omary biennial summer festival in the Midi--and
their command of the Paris newspapers (whereof the high places largely
are filled by these brave writers of the South) enabled them to make all
Paris and all France ring with their account of the beauty of the Orange
spectacle.

Out of their enthusiasm came practical results. A national interest in
the theatre was aroused; and so strong an interest that the deputy from
the Department of the Drome--M. Maurice Faure, a man of letters who
finds time to be also a statesman--brought to a successful issue his
long-sustained effort to obtain from the government a grant of funds to
be used not merely for the preservation of the building, but toward its
restoration. Thanks to his strong presentation of the case, forty
thousand francs was appropriated for the beginning of the work: a sum
that has sufficed to pay for the rebuilding of twenty of the tiers. And
thus, at last, a substantial beginning was made in the recreation of the
majestic edifice; and more than a beginning was made in the realization
of the Felibrien project for establishing a national theatre in
provincial France.

The festival of last August--again promoted by the Felibres, and mainly
organized by M. Jules Claretie, the Director of the Comedie
Francaise--was held, therefore, in celebration of specific achievement;
and in two other important particulars it differed from all other
modern festivals at Orange. First, it was directly under government
patronage--M. Leygues, minister of public instruction and the fine arts,
bringing two other cabinet ministers with him, having come down from
Paris expressly to preside over it; and, secondly, its brilliantly
successful organization and accomplishment under such high auspices have
gone far toward creating a positive national demand for a realization of
the Felibrien dream: that the theatre, again perfect, shall become the
home of the highest dramatic art, and a place of periodic pilgrimage,
biennial or even annual, for the whole of the art-loving world.

I am disposed to regard myself as more than usually fortunate in that I
was able to be a part of that most brilliant festival, and I am deeply
grateful to my Felibrien brethren to whom I owe my share in it. With an
excellent thoughtfulness they sent me early word of what was forward
among them, and so enabled me to get from New York to Paris in time to
go down with the Felibres and the Cigaliers by train to Lyons, and
t