that the _Roi Candaule_ was originally
an act of _La Boule_, and the _Photographe_ seems as though it had
dropped from _La Vie Parisienne_ by mistake. In M. Meilhac's earlier
five-act plays, the _Vertu de Celimene_ and the _Petit fils de
Mascarille_, there is great power of conception, a real grip on
character, but the main action is clogged with tardy incidents, and so
the momentum is lost. In these comedies the influence of the new school
of Alexandre Dumas _fils_ is plainly visible. And the inclination toward
the strong, not to say violent, emotions which Dumas and Angier had
imported into comedy is still more evident in _Fanny Lear_, the first
five-act comedy which Meilhac and Halevy wrote together, and which was
brought out in 1868. The final situation is one of truth and immense
effectiveness, and there is great vigor in the creation of character.
The decrepit old rake, the Marquis de Noriolis, feeble in his folly and
wandering in helplessness, but irresistible when aroused, is a striking
figure; and still more striking is the portrait of his wife, now the
Marquise de Noriolis, but once Fanny Lear the adventuress--a woman who
has youth, beauty, wealth, everything before her, if it were not for the
shame which is behind her: gay and witty, and even good-humored, she is
inflexible when she is determined; hers is a velvet manner and an iron
will. The name of Fanny Lear may sound familiar to some readers because
it was given to an American adventuress in Russia by a grand-ducal
admirer.

After _Fanny Lear_ came _Froufrou_, the lineal successor of _The
Stranger_ as the current masterpiece of the lachrymatory drama. Nothing
so tear-compelling as the final act of _Froufrou_ had been seen on the
stage for half a century or more. The death of Froufrou was a watery
sight, and for any chance to weep we are many of us grateful. And yet it
was a German, born in the land of Charlotte and Werther,--it was Heine
who remarked on the oddity of praising the "dramatic poet who possesses
the art of drawing tears--a talent which he has in common with the
meanest onion." It is noteworthy that it was by way of Germany that
English tragedy exerted its singular influence on French comedy.
Attracted by the homely power of pieces like _The Gamester_ and _Jane
Shore_, Diderot in France and Lessing in Germany attempted the _tragedie
bourgeoise_, but the right of the "tradesmen's tragedies"--as Goldsmith
called them--to exist at all was questi