Triboulet

“ Blanche: Father!
[She trembles, and follows with angry eyes the movements of The King.
Triboulet: This is the man you wish to save.
[Pg 152]
The King (slapping Saltabadil on the back) :
Tell Maguelonne to bring me in some wine.
Triboulet: King by the grace of God he is, with all
The wealth and splendour of the land of France
At his command; but to amuse himself
He drinks himself asleep in thieves' kitchens.
The King (singing while Triboulet talks outside) :
Oh, woman is fickle, and man is a fool
To trust in her word! ”

“ Perhaps, however, the truth is that there is not an actor in Europe who could adequately render such a character as Triboulet.
This is what I mean: all great actors are divisible into two groups, which are by temperament and endowment the exact opposites of each other. There are those who, like Garrick, producing their effects by means of a self-dominance and a conservation of energy akin to that of Goethe in poetry, are able to render a character, coldly indeed, but with matchless verisimilitude in its every nuance. ”

“ After this, there is no more about the wife of Cossé, and we do not see her again. This is indeed a pity, for she is pretty.
"The action does not begin yet, but the conversations continue. Triboulet tells the king much evil about savants and poets, and we hear François I. say later that it is not weather fit to turn even a poet out of doors. The courtiers, for their part, discuss the mistress of Triboulet. One of them replies—
'Ma foi de gentilhomme,
Je m'en soucie autant qu'un poisson d'une pomme!'"
Here the critic is mistaken and I wonder at it, his error benefits him nothing. ”

“ Well, monsieur critic, are you satisfied? Are you being well avenged at the expense of the man of genius? Have you trodden his dramas sufficiently under foot, as Triboulet trod on the corpse of the person he thought his enemy? No! You begin your monologue again. Ah! it seems short to you, does it not? because it is one of hatred. [5] Proceed then! the hatred of the petty for the great is not groundless, and at all times, as Triboulet shows us with regard to the king, and as you exhibit with regard to the drama, such hatred ever yearns to slay. ”

“ And, as Triboulet's uncle asked from Louis the Twelfth, for a younger brother of his own who lived at Blois, the hornpipes of Buzansay, for the organ pipes, through the mistake of one word for another, even so, whilst you think to marry a wise, humble, calm, discreet, and honest wife, you shall unhappily stumble upon one witless, proud, loud, obstreperous, bawling, clamorous, and more unpleasant than any Buzansay hornpipe. Consider withal how he flirted you on the nose with the bladder, and gave you a sound thumping blow with his fist upon the ridge of the back. ”

“ Triboulet certainly exhibits a turn of his profession when, after drinking with the monarch, he boasts of possessing two advantages over him, that of not being drunk, and that of not being King. The well-known freedom which he invariably took with Francis, is not less pleasantly illustrated by his satire against scholars, when the King’s sister Margaret counselled him to surround himself with wise men, since he lacked the love of ladies. ”

“ If the Triboulet of Victor Hugo be full of brilliant inconsistencies and glittering contradictions, he is in many things what tradition represents him to have been. He flings smart sayings at marriage, laughs at the King’s pretensions to write verses, pushes or draws him into vice, and shoots a fool’s bolt at woman, by styling her, “a highly perfected devil.” ”

“ Triboulet a perdu sa maîtresse!—Gentille
Ou laide, qu'il la cherche ailleurs. [Pg 475]
TRIBOULET.
Je veux ma fille ...
TOUS.
Sa fille!
TRIBOULET, croisant les bras.
C'est ma fille!—Oui, riez maintenant!
Ah! pous restez muets! Vous trouvez surprenant
Que ce bouffon soit père, et qu'il ait une fille?
Les loups et les seigneurs n'ont-ils pas leur famille?
Ne puis-je avoir aussi la mienne? Allons, assez!
Que si vous plaisantiez, c'est charmant; finissez!
. . . . . . . . . . . ”

“ And if it should be found that in order to render Triboulet there is requisite for the more intense crises of the piece the abandon of Kean and Robson, and at the same time, for the carrying on of the play, the calm, self-conscious staying power of Garrick, the conclusion will be obvious that Triboulet is essentially an unactable character. ”

