eville, together with a
plethora of restrictions and a scarcity of good plays, combined to bring
about the downfall of the house. No dramatic author cared to quarrel
with a prosperous theatre for the sake of the Panorama-Dramatique, whose
existence was, to say the least, problematical. The management at this
moment, however, was counting on the success of a new melodramatic
comedy by M. du Bruel, a young author who, after working in
collaboration with divers celebrities, had now produced a piece
professedly entirely his own. It had been specially composed for
the leading lady, a young actress who began her stage career as a
supernumerary at the Gaite, and had been promoted to small parts for the
last twelvemonth. But though Mlle. Florine's acting had attracted some
attention, she obtained no engagement, and the Panorama accordingly had
carried her off. Coralie, another actress, was to make her _debut_ at
the same time.

Lucien was amazed at the power wielded by the press. "This gentleman is
with me," said Etienne Lousteau, and the box-office clerks bowed before
him as one man.

"You will find it no easy matter to get seats," said the head-clerk.
"There is nothing left now but the stage box."

A certain amount of time was wasted in controversies with the
box-keepers in the lobbies, when Etienne said, "Let us go behind
the scenes; we will speak to the manager, he will take us into the
stage-box; and besides, I will introduce you to Florine, the heroine of
the evening."

At a sign from Etienne Lousteau, the doorkeeper of the orchestra took
out a little key and unlocked a door in the thickness of the wall.
Lucien, following his friend, went suddenly out of the lighted corridor
into the black darkness of the passage between the house and the wings.
A short flight of damp steps surmounted, one of the strangest of all
spectacles opened out before the provincial poet's eyes. The height of
the roof, the slenderness of the props, the ladders hung with Argand
lamps, the atrocious ugliness of scenery beheld at close quarters, the
thick paint on the actors' faces, and their outlandish costumes, made
of such coarse materials, the stage carpenters in greasy jackets, the
firemen, the stage manager strutting about with his hat on his head,
the supernumeraries sitting among the hanging back-scenes, the ropes
and pulleys, the heterogeneous collection of absurdities, shabby, dirty,
hideous, and gaudy, was something so altogether diffe