excitement and surprise this exhibition caused.
It was remembered, indeed, that Louis the
Fourteenth had been put upon the stage by
Racine in his Berenice; but it was only metaphorically,
as it were, by allusion and implication.
Here, the living sovereign of France
was brought upon the boards of a theatre, reproduced
with his exact costume, his abrupt and
convulsive gestures, making the illusion perfectly
complete. Nobody could understand how
the dramatic censors could have committed the
enormity of licensing personalities which might
call forth hostile manifestations in the pit.
Hapdé, however, contrived to triumph over all
these apprehensions; and the public curiosity,
excited to the utmost, converted the experiment
into an immense pecuniary success. So
great, indeed, was the success, that Napoleon
wished to witness it, incognito. One evening,
he and Duroc proceeded mysteriously to the
Porte Saint Martin, disguised, and in a hackney-coach.
A box of the Premières, the only one
remaining vacant, was taken at the box-office.
The emperor hastily entered it, and fell into a
violent rage at finding his shoes and stockings
daubed with paste and paint. Some workmen
who were refreshing the decorations of the
theatre had left their pots in that unlucky box.
The emperor went away in a fury, without remaining
to see the piece, which was stopped the
next day. It was another instance of great
effects produced by little causes. The check-takers
had recognised the tenant of the box
from his energetic style of diction. Great confusion
behind the scenes; the manager in utter
despair. Next morning he started for Fontainebleau,
where the court happened to be at the
time. But all his pleadings were in vain; the
angry chief was inexorable, and the prohibition
was maintained.

At the Restoration, Hapdé disappeared from
stage life. He wrote pamphlets against The
Man of Destiny, of whom he had hitherto been
the flatterer. The theatre of the Porte Saint
Martin ceased to be mute. It recovered its
speech with pure melodrama.

After passing the authors in review, a few
anecdotes are given of their interpreters. Actors,
in the bad old times, were subjected to a cruel
proscription; harsh and ridiculous prejudices
completely cut them off from society. The
clergy were the first to set the intolerant example;
forgetting that two comedians of
antiquity, Genestus and Pelagie, figure in the
Legends of the Saints; and also that it was a
cardinal, one Richelieu, who founded the theatre
in France, and rescued it from wandering buffoons,
who personated the Deity and his Angels
with impunity — that Molière was admitted to
Louis the Fourteenth's table — and that Justinian,
the great lawgiver, married an actress, who
exercised over him an influence equal to that
with which Aspasia governed Pericles. These
prejudices exist no longer. They were all the
more unjust, because several actors were likewise
eminent as authors. It suffices to mention
the name of Molière.

The actresses of the Vaudeville resembled a
bouquet of flowers. Beauty had established her
empire in that happy theatre. With such resources
at their command, authors could hardly
avoid succeeding. As soon as the ladies appeared
on the stage, the spectators fell in love
with them — and what we love we always applaud.
The same materials still exist; but it
is doubtful whether writers of the present day
make an equally skilful use of them. On the
stage, nothing triumphs like beauty. M. de
Rochefort analogically illustrates his axiom by
an anecdote.

When Talleyrand was minister, he was waited
on one day by a young man of distinction, who
presented a pressing recommendation from the
Empress Josephine. She solicited for him a
secretaryship to an embassy.

"Have you studied diplomacy?" inquired M.
de Talleyrand.

"Yes, monseigneur. It has hitherto been my
sole occupation."

"Very well, monsieur. The office of secretary
to the Swedish embassy is just now vacant;
I promise you shall have it. Good morning. I
will shortly send your nomination."

The young gentleman was retiring, after overwhelming
the minister with thanks, when the
latter called him back, and asked, "Monsieur,
are you usually lucky?"

"Alas! no, monseigneur. I have tried fortune
in various ways, but as yet have never been
able to succeed."

"In that case, monsieur, I am extremely
sorry; but what has passed between us goes for
nothing. I must have lucky people."

It is a terrible truth to apply to actresses, but
a manager must have pretty women.

English playgoers have no idea of old French
bigotry respecting the three Dramatic Unities
of time, place, and action — one action, in one
locality, within four-and-twenty hours. It was
a matter of faith rather than a rule of criticism.
It was clung to with the persistence
with which a Church maintains her dogmas. At
the epoch when Lemercier's Christopher Columbus
was represented at the Odéon, the
Parisian students were as classical as they are
romantic, or rather tolerant, now. At that time,
the violation of the unities was regarded as a
heinous crime.

Nevertheless, they might have expected that
the author, when he put the great Genoese on
the stage, could not leave him at Isabel's court
for three long acts, with nothing to do but to
prepare for his voyage. This consideration had
no effect on the hot-headed youth who filled
the pit. When the second act displayed the
bold discoverer out at sea on the deck of his
ship, a furious storm burst forth in the theatre.
The guard took part in it; the son of Véral, the
inspector of police, had his arm broken in the
row; M. de Rochefort, who supported the
piece, escaped with the loss of his hat; three
hundred students were arrested, and the emperor
had them immediately incorporated in the
army, inflexibly refusing to listen to any