“ But as we have hitherto
made choice of the purest and most refined cream of wisdom and sapience for
our counsel, so would I now have to preside and bear the prime sway in our
consultation as very a fool in the supreme degree. Triboulet, quoth
Pantagruel, is completely foolish, as I conceive. Yes, truly, answered
Panurge, he is properly and totally a fool, a
By my soul, quoth Panurge, that overture pleaseth me exceedingly well. I
will therefore lay hold thereon, and embrace it. ”

“ Chapter 3.XLVI.—How Pantagruel and Panurge diversely interpret the words of Triboulet.
He says you are a fool. And what kind of fool? A mad fool, who in your old age would enslave yourself to the bondage of matrimony, and shut your pleasures up within a wedlock whose key some ruffian carries in his codpiece. ”

“ The principal characters in "Le Roi s'amuse" are François Premier; Triboulet, his pander and buffoon; Blanche, the daughter of Triboulet, "la fille séduite," and heroine of the piece; and Maguelonne, another Esmeralda.
The interest lies in the contrast between Triboulet pander and Triboulet père. He is himself the most corrupt and infamous of men; and because he is humpbacked, makes it both his pastime and his business to lead the king his master into every species of debauchery: but he shuts up his daughter to preserve her purity ”

“ Browning, who though far more subtle than Hugo is without his sublimity and amazing power over chiaroscuro. Now, the most remarkable feature of the revival of ‘Le Roi s’Amuse,’ and that which made me above all other reasons desirous to see it, was that the character of Triboulet was to be rendered by an actor of rare and splendid genius, but who, educated in the genteel comedy of modern France and also in the social subtleties of Molière, seemed the last man in Paris to give that peculiar expression of the romantic temper which I have called the terrible-grotesque. ”

“ And the happiest day of all was when Trois Angliches took Trilby and Jeannot (for so the mite was called) to spend the Sunday in the woods at Meudon, and breakfast and dine at the garde champêtre's. Swings, peep-shows, donkey-rides; shooting at a mark with cross-bows and little pellets of clay, and smashing little plaster figures and winning macaroons; losing one's self in the beautiful forest; catching newts and tadpoles and young frogs; making music on mirlitons. Trilby singing "Ben Bolt" into a mirliton was a thing to be remembered, whether one would or no! ”

“ It be a fine patch o' white in my quilt, Jenny!'
'Tribbylation!' said the old woman musingly; 'I mind o' several verses on it: "In the world ye shall have tribbylation; but be of good cheer: I have overcome the world." "We must through much tribbylation enter into the Kingdom of God." "We glory in tribbylation also, knowing that tribbylation worketh patience." "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribbylation?" Ah, tribbylation is tryin' to the flesh, but 'tis for the improvin' of the soul!'
'And does everybody have it except children?' asked Betty with a solemn face. ”

“ Trublot slowly opened and closed his eyes. It was so. When one married a woman who was disobliging and disgusted with one’s little ailments, and who strummed on her piano to the point of making all the dogs of the neighbourhood ill, one had to go elsewhere and be made a fool of!
“Let us moralize marriage, gentlemen, let us moralize marriage,” repeated Duveyrier in his rigid way, with his inflamed face, where Octave now distinguished the foul blood of secret vices. ”

“ Many a time in my life I have had to do with trifles. When that English gentleman, my father left us, and poor mama broke her heart, a trifle perhaps to him,—and little sister and I lived on a few handfuls of rice a day, given by the poor out of their scanty store, it was a mere trifle, and when the good old faqir gave us a few handfuls of parched grain, it was only a trifle, but life to us, and when Mr. Percy found us in the serai, only a trifle, but what would I have been if that trifling incident had never occurred? ”

“ Yet can I not beleeved bee.”—Old Ballad.
“Do you take trifle?” said Lady Olivia to my poor friend Halloran.
“No, Ma’am, I am reading philosophy,” said Halloran; waking from a fit of abstraction, with about as much consciousness and perception as exists in a petrified oyster, or an alderman dying of a surfeit. Halloran is a fool.
A trifle is the one good thing, the sole and surpassing enjoyment. ”

