la plus absolue avec la fantasie la plus pure." And this is the merit of
_La Boule_: its most humorous inventions have their roots in the truth.

Better even than _La Boule_ is _Tricoche et Cacolet_, which is the name
of a firm of private detectives whose exploits and devices surpass those
imagined by Poe in America, by Wilkie Collins in England, and by
Gaboriau in France. The manifold disguises and impersonations of the two
partners when seeking to outwit each other are as well-motived and as
fertile in comic effect as any of the attempts of Crispin or of some
other of Regnard's interchangeable valets. Is not even the _Legataire
Universel_, Regnard's masterpiece, overrated? To me it is neither higher
comedy nor more provocative of laughter than either _La Boule_ or
_Tricoche et Cacolet_; and the modern plays, as I have said, are based
on a study of life as it is, while the figures of the older comedies are
frankly conventional. Nowhere in Regnard is there a situation equal in
comic power to that in the final act of the _Reveillon_--a situation
Moliere would have been glad to treat.

Especially to be commended in _Tricoche et Cacolet_ is the satire of the
hysterical sentimentality and of the forced emotions born of luxury and
idleness. The parody of the amorous intrigue which is the staple of so
many French plays is as wholesome as it is exhilarating. Absurdity is a
deadly shower-bath to sentimentalism. The method of Meilhac and Halevy
in sketching this couple is not unlike that employed by Mr. W.S. Gilbert
in _H.M.S. Pinafore_ and _The Pirates of Penzance_. Especially to be
noted is the same perfectly serious pushing of the dramatic commonplaces
to an absurd conclusion. There is the same kind of humor too, and the
same girding at the stock tricks of stage-craft--in _H.M.S. Pinafore_ at
the swapping of children in the cradle, and in _Tricoche et Cacolet_ at
the "portrait de ma mere" which has drawn so many tears in modern
melodrama. But MM. Meilhac and Halevy, having made one success, did not
further attempt the same kind of pleasantry--wiser in this than Mr.
Gilbert, who seems to find it hard to write anything else.

As in the _Chateau a Toto_ MM. Meilhac and Halevy had made a modern
perversion of _Dame Blanche_, so in _La Cigale_ did they dress up afresh
the story of the _Fille du R'egiment_. As the poet asks--

Ah, World of ours, are you so gray,
And weary, World, of spinning,
That you repeat the tales t