nation of the anecdotes in
question. For the severest theatrical audience that can be gathered in
America to-day--at Wallack's, at Booth's, or wherever decorum is
supposed to be most preserved--could not for a moment compare, in the
severity of its artistic judgments and the sternness of its
requirements, with the audiences which Lemaitre so boldly trifled with.
And the fact illustrates, as nothing else could, the prodigious
popularity of the man and the marvelous power of his art. At the
_repetition generale_ of _Toussaint L'Ouverture_ the cream of artistic
Paris was present. The members of the Comedie Francaise came in force;
Lamartine occupied a stage-box; the house was full of poets, novelists,
painters, artists and authors of every description. Yet on _this_ solemn
night Lemaitre had one of his explosions of temper, and stopped the play
to publicly scold the stage-carpenter for setting a scene wrong in some
trifling detail. The incident was destructive to the power of the play,
or would have been in an ordinary case; but before the evening was over
Lemaitre regained perfect control of himself and swept his audience
with him as by storm.

Before passing his sixtieth year Lemaitre turned over a new leaf. He
abandoned his dissipated habits and set to work to take care of his
health and his morals. Better late than never. He had always borne a
good reputation for generosity: he now set about winning one for virtue.
He devoted himself to his children--of whom he had four--with exemplary
care and solicitude. The Antinoeus of former days is now, as has been
said, but a ruin, but what a magnificent ruin! He has no voice, but
voice seems hardly necessary to him, so eloquent is his pantomime, so
expressive are his features, so full of fire his great black eyes when
acting. Several years ago, while still in his full vigor, he sustained a
loss of his teeth, which temporarily destroyed his articulation. He was
playing in a piece called _The Black Doctor_ at the time, and did not
intermit his representations on account of his misfortune. But one who
was present on the occasion relates that the audience heard him repeat
again and again, in ever-varying tones, "Ellla marrr montaaat tojors"
("Et la mer montait toujours"--"And the sea still rose!"), and shuddered
and sobbed under the pathos of his tones for more than twenty minutes
without appearing to notice the absurdity of the language. And for fully
fifteen years Frederic Lemait