“ Chapter 3.XXV.—How Panurge consulteth with Herr Trippa.
Nevertheless, quoth Epistemon, continuing his discourse, I will tell you what you may do, if you believe me, before we return to our king. Hard by here, in the Brown-wheat (Bouchart) Island, dwelleth Herr Trippa. You know how by the arts of astrology, geomancy, chiromancy, metopomancy, and others of a like stuff and nature, he foretelleth all things to come; let us talk a little, and confer with him about your business. Of that, answered Panurge, I know nothing ”

“ Trix dabbed the stump of her cigarette on the table.
“Well, don’t let her know we think there’s anything wrong. If you want to remain wrapped up in the light-hearted cloak, nothing is more annoying than having any one prying to see what’s underneath,—unless it’s the right person, of course. And we’re not sure that we are—yet. We must just wait till she feels like giving us a peep, if she ever does.”
A silence fell. Miss Tibbutt took up her knitting again. Trix hummed a little air from a popular opera. Presently Miss Tibbutt sighed. Trix left off humming.
“What’s the matter, Tibby?” ”

“ Miss Tibbutt sighed more deeply. “I’m afraid it’s my fault,” she said.
“What’s your fault?” demanded Trix.
“I’ve not noticed Pia. I thought everything was all right after what she said. I ought to have noticed. I’ve been too wrapped up in my own affairs. Perhaps if I’d been more sympathetic I should have found out what was the matter.”
Trix laughed, a happy amused, comfortable little laugh.
“Oh, Tibby, you angel, that’s so like you. You always want to shoulder the blame for every speck of wrong-doing or depression that appears in your 165 little universe. Women like you always do. ”

“ The only failure is the head (on page 59 of the book) which is in more senses than one "as bad as they make them." He is excellent where he laughs over the two Englishmen cleaning themselves; he is delightful where he examines the roof of Trilby's mouth, "like the dome of the Panthéon," "room in it for 'toutes les gloires de la France.'" Where he stands in the midst of the crowded studio, "All as it Used to Be," he looks every inch the artist, more so than the "idle apprentice," lounging against the door-jamb. ”

“ If Miss Sparling herself limed that snare, she certainly did it well; the obliteration of the face, with just the suggestion of a likeness left, was finely controlled; and yet the control may have only been Father Time’s; and whether it was luck, or whether Susannah Walcot was in truth a prophetess of penetrating power, who is now to say? The lengths to which the human faculties can go have often filled me with astonishment; Mr. Trimblerigg was only one instance among many. ”

“ Little Billee stayed with his mother and sister in Devonshire till Christmas, Taffy staying at the village inn.
It was Taffy who told Mrs. Bagot about la Svengali's all but certain identity with Trilby, after Little Billee had gone to bed, tired and worn out, the night of their arrival.
"Good heavens!" said poor Mrs. Bagot. "Why, that's the new singing woman who's coming over here! There's an article about her in to-day's Times. It says she's a wonder, and that there's no one like her! Surely that can't be the Miss O'Ferrall I saw in Paris!" ”

“ He was twenty inches in length and carried himself with conscious dignity, albeit mud knocks the dignity out of almost anything but a trilobite. But this trilobite, for such he was, surveyed that Cambrian noon pensively, curled his whiskers with thought, and wriggled his shining joints in the sun. Presently a hen trilobite appeared and squatted beside him placidly.
“When I survey this spectacle,” said the trilobite, “when I reflect that the world is empty but for us, I am often tempted to wonder.” ”

“ There are no living trilobites, but the creatures now nearest them are the isopods. The trilobite was more like an isopod in its larva state than like a full-grown one. The trilobite had a hard plate or shell over his head and the front part of his body. This piece of armor was shaped nearly like the large front portion of the shell of a horseshoe [Pg 119] or king-crab. The king-crab uses this shell as a mud-plough to plough its way through the slime, where it finds its food and deposits its eggs. ”

“ And when I asked her if the cobweb were bothering her, she said both it and the bubble had vanished. So, you see!” This last on a note of triumph.
“Hmm,” said Trix ruminative, dubious. “Bubbles have a way of taking up more space than one would imagine, and their bursting sometimes leaves an unpleasant gap. The bursting of this one has left a gap in Pia’s life. You haven’t, by any chance, the remotest notion of its colour?”
“Its colour?” queried Miss Tibbutt.
Trix laughed. “Nonsense, Tibby, angel, nonsense pure and simple. ”