Brichanteau Actor Author:Jules Claretie General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1897 Original Publisher: Little, Brown and company Subjects: Fiction / Classics Fiction / Literary History / General Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Book... more »s edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: II. THE LASSO. I Recall even now with sadness the season that I passed at Perpignan. I was engaged to play leading roles there, and in that out-of-the-way provincial capital, far from the eyes of the Parisian public, -- my true public, -- I played my parts with as much care, I put as much soul into my work, as if I were creating one of Hugo's dramas before the great critics of Paris. So I shall not astonish you when I tell you that I became the idol of the people of the Pyre'ne'es- Orientales. I acted successfully in my whole repertory, and I consoled myself with the triumphs of art for my exile on the Spanish frontier. For Perpignan, the end of the world, was a place of exile to me, ambitious as I was to act at the Porte- Saint-Martin, the Come'die-Francaise -- or, at the worst, the Ambigu. But when one acts where one can, the important thing is to act as well as one can. " If you have not a church to decorate," said Eugene Delacroix (I knew him and posed for him as a Turkish cavalier), " paint a fresco in the first public square you come to!" I said to myself that, after all, at Perpignan, as everywhere, there are lovers of art, andit was for them that I acted. They understood me, they applauded me. I was consoled and strengthened by them. Moreover, I became popular, and people saluted me when I passed through the streets. I remember that one day as I was leaving the court-room, the first president accosted me in front of the statue of Francois Arago to congratulate me on the way I ha...« less