 on to the Civil War. In 1836 Charles Gayarre had pub- lished his Essai Historique, which was widely read and which led the imaginations of many back to the past. A. Lussan based his play, Les Martyrs de la Louisiane (1839), directly upon the account of the Revolution which Gayarre had so dramatically rendered. The play is conceived somewhat in the spirit of Victor Hugo; it is in verse, in five acts, and is dedicated to the martyrs of 1769. Very little is known of Lussan's life. Canonge's play on the Revolution of 1768, France et Espagne (1850), follows history less closely, new romantic characters being introduced to heighten and compli- cate the effect. It is based not on Gayarre's book but on a novel, Louisiana, written by Garreau and published in La Revue Louisianaise in 1845. The play is in prose, in four acts. Oscar Dugue wrote in 1852 a tragedy called Mila ou la Mort de La Salle. The action takes place in Texas, and the chief characters are La Salle, his Indian bride Mila, and their murderous adversary, Liotot. It is not known whether the piece was ever staged. It is a tragedy in the manner of Vol- taire, written in regular verse, and furnished with a chorus. The author was born in New Orleans in 182 1. He studied in Paris, returning to Louisiana in 1846. He edited L'Orleanais for a while, and for a period was president of Jefferson College, in Saint- Jacques parish. He wrote one other historical drama, Cygne ou Mingo, highly praised in its day. P. P6rennes, whose tragedy in verse, Guatimozin ou le Dernier Jour de VEmpire