The Charles Dickens Letters Project

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Individual letter:

Dickens, Charles. To [addressee], [date of letter]. Charles Dickens Letters Project, ed. Leon Litvack, Emily Bell, Lydia Craig and Jeremy Parrott (London: Dickens Fellowship). [URL of individual letter], [date of access].

Database:

Charles Dickens Letters Project, ed. Leon Litvack, Emily Bell, Lydia Craig and Jeremy Parrott (London: Dickens Fellowship), DickensLetters.com.

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Period:

1841-1850

Theme(s):

France

friends

painting

theatre

To FRANÇOIS RÉGNIER,1 25 AUGUST 1848

Replaces extract in Pilgrim Letters 7, p. 890.

Text from facsimile in Lion Heart Autographs online catalogue, Apr 2023.

Broadstairs Kent
Aoüt2 25. 1848.

Mon cher Regnier.

Un de mes amis -– peintre celebre3 -– va faire un tableau de la mort de Moliere,4 apropos5 de quoi, il a l’idee6 de representer7 tout le corps dramatique qui remplit8 les roles9 diverses, au theatre,10 la derniere11 soirée de la vie publique de cet homme extraordinaire.12 On trouvera son lit,13 dans le14 tableau, entouré de tout le monde du theatre,15 costume comme à la representation.16 Eh bien mon cher. Il n’y a personne qui comprend la genie17 de Moliere18 aussi bien que vous, et il n’y a personne, je crois, qui connait19 mieux toutes les autorités du sujet. Ayez la bonté de me dire est-ce qu’il y en20 a aucunes — ou des livres ou des portraits — que l’on peut trouver en Angleterre et dans lesquelles on peut confier? Je parle, vous comprenez, apropos21 du sujet du tableau de mon ami.22

Je me souviens du salon intressant,23 au “Français”24 — mais malheureusement mon ami ne peut-y-faire la25 voyage, a present,26 et il veut commençer27 son tableau sans delai.28 Il29 peut s’appliquer seulement aux livres françaises, et aux gravures françaises, pour l’information dont il a besoin. Il m’en a parlé, et je pense, necessairement,30 à vous, comme le meilleur conseiller possible.

Madame Dickens31 et sa sœur,32 envoyent33 mille amitiés à vous, et à Madame Regnier,34 et sa jolie petite fille.35 Macready36 va retourner, sur37-le-champ, aux Etats-Unies38 — lucus a non lucendo39 – où j’espere40 qu’il s’enrichera, pour le41 troisieme42 fois. Nous restons à present,43 a44 la campagne, où un billet me trouvera jusqu’a45 la fin de septembre.46 J’ai grand peur que les revolutions47 ne sont pas generalement48 favorable aux beaux-arts,49mais esperons-nous50 que le beau temps reviendra, en France, en Italie,51 et partout!

                            Toujours
                                     Mon cher Regnier
                                                       Votre tout dévoué
                                                       CHARLES DICKENS

À Monsieur Regnier.

IDIOMATIC ENGLISH TRANSLATION:

My dear Régnier,

One of my friends – a famous painter – is going to paint a tableau of the death of Molière, in connection with which, he has the idea of representing the whole dramatic body who fill the various roles at the theatre, on the last evening of the public life of this extraordinary man. We find his bed in the tableau, surrounded by everyone from the theatre, costumed as at the performance. Well, my dear man, there is no one who understands the genius of Molière as well as you, and there is no one, I believe, who is better acquainted with all of the authorities on the subject. Kindly tell me whether there are any books or portraits that can be found in England, which one can trust. I'm talking, you understand, about the subject of my friend's tableau.

I remember the interesting salon, at the "Français" — but unfortunately my friend can't make the trip there now, and he wants to start his painting without delay. He is only able to study French books, and to French engravings, for the information he requires. He spoke to me about it, and I think that he needs to speak to you, as the best advisor there is.

Mrs Dickens and her sister send a thousand regards to you and to Madame Régnier, and her pretty little girl. Macready will return, immediately, to the United States — lucus a non lucendo — where I hope he will enrich himself for the third time. We are now staying in the country, where a note will find me until the end of September. I am very afraid that revolutions are not generally favourable to the fine arts, but let us hope that better times will return, to France, to Italy, and everywhere!

                     Always
                         My dear Régnier
                         Your very devoted
                                   CHARLES DICKENS

To Monsieur Régnier

1. François Joseph Philoclès (also christened Charles) Régnier (1807-85), distinguished actor; member of the Théâtre Français since 1831; associate 1834; Professor at the Conservatoire 1854. Retired from the Théâtre Français 1872, but remained as stage-manager for two years. He had unbroken success in the major comic roles in plays by Molière, Marivaux, and Beaumarchais. Friend of the actor W.C. Macready, who may have introduced him by letter to CD. For CD's friendship with him, apparently kept up mostly by CD, see Sylvère Monod, “Une Amitié Française de Charles Dickens: Lettres inédites à Philoclès Régnier, I & II”, Études Anglaises 11 (1958): 119-35, 210-25. CD wrote to Régnier in French from Jan 1847 to March 1852, then in English from Sept 1852 to Nov 1859.
2. Thus in MS.
3. Thus in MS.
4. Thus in MS. No such picture of the death of Molière, by one of CD's friends, has been traced.
5. Thus in MS.
6. Thus in MS.
7. Thus in MS.
8. Word deleted before “remplit”.
9. Thus in MS.
10. Thus in MS.
11. Thus in MS.
12. Molière collapsed onstage on 17 Feb 1673, in a fit of coughing and haemorrhaging, while performing in his play Le Malade Imaginaire, and was carried home, where he died a few hours later.
13. Molière collapsed onstage on 17 Feb 1673, in a fit of coughing and haemorrhaging, while performing in his play Le Malade Imaginaire, and was carried home, where he died a few hours later.
14. Word deleted before “le”.
15. Thus in MS.
16. Thus in MS.
17. Thus in MS.
18. Thus in MS.
19. Thus in MS.
20. “a” overwritten with “en”.
21. Thus in MS.
22. This sentence written as an afterthought, at the conclusion of the paragraph.
23. Thus in MS.
24. A salon held at the Théâtre Français, which CD attended with John Forster and Régnier on 15 January 1848. Forster describes the event in his Life: “We passed a fortnight together, and crowded into it more than might seem possible to such a narrow space. With a dreadful insatiability we passed through every variety of sight-seeing, prisons, palaces, theatres, hospitals, the Morgue and the Lazare, as well as the Louvre, Versailles, St. Cloud, and all the spots made memorable by the first revolution. The excellent comedian Regnier, known to us through Macready and endeared by many kindnesses, incomparable for his knowledge of the city and unwearying in friendly service, made us free of the green-room of the Français, where, on the birthday of Molière, we saw his ‘Don Juan’ revived” (Life of Charles Dickens [London: Cecil Palmer, 1928], pp. 450-1).
25. Thus in MS.
26. Thus in MS.
27. Thus in MS.
28. Thus in MS.
29. “S” deleted before “il”.
30. Thus in MS.
31. Catherine Dickens, née Hogarth (1815-79).
32. Georgina Hogarth (1827-1917).
33. Thus in MS.
34. Henriette Louise Laure Régnier, née Grévedon (1814-1895), daughter of the artist Pierre-Louis-Henri Grévedon.
35. Henriette Régnier (1851-1934).
36. William Charles Macready (1793-1873), famous actor and friend of CD.
37. “sur” deleted before “sur”.
38. Thus in MS.
39. A paradoxical or otherwise absurd derivation; something of which the qualities are the opposite of what its name suggests. The Latin phrase means “a grove from the absence of light” — that is, a grove is named from the fact that it does not shine; from Quintilian’s Instituto Oratoria. CD is referring to the fact that the “States” are not in fact “United”, given his impressions gleaned from his visit in 1842, and his depictions of the country in American Notes and Martin Chuzzlewit.
40. Thus in MS.
41. Thus in MS.
42. Thus in MS. Macready’s last tour of the United States took place in 1848-9; he had made two previous visits, in 1826 and 1843.
43. Thus in MS.
44. Thus in MS.
45. Thus in MS.
46. Thus in MS. CD was at Broadstairs from 29 July to 29 Sept, but returned to London for a week in early Sept, when his sister Fanny died.
47. Thus in MS.
48. Thus in MS.
49. The French Revolution of 1848 led to the collapse of the monarchy and the establishment of the French Second Republic. Despite CD’s anxiety about their effect on the fine arts, CD largely sympathised with the European Revolutions of 1848; see his letter to Emile de la Rue of 25 Feb 1848: “I have never known anything at all like the sensation that is made here, by the French Revolution. There was hardly room to stand in the Athenaeum last night among the bishops priests and deacons, lords, artists, authors, members of Parliament, and genteel tag rag and bobtail, who were busily discussing it. The aristocratic feeling of England is against it, of course. All the intelligence and liberality, I should say, are with it, tooth and nail” (Pilgrim Letters 5, p. 254).
50. Thus in MS.
51. Revolts occurred in 1848 in northern Italy, as well as in Sardinia and Lombardy, in an attempt to end Austrian rule.