oung _valet de comedie_ in Moliere,
Regnard, and Marivaux, he is incomparable. I shall never forget the
really infernal brilliancy of his Mascarille in "L'Etourdi." His
volubility, his rapidity, his impudence and gayety, his ringing,
penetrating voice, and the shrill trumpet-note of his laughter, make
him the ideal of the classic serving-man of the classic young
lover--half rascal and half good fellow. Coquelin has lately had two or
three immense successes in the comedies of the day. His Duc de
Sept-Monts, in the famous "Etrangere" of Alexandre Dumas, last winter,
was the capital creation of the piece; and in the revival, this winter,
of Augier's "Paul Forestier," his Adolphe de Beaubourg, the young man
about town, consciously tainted with _commonness_, and trying to shake
off the incubus, seemed, while one watched it and listened to it, the
last word of delicately humorous art. Of Coquelin's eminence in the old
comedies M. Sarcey speaks with a certain picturesque force: "No one is
better cut out to represent those bold and magnificent rascals of the
old repertory, with their boisterous gayety, their brilliant fancy, and
their superb extravagance, who give to their buffoonery _je ne sais
quoi d'epique_. In these parts one may say of Coquelin that he is
incomparable. I prefer him to Got in such cases, and even to Regnier,
his master. I never saw Monrose, and cannot speak of him. But good
judges have assured me that there was much that was factitious in the
manner of this eminent comedian, and that his vivacity was a trifle
mechanical. There is nothing whatever of this in Coquelin's manner.
The eye, the nose, and the voice--the voice above all--are his most
powerful means of action. He launches his _tirades_ all in one breath,
with full lungs, without bothering too much over the shading of
details, in large masses, and he possesses himself only the more
strongly of the public, which has a great sense of _ensemble_. The
words that must be detached, the words that must decisively 'tell,'
glitter in this delivery with the sonorous ring of a brand-new louis
d'or. Crispin, Scapin, Figaro, Mascarille have never found a more
valiant and joyous interpreter."

I should say that this was enough about the men at the Theatre
Francais, if I did not remember that I have not spoken of Delaunay. But
Delaunay has plenty of people to speak for him; he has, in especial,
the more eloquent half of humanity--the ladies. I suppose that of all