Victorien Sardou was born at 16rue Beautreillis (pronounced[ʁybo.tʁɛ.ji]), Paris on 5 September 1831. The Sardous were settled atLe Cannet, a village nearCannes, where they owned an estate, planted with olive trees. A night's frost killed all the trees and the family was ruined. Victorien's father, Antoine Léandre Sardou, came to Paris in search of employment. He was in succession a book-keeper at a commercial establishment, a professor of book-keeping, the head of a provincial school, then a private tutor and a schoolmaster in Paris, besides editing grammars, dictionaries and treatises on various subjects. With all these occupations, he hardly succeeded in making a livelihood, and when he retired to his native country, Victorien was left on his own resources. He had begun studying medicine, but had to desist for want of funds. He taught French to foreign pupils: he also gave lessons in Latin, history and mathematics to students, and wrote articles for cheap encyclopaedias.[3]
At the same time, he was trying to make headway in the literary world. His talents had been encouraged by an oldbas-bleu,Mme de Bawr, who had published novels and enjoyed some reputation in the days of theRestoration, but she could do little for her protégé.[4] Victorien Sardou made efforts to attract the attention ofMlle Rachel, and to win her support by submitting to her a drama,La Reine Ulfra, founded on an old Swedish chronicle. A play of his,La Taverne des étudiants, was produced at theOdéon on 1 April 1854, but met a stormy reception, owing to a rumour that the débutant had been instructed and commissioned by the government to insult the students.La Taverne was withdrawn after five nights. Another drama by Sardou,Bernard Palissy, was accepted at the same theatre, but the arrangement was cancelled in consequence of a change in the management. A Canadian play,Fleur de Liane, would have been produced at theAmbigu but for the death of the manager.Le Bossu, which he wrote forCharles Albert Fechter, did not satisfy the actor; and when the play was successfully produced, the nominal authorship, by some unfortunate arrangement, had been transferred to other men. Sardou submitted toAdolphe Lemoine, manager of theGymnase, a play entitledParis à l'envers, which contained the love scene, afterwards so famous, inNos Intimes. Lemoine thought fit to consultEugène Scribe, who was revolted by the scene in question.[3]
In 1857, Sardou felt the pangs of actual want, and his misfortunes culminated in an attack oftyphoid fever. He was living in poverty and was dying in hisgarret, surrounded by his rejected manuscripts. A lady who was living in the same house unexpectedly came to his assistance. Her name wasMlle de Brécourt. She had theatrical connections and was a special favourite of MlleDéjazet. She nursed him, cured him, and, when he was well again, introduced him to her friend. Déjazet had just established the theatre named after her, and every show afterLa Taverne was put on at this theatre. Fortune began to smile on the author.[3]
It is true thatCandide, the first play he wrote for Mlle Déjazet, was stopped by the censor, butLes Premières Armes de Figaro,Monsieur Garat, andLes Prés Saint Gervais, produced almost in succession, had a splendid run.Garat andGervais were done at Theatre des Varlétés and in English atCriterion Theatre in London.Les Pattes de mouche (1860, afterwards anglicized asA Scrap of Paper) obtained a similar success at the Gymnase.[3]
Sarah Bernhardt in the title role of Sardou'sThéodora in 1884A sketch of Sardou from 1899
Fédora (1882), a work that popularized thefedora hat as well,[5] was written expressly forSarah Bernhardt, as were many of his later plays. This was later adapted byUmberto Giordano, and he made an opera entitledFedora. The play dealt withnihilism, which was coined fromFathers and Sons byIvan Turgenev. He struck a new vein by introducing a strong historic element in some of his dramatic romances. Thus he borrowedThéodora (1884) fromByzantine annals (which was also adapted into an opera byXavier Leroux),La Haine (1874) from Italian chronicles,La Duchesse d'Athénes from the forgotten records of medieval Greece.Patrie! (1869) is founded on the rising of the DutchGeuzen at the end of the 16th century, and was made into a popular opera byEmile Paladilhe in 1886. The scene ofLa Sorcière (1904) was laid in Spain in the 16th century. TheFrench Revolution furnished him three plays,Les Merveilleuses,Thermidor (1891) andRobespierre (1899). His playGismonda (1894) was adapted into an opera byHenry Février. The last named was written expressly forSir Henry Irving, and produced at theLyceum theatre in London, as wasDante (1903). TheNapoleonic era was revived inLa Tosca (1887).[3]
Madame Sans-Gêne (1893) was written specifically forGabrielle Réjane as the unreserved, good-hearted wife of Marshal Lefevre. It was translated into English and starred Irving andEllen Terry at the Lyceum Theatre.[6] Later plays wereLa Pisie (1905) andThe Affair of the Poisons (1907). In many of these plays, however, it was too obvious that a thin varnish of historic learning, acquired for the purpose, had been artificially laid on to cover modern thoughts and feelings. But a few –Patrie! andLa Haine (1874), for instance – exhibit a true insight into the strong passions of past ages.[3]L'Affaire des Poisons (1907) was running at theThéâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin and was very successful at the time of his death. The play involved the poisoningcamarilla underLouis XIV of France.[7] Toward the end of his life, Sardou made several recordings of himself reading passages from his works, including a scene fromPatrie![8]
Sardou married his benefactress, Mlle de Brécourt, but eight years later he became a widower, and soon after theRevolution of 1870 was married a second time, to Mlle Soulié on 17 June 1872, the daughter of the eruditeEudore Soulié, who for many years superintended theMusée de Versailles. He was elected to theAcadémie française in the room of the poetJoseph Autran (1813–1877), and took his seat on 22 May 1878.[3] He lived atChâteau de Marly for some time.
