admiration, are not less
entitled to universal respect." There are few actresses upon any stage
deserving of so high an encomium; there is perhaps not one of whom, as
of Madame Albert, it may with truth be said, that in the several styles
of comedy, vaudeville, and domestic drama, she is unsurpassed, if not
unequalled.

Another pretty woman and excellent actress is the Belgian beauty, Madame
Doche, to whose personal attractions the lithograph prefixed to her
memoir does less than justice. She made her first appearance at the
early age of fourteen, at the Versailles theatre, under the assumed name
of Fleury. She is now only three-and-twenty, but her reputation as a
first-rate actress has been established for the last half-dozen years.
Of her it was said, when she acted at Brussels, her native city, that
she was pretty enough to succeed without talent, and had enough talent
to dispense with beauty. She was one of the first who, with Felix for
her partner, danced the Polka upon the Paris stage, in the piece called
_La Polka en Province_. The dance was then new, and her graceful
performance of it excited enthusiastic applause.

From the _Vaudeville_ to its neighbour and rival, the _Varietes_, the
distance is short; to choose between them, in respect of excellence of
acting, and amount of amusement, is very difficult. The founder of the
_Varietes_ was the witty Mlle. Montansier, who, previously to the first
French Revolution, had the management of the Versailles theatre, as well
as of several of the principal provincial ones. In 1790, she opened the
house now known as the _Palais Royal_, for mixed performances, tragedy,
comedy, and opera. There Mlle. Mars commenced her career. The prosperity
of the company dates from 1798, when the celebrated Brunet joined it.
Brunet was the theatrical joker of his time; and all stray puns and
witticisms, good, bad, and indifferent, were attributed to him as
regularly as, at a later day, and in another country, they have, been
fathered upon a Jekyll and a Rogers. Many of his jests had a political
character, and got him into serious scrapes. This, Mr. Hervey appears to
doubt, but without reason. In various memoirs and reminiscences of the
early years of the present century, we find recorded Brunet's stinging
sarcasms, and the consequent reprimands and even imprisonments be
incurred. "_L'Empereur n'aime que Josephine et la chasse!_" was his
exclamation when Napoleon's project of divorce was