This work had already begun, when an officer
made his appearance with a command from
the court, bearing date the same day, which
overruled the decree of the judges. The
proprietors instantly set about the repairing of
what little mischief had been done; next
morning the play-bills were placarded just as
usual, and in the evening the house
overflowed. Again, however, their theatre was
destroyed, and that completely, even to the
burning of its fragments; but again it was
rebuilt.

To prevent the recurrence of these ruinous
attacks, the actors of the fair at last determined
to confine their performance to dumb
show. Among other pieces represented in this
manner was one called the Chicks of Leda;
a ludicrous parody of the Tyndarides of
Danchet. The company of the Théâtre
Français had by this time come to be
familiarly known as the Romans; and the success
of the Chicks of Leda, as well as of many
similar pieces, was ensured by the energy
with which the Romans were burlesqued
and mimicked by their opponents. Each
noble Roman was at once to be recognised—
not only by caricatures of the characters in
which he commonly appeared, but by the
imitation of his peculiar gestures and the
tones of his voice. In order to accomplish
the last object without breaking the rule of
dumbness, the comedians of the fair
pronounced in solemn tragic tones a succession
of syllables without sense or meaning,
but arranged in sonorous Alexandrine
mouthfuls.

A further improvement: the actors came
upon the stage each furnished with a roll of
bills, on which were printed in large
characters the names of their parts, with the
most necessary of the words that they must
be supposed to speak. On coming to the
point at which the matter inscribed on any
particular bill was required—the whole roll
having previously put in order — he unrolled
and displayed it, and then slipped it to the
back. At first these placards were in prose;
afterwards, couplets adapted to well-known
airs were written on them. The orchestra
played the air; persons hired for the
purpose, and posted in different parts of the pit,
sang the words; the public itself supplied
the chorus. By means of a further
contrivance, the performers were relieved from
the inconvenience of carrying so many
paper bills: little boys, dressed as Cupids,
were suspended by machinery from the roof:
and, supporting the rolls between them,
unfolded and displayed them at the proper
times.

Although Le Sage, in the prologue to
Turcaret, had pointed some satirical strokes
against the performers of the fair, he now
sympathised with them to the extent of
setting about some compositions suited to
their new school of art — the opera of
handbills.

The first pieces composed by him for this
purpose were represented by means of bills,
and the words were wholly sung. A few
sentences of prose were, by degrees,
interspersed among the couplets. At length,
their confidence increasing with their strength,
the two companies of the fair ventured to
assume the title of Opéra Comique. The
accession of Le Sage was thus the means of
introducing consistency, and something of
the appearance and polish of art, into the
homely beginnings of the French comic
opera, or what is now called comédie vaudeville.
Neither the deplorable state of public
affairs in France, the higher interests of
other departments of literature and art, nor
the intrigues of the court and church,
prevented the public attention from being
profoundly occupied by the progress of the war
between the privileged company, the regulars,
and the guerillas of the fair. Law and authority
being at every point defeated or eluded
by the fair men, the belligerents on both sides
let law alone, and confined their efforts to the
use of pun and satire, ridicule and personation.
In seventeen hundred and sixteen, the
Italian company was recalled and entered into
an offensive and defensive alliance with the
Théâtre Français; but the allied troupes
were worsted. Parody, the chief weapon of
the fair, was too strong for prerogative: the
dexterous pointing of Le Sage's pieces had
the effect of silencing the batteries of the
allies. The Duchess of Orleans, wife of the
Regent, being determined to witness the
representation of the Princess of Carisma,
one of Le Sage's most popular vaudevilles, it
was ordered to be performed at the Palais
Royal. The Regent was present at the
entertainment, and the triumph of the comic
opera was perfect. The records of the French
stage enumerate one hundred and one
pieces, wholly or in part composed by Le
Sage, and performed by the companies of the
comic opera.

In the midst, however, of those less worthy
occupations—which, through a long series of
years, were the means of keeping alive the
fire upon his hearth — Le Sage did not forget
the higher claims of literature. Of Gil Blas
—that world's romance—two volumes were
published in seventeen hundred and fifteen,
their author's age then being forty-seven;
and a third was issued nine years afterwards.
The fourth and final volume, was delayed
until eleven years after the third had appeared.
This work placed Le Sage, at once and for all
time, in the rank of a European classic. Its
contemporary reputation may have been owing
in a measure, to the skilfully interwoven
anecdotes and allusions, then more intensely
relished, because better understood, than they
can now be by ourselves. But the truth of
its lively pictures of human nature will for
ever satisfy the wits of the experienced, and
their variety will never cease to charm the
fancies of the young. The creator of its class,