night. (It may
be added that the good sense of the public outbalanced the impudence of
the newspaper, and the play was simply advertised into success.) But
neither the novels nor the persecutions of M. Erckmann-Chatrian avail
to render "L'Ami Fritz," in its would-be dramatic form, worthy of the
first French stage. It is played as well as possible, and upholstered
even better; but it is, according to the vulgar phrase, too "thin" for
the locality. Upholstery has never played such a part at the Theatre
Francais as during the reign of M. Perrin, who came into power, if I
mistake not, after the late war. He proved very early that he was a
radical, and he has introduced a hundred novelties. His administration,
however, has been brilliant, and in his hands the Theatre Francais has
made money. This it had rarely done before, and this, in the
conservative view, is quite beneath its dignity. To the conservative
view I should humbly incline. An institution so closely protected by a
rich and powerful State ought to be able to cultivate art for art.

The first of M. Sarcey's biographies, to which I have been too long in
coming, is devoted to Regnier, a veteran actor, who left the stage four
or five years since, and who now fills the office of oracle to his
younger comrades. It is the indispensable thing, says M. Sarcey, for
a young aspirant to be able to say that he has had lessons of M.
Regnier, or that M. Regnier has advised him, or that he has talked
such and such a point over with M. Regnier. (His comrades always speak
of him as M. Regnier--never as simple Regnier.) I have had the fortune
to see him but once; it was the first time I ever went to the Theatre
Francais. He played Don Annibal in Emile Augier's romantic comedy of
"L'Aventuriere," and I have not forgotten the exquisite humor of the
performance. The part is that of a sort of seventeenth century Captain
Costigan, only the Miss Fotheringay in the case is the gentleman's
sister, and not his daughter. This lady is moreover an ambitious and
designing person, who leads her threadbare braggart of a brother quite
by the nose. She has entrapped a worthy gentleman of Padua, of mature
years, and he is on the eve of making her his wife, when his son, a
clever young soldier, beguiles Don Annibal into supping with him, and
makes him drink so deep that the prating adventurer at last lets the
cat out of the bag, and confides to his companion that the fair
Clorinda is not the virtuous