New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1874-04-12
The Burial of Desclee.

Paris correspondent of the Pail Nat
Gazette says:
Aimee Desclee was buried on Tuesday,
and it is needless to say that most of the
| dramatic authors in Paris and that the first
actors and actresses followed her remains
to the grave. Alexander DUN as pronounced
| touching Grafton over her tomb taking on
himself much of the guilt Of her death. He
had persuaded Aimee Desclee to renounce
the provinces and come to Paris. She ex-
| expressed the fear that she would be unable
to stand acting the same piece night after
night in the presence OF a critical audience.
| In the country she never played the same
piece more than four Or five consecutive
nights, and the people put up with her &C.
centricties She yielded, however, came to
Paris, and played for year; then she
worn out, and that she would only return
II he declared she was Indispensable.
"She had just played 'Frou FrOu' for a
hundred nights-that pretty little Partisan
soul, born in peal Of laughter, evaporate
in tear Alexander Dumas soon wrote
to AIMEE Desclee that she was indispens-
able, and she returned to the Gymnase and
played in LA Visite de Noces" and LA
Princesse Georges" The first comedy was
only one act, and vet she threw SO much of
her being into it that on leaving the stage
she had invariably to throw herself on a
sofa and remain there for half an hour, just
as Rachel used to do after a tragedy. Again
she wished to make her escape. The man
ager came with new engagement, and
she wrote to Dumas. ~ shall only sign it
IT you positively order me; in fact you must
hold my hand. l shall finish by entering q
convent" And she went On to complain OF
her life as an actress She seemed, as Du-
mas said, to cry TO the public" You wish
to see how one struggles for life! Well,
a m Id
name, sometimes another, and yet it is al
ways II, the woman who hopes, who
loves, who suffers, who complains, who
combats, and who exhausts herself between
the ideal she wishes to grasp and the reality
which enlaces her.
OF her extraordinary genius as an emo
tional actress, the Pail Nall Gazette remarks:
For years struggling actress, discredit-
ed and unrecOgniZed, Aimee Desclee came
into the full light at last, conscious proba-
bly, that her long privations and her hard
battle had killed her; knowing how surely
the seeds of death were sOwn with the seeds
Of fame Desclee could be Compared only
TO herself, so distinct and peculiar was her
style. She seemed to have taken up acting
at Its beginning, and studied it as new
art. She spoke like no other player; for she
spoke, not as one who knows beforehand
what has to be said, in speech more or less
'o"7''oA anu PIepdIcu, DIS all Otner5
have spoken, but now rapidly and de-
cidedly, now hesitating for a word
here and there, now with come slight
repetition. So people speak in real life.
She listened like no other player, for she
listened sometimes with an ar of deep at
Ientlon. sometimes as with an evident eff
tort, like person distracted by the CONVEX
'atlon supposed to be carried on round her,
,he eye little wandering. the ear but half
commanded. Often the thouphts were
clearly far away. So people listen in real
lie. Only by degrees, as the play went on,
ild we learn that this was the very cOnsum-
nation OF the art of hiding art itself. And
hus 1t was that she grew on her audiences.
)ssc]ees was nervous from head to foot. In
he wonderful little scene in "Frou- Frou'
where she tried in vain to make her hus-
'and understand that the child-wife had
.rOWH INTO woman, every nerve crisped
md every sense rebelled at the good
latured stolidiity OF the sensible man
whom she had married. Alas for the
title misunderstanding Of life! If George
eliot writes their epics, Aimee Desclee was
heir best interpreter. Her eyes were won
.erful. She acted whole histories with
hem alone. There was one little scene in
he ''Fislte de Noces," IN which she stood
Iuleliy recalling some happy memories of
he past to the man who had made them.
When whole world of joy and of sorrow
eemed concentrated in her eyes, She never
1ade ''pOlnts'-as 1t is the fashion to call
nem-1or the many; for the few she never
l!ssed one. Her sad story is as strangea
lddle as any in this world But it carries
least this lesson-that we never should
espalr OF an art in which, even in a day of
mall people and small things, genius like
ers can come straight to the front at last
iced of honor