WHEN Félix Larcher, around 1888, wanted to revive the art of pantomime and created the Cercle Funambulesque, he first thought of putting his company under filous patronage. So he went to rue de l'Eperon to knock on Théodore de Banville's door.

The poet, in fact, was the last survivor among the apostles of silent art. He had known the two Debureaus, written sparkling pages about them; he had encouraged Paul Legrand, Guyon, Kalpestri, Becker, all the heirs of the tradition created by the famous mimes.

Mattro, he said to him, I dream of reviving the pantomime and writing its history...
The history of pantomime! exclaimed Banvilie, “But then, my dear sir, it is the history of humanity that you want to write, you should have started at twenty, and it is not certain that you will have finished at sixty.

In fact, the origins of pantomime are lost in the dawn of time. It was already so flourishing around the year 180 BC that Terence complained of the competition that the success of the Funambuli brought to his plays.

Two mimes, Pylades and Bathylle, then shared the public's favor, and their rivalry caused so much trouble every day that the emperor had to exile one of them to restore calm among show-goers.

In France, pantomime appeared during the Renaissance. She is the daughter of Italian farce, of the commedie dell' arte that the Geloei troupe revealed to Parisians.

In the middle of the 17th century, a troupe of Italian actors and mimes whose director was none other than Tiberio Fiurelli, the famous Scaramouche, flourished at the Théâtre du Petit-Bourbon. Molière neighbors them on the same stage and this is how he borrows the names of their classic characters. This is also how, when he wrote Don Juan ou le Festin de Pierre, he remembered a valet character named Piero (Little Peter) whom he saw in some of these Italian plays... Piero, he likes the name. He gives it to one of the characters in Don Juan, a peasant from Charlotte. But Piero, in this form, looks too exotic. Molière Frenchifies him and calls him Pierrot. And this is how the essentially French type of pantomime was created by our greatest comic poet,

Pierrot is Gaspard Debureau, the most famous mime of all countries and of all times. He began his career on the Monday after Easter of 1828, at the Théâtre des Funambules. Bertrand, the director, hired him for 35 francs per week. In exchange for this sumptuous treatment, Debureau would have to hold not only the job of Pierrots, but also all the other roles that could be distributed to him, give as many performances as the director demanded, provide his rouge, his stockings, his shoes and gloves, and not claim any salary in the event of illness.
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However, it happened that, given the success of Debureau's pantomimes, Bertrand gave, during the week, six sessions per day, and nine on Sunday. Around New Year's Eve, Debureau played up to twenty-six times in three days... It made him a little more than ten cents per pantomime that he performed. The stars of silent art were not very demanding at that time. Do we know that on this same stage of Funambules, the greatest romantic actor took his first steps?...

Frédérick Lemaître, under the name Prosper, was Bertrand's boarder for fourteen months. He received fifteen francs a week. It was he who created the role of the Bear, in a pantomime entitled Perrette and the two poachers. Unfortunately, pantomimes at that time were interspersed with acrobatics of all kinds. Debureau, whose father and brothers were professional acrobats, had been, from childhood, "broken and boned", so as to satisfy all the requirements of the profession. But it was not the same with Frederick. Unable to enter the stage on his hands or do a somersault when leaving, the future Robert Macaire went to work for Franconi, at the Cirque Olympique, at the rate of 80 francs per month. It was there that Talma saw him, guessed his future and showed him his true path by introducing him to the Odeon.

Gaspard Debureau died in 1846: his tradition was perpetuated at the Funambules by Charles Debureau, his son, and by his student, Paul Legrand. A troupe of perfect homogeneity surrounded them. Pantomime has since conquered its place in literature. After more than a quarter of a century of eclipse, pantomime owed a new brilliance to the creation of the Cercle Funambulesque. Men of letters, actors, musicians, painters came together to bring him back to life. Paul Legrand, classic heir to the two Debureaus, once again put on the white robe and exhumed the masterpieces of Gaspard and Charles.

Paul Margueritte was seen performing his own pantomimes. Sarah, the great Sarah, was also tempted by revived art. To play the assassin Pierrot of Jean Richepin, she floured her face. Some of the most illustrious artists of the time gave him the answer, if I dare say so. Réjane was Colombine, Saint-Germain and Daubray played episodic roles. Our most famous comedians tried their hand at pantomime in turn. The elder Coquelin played Harlequin in Pierrot photographe. Coquelin cadet, Galipaux, Georges Berr wore the blouse of Gilles, the other in the diamond pattern of Bergamasque. Mendès, prince of the word, fell in love with silent art. His Chand d'habits shared, with the Prodigal Son, where the talent of Félicia Mallet was revealed, the favor of Parisians. Séverin revived the traditions of the great tightrope walking era that Rouffe, his master, had passed on to him. On several Parisian stages at the same time, pantomime triumphed.

As in the time of the great Gaspard, Pierrot, the only Pierrot, filled the life of an artist, But he was a modernized Pierrot, a character with a thousand diverse faces, sometimes naive and gal Pierrot as in the past, but often also cruel Pierrot, Skeptical Pierrot, Pierrot man of his time, in a word. How can we recall the names of all the artists whose spirit animated the classic puppet... Thalès, Georges Wague, Paul Franck, Farina... Et, among the women, Cléo de Mérode, Mathilde Chasles, and Colette, whose Subtle art, if the artist had not evolved towards other destinies, would perhaps have brought new modes of expression to pantomime.

Pantomime is, among all genres of theater, the one which suffered the most from the inconstancy of public taste. After periods of unexpected favor, silent art sometimes found itself neglected, disdained for years, to the point that the very people who had honored it the most came to doubt its value, its interest, its reality. .

We were talking these last few days about what we could call the inevitabilities of pantomime, with Mr. Paul Franck, in his director's office at the Olympia, and the artist, who was certainly one of the mimes the most remarkable. who appeared on the scene, expressed to us the same doubts and the same disappointments:
I thought I really liked pantomime, he told us and I realize now, diving into my memories, that I loved something that doesn't exist... I've only ever known two mimes really admirable and who never played pantomime: Lucien Guitry and Chaliapine, But, in all sincerity, I believe that pantomime never existed. It was the poets, Théophile Gautier, Catulle Mendès, Paul Margueritte, who made me believe that there was an art of mimicry, and, in reality, it was their imagination alone which created and invented this game...

There is, however, an art of mimicry, and no one has exercised it with more talent than Mr. Paul Franck himself... And who would still doubt it today seeing, for example, with what intelligence, what expressive force all human feelings are depicted on the face of the mime Farina, the last of our great Pierrots.

Over the past century, this art has suffered some eclipses and, on the other hand, experienced periods of incredible success. Cinema, this second art of silence, will no more ruin it than it has ruined other forms of spectacle. It is true that ten years ago we created a pantomime class at the Conservatory, and that this teaching has given no results. But what is surprising?... The art of mimicry has no use for official lessons. And Pierrot, to make himself understood, only needs his ten fingers and his eyes. All it takes to restore the pantomime to its full glory is the occasional genius mime to reveal itself. This is sometimes found in France.

Jean LECOQ.