e songs, with which they
were plentifully interlarded. As for the dialogue, it might have been
sparkling with wit and epigram; it was nearly always drowned by
interpolations from one side of the house or the other. When the tumult
became too great, the curtain was simply lowered, to be almost
immediately raised, "discovering" the manager--in his dressing-gown. He
seemed prouder of that piece of attire than the more modern one would be
of the most faultless evening dress. He never appealed to us by invoking
the laws of politeness; he never threatened to have the house cleared.
He simply pointed out to us that the police would inevitably close the
place at the request of the inhabitants of the Rue de Madame if the
noise rose above a certain pitch, and disturbed their peaceful evening
hours, spent in the bosom of their families; which remark was always
followed by the audience intoning as one man Gretry's "Ou peut-on etre
mieux qu'au sein de sa famille?" the orchestra--such an
orchestra!--playing the accompaniment, and the manager himself beating
time. Then he went on. "Yes, messieurs et mesdames, we are here en
famille also, as much en famille as at the Grande-Chaumiere; and has not
M. Lahire obtained from the Government the permission de faire sa police
tout seul! After all, he is providing exercise for your muscles; I am
providing food for your brain."

The speech was a stereotyped one--we all knew it by heart; it invariably
produced its effect in keeping us comparatively quiet for the rest of
the evening, unless a bourgeois happened to come in. Then the uproar
became uncontrollable; no managerial speech