Mitchell, Cyrano, and Roxanne

Since I wrote last week about a new upcoming movie about the Civil War which stars a Texas-born-and-raised actor, this week is an encore about two more movies.

In 1897, a French playwright wrote a popular play Cyrano De Bergerac. Set during the Hundred Years War in Europe in the 1600’s, the beautiful leading lady was named Roxanne. The star was Cyrano himself, a formidable, but witty soldier. Cyrano was blessed with a very large nose, about which he was greatly embarrassed and rather prickly about anyone calling attention to it. There’s lots of sword fighting and verbal repartee in the play. Three American movie versions of Cyrano De Bergerac have been made, in 1928, 1950, and 1990.

In 1987, some 90 years after the French play was first performed, actor/comedian Steve Martin made a movie named Roxanne based on the same French play about Cyrano and Roxanne. The leggy, blonde, and hot Daryl Hannah became Roxanne and Cyrano/Martin’s nose grew to the length of a ski slope.

In both scripts, a key element of the plot is Cyrano/Martin falling in love with Roxanne, but he is too shy and embarrassed by his large nose to admit his attraction to her. Instead, like a dope, Cyrano/Martin writes touching love letters to Roxanne on behalf of a dense, but handsome, young man who also is smitten by Roxanne’s beauty. Misunderstanding and confusion follow, but in the end, Cyrano/Martin gets the girl, his wonderful nose notwithstanding.

Civil War? Where’s the Civil War in this? Here it is:

After the Civil War, in 1910, J.B. Polley, an old man who had been a young soldier in the 4^th Texas Infantry, wrote a lengthy memoir of his Civil War experiences. Polley’s work is entertaining, and generally his accounts of the war hold up to others as true enough.

But Polley also had a fun-loving streak and sometimes included anecdotes of questionable veracity. This one may or may not have been influenced by the recent popular French play about Cyrano de Bergerac.

Here's a summary:

Like Cyrano and Martin, a Private Mitchell in the 4th Texas Infantry Regiment was too embarrassed to own up to one “flawed” feature of his character which he couldn’t control: He couldn't write. But through subterfuge and the help of a friend who wrote love letters for him, Mitchell won the heart of a girl in Richmond. 

But Mitchell’s writing friend is transferred, which prompts Mitchell to enlist yet another soldier friend to write one more letter to the girl, saying that Mitchell was killed in battle. Rather than admit to the woman, who had agreed to marry him, that someone else had written his love letters, Mitchell pronounced himself dead, to preserve his precious dignity. So he loses the girl, after all. Not as happy an ending as Steve Martin’s Roxanne movie.

Perhaps J.B. Polley was a fan of the French theatre, and plucked the convenient tool of one man writing love letters for a friend.

Or, perhaps he related a tale of universal appeal – a good man who feels some part of him is unworthy of a beautiful woman, but he’s too proud to be honest about it, and consequently makes a real muddle of things .

Either way, isn’t it fun when something delightfully piquant comes around again and again, the same touching irony, just in a new wrapping.

As a last thought, I wonder if Steve Martin was a youthful student of the Texans who fought in the Civil War and knew about Polley’s memoir? Very doubtful, but then again, Martin was born in Waco, Texas and he plays a great banjo, a Civil War era instrument.

Here's the excerpt of Polley's memoir for those who like to read primary sources:

A Review of Times That Are Past But Live in History –

Prepared by J. B. Polley, Floresville, Texas

          “While the Fifth Texas was in camp near Richmond Corporal L. C. Mitchell met and fell desperately in love with a young lady living in the vicinity.  She was handsome and highly accomplished, and Mitchell resolved if it were possible he would win her for a wife, and when the regiment was ordered to the Potomac arranged for correspondence with her.  But though a soldier of merit and good standing enough to take the fancy of the most fastidious lady, Mitchell’s penmanship was illegible to himself when the ink got cold.  Well read and having knocked about the world a great deal, his conversation was always entertaining, but writing the hand he did it was impossible to make his letters a charm.  So when the time came for the first he persuaded Charlie Hume – now Major F. C. Hume of Houston – to do both the writing and the composing of all the missives mailed from camp.

          The novelty of the situation inspired Hume to do his best, and that best resulted in a series of letters that were marvels of the epistolary art and so gratifying to the lady that in return she did her best, and the correspondence rapidly changed from that of simple friendship to one where sentiment bore a large part, culminating finally in a declaration of love by Mitchell and an acknowledgement of its reciprocation by the lady. 

     After the retreat from Yorktown, and later after the seven days’ battles, his regiment was in the vicinity of Richmond.  Mitchell managed to visit his betrothed and presumably received proof stronger than mere profession that she loved him.  Just after the battle of Sharpsburg, and before he could write the letter for Mitchell that would announce his escape from the bullets of the enemy, Hume was transferred to another command and immediately joined it.

          This put Mitchell in the middle of a bad fix.  It was utterly impossible for him to write such letters as Hume had been writing over his (Mitchell’s) name, and nobody in his company could do it.  Heroic measures his only recourse, he called to his assistance another messmate, Bob Brantley, now living in Somerville.  Under his instructions Brantley wrote as follows:

IN CAMP NEAR SHEPARDSTOWN,

Va., Sept. 25, 1862

Miss ----, Richmond Va.

          Dear Miss: Your letter of recent date addressed to my late comrade and friend, Robert E. Mitchell enabled me to secure your address, and makes it my painful duty to inform you that my comrade and your lover was killed on the 17^th of September 1862,while far to the front most gallantly fighting for his beloved South.  He was shot through the heart and fell with his face to the foe.  We buried him on the field of battle with your letter resting on his heart.  Words are powerless to express the deep sorrow we feel over his untimely death, or the sympathy that wells up in the hours of your grief, and therefore I make no attempt to console with you.  With assurance of my sympathy, I am, dear miss, yours most respectfully,

                                                                                      R. L. BRANTLEY

          “What the mischief do you want to send such a letter as that for?” inquired a comrade, cognizant of all the circumstances.  “Why do you not write to her yourself, tell her of the deception you have practiced, ask her forgiveness and forever after be happy?”

          “What!” exclaimed Mitchell, “put down in my scrawling handwriting that for more than a year, I have been making her the victim of a fraud?  No, sir, I’d rather be dead to her than to let her know either by letter or by a face-to-face confession that I’m as d----d a humbug as I really have been.”

          The letter was mailed, and although often in Richmond afterward Mitchell never met the lady again, if yet living she no doubt still believes he was killed at Sharpsburg.  In truth, though, he survived the war, came back to Texas and died some ten years ago.”