He was a fervent book collector who assembled an immense collection of 80,000 books.[9] The rooms at his home in Marly were devoted to housing his book and print collections. After his death his books were sold as described in theCatalogue de la bibliothèque de feu M. Victorien Sardou[10]
He obtained theLégion d'honneur in 1863 and was elected a member of the Académie française in 1877.[7] Sardou died on 8 November 1908 in Paris. He had been ill for a long time. The official cause of death waspulmonary congestion.[7]
Sardou modelled his work afterEugène Scribe. It was reported in Stephen Sadler Stanton's intro toCamille and Other Plays that Sardou would read the first act of one of Scribe's plays, rewrite the rest, and then compare the two. One of his first goals when writing was to devise a central conflict followed by a powerful climax. From there, he would work backwards to establish the action leading up to it. He believed conflict was the key to drama.[11]
He was ranked with the two undisputed leaders of dramatic art at that time,Augier andDumas. He adhered to Scribe's constructive methods, which combined the three old kinds of comedy —the comedy of character, of manners and of intrigue— with thedrame bourgeois, and blended the heterogeneous elements into a compact body. He opened a wider field to social satire: He ridiculed the vulgar and selfish middle-class person inNos Intimes (1861: anglicized asPeril), the gay old bachelors inLes Vieux Garçons (1865), the modern Tartufes inSeraphine (1868), the rural element inNos Bons Villageois (1866), old-fashioned customs and antiquated political beliefs inLes Ganaches (1862), the revolutionary spirit and those who thrive on it inRabagas (1872) andLe Roi Carotte (1872), the then threatened divorce laws inDivorçons (1880).[3]
Irish playwright and criticGeorge Bernard Shaw said ofLa Tosca: "Such an empty-headed ghost of a shocker... Oh, if it had but been an opera!"[11] He also came up with the dismissive term "Sardoodledom" in a review of Sardou plays (The Saturday Review, 1 June 1895). Shaw believed that Sardou's contrived dramatic machinery was creaky and that his plays were empty of ideas.[citation needed]
After producerSir Squire Bancroft saw the dress rehearsal forFedora, he said in his memoirs "In five minutes the audience was under a spell which did not once abate throughout the whole four acts. Never was treatment of a strange and dangerous subject more masterly, never was acting more superb than Sarah showed that day."[11]William Winter said ofFedora that "the distinguishing characteristic of this drama is carnality."[citation needed]
In New Orleans, during the period when much of its upper class still spoke French, Antoine Alciatore, founder of the famous old restaurantAntoine's, invented a dish calledEggs Sardou in honor of the playwright's visit to the city.
The Rue Victorien Sardou and Square Victorien Sardou near theParc Sainte-Périne in Paris are named after him. There are also streets named rue Victorien Sardou inLyon andSaint-Omer.
Poster for an 1897 production ofA Divorce Cure, adapted from Sardou's playDivorçons!Poster for the 1918 filmLet's Get a Divorce, based on Sardou'sDivorçons
La Taverne des étudiants (1854)
Les Premières Armes de Figaro (1859), with Emile Vanderbuch
Stephen Sadler Stanton (1990)Camille and Other Plays: A Peculiar Position; The Glass of Water; La Dame aux Camelias; Olympe's Marriage; A Scrap of PaperHill and WangISBN0-8090-0706-1
McCormick, John. 1998. "Sardou, Victorien." InThe Cambridge Guide to Theatre. Ed. Martin Banham. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. 964.ISBN0-521-43437-8.
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One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Sardou, Victorien".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 24 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 218–219.
