of the "Supplice d'une Femme," or as Julie in Octave
Feuillet's lugubrious drama of that name, could be more effectively
played than she plays them. She can carry a great weight without
flinching; she has what the French call her "authority"; and in
declamation she sometimes unrolls her fine voice, as it were, in long
harmonious waves and cadences, the sustained power of which her younger
rivals must often envy her.

I am drawing to the close of these rather desultory observations
without having spoken of the four ladies commemorated by M. Sarcey in
the publication which lies before me; and I do not know that I can
justify my tardiness otherwise than by saying that writing and reading
about artists of so extreme a personal brilliancy is poor work, and
that the best the critic can do is to wish his reader may see them,
from a quiet _fauteuil_, as speedily and as often as possible. Of
Madeleine Brohan, indeed, there is little to say. She is a delightful
person to listen to, and she is still delightful to look at in spite of
that redundancy of contour which time has contributed to her charm. But
she has never been ambitious, and her talent has had no particularly
original quality. It is a long time since she created an important
part; but in the old repertory her rich, dense voice, her charming
smile, her mellow, tranquil gayety, always give extreme pleasure. To
hear her sit and _talk_, simply, and laugh and play with her fan, along
with Mme. Plessy, in Moliere's "Critique de l'Ecole des Femmes," is an
entertainment to be remembered. For Mme. Plessy I should have to mend
my pen and begin a new chapter; and for Mlle. Sarah Bernhardt no less a
ceremony would suffice. I saw Mme. Plessy for the first time in Emile
Augier's "Aventuriere," when, as I mentioned, I first saw Regnier. This
is considered by many persons her best part, and she certainly carries
it off with a high hand; but I like her better in characters which
afford more scope to her talents for comedy. These characters are very
numerous, for her activity and versatility have been extraordinary. Her
comedy of course is "high"; it is of the highest conceivable kind, and
she has often been accused of being too mincing and too artificial. I
should never make this charge, for, to me, Mme. Plessy's _minauderies_,
her grand airs and her arch-refinements, have never been anything but
the odorous swayings and queenly tossings of some splendid garden
flower. Never had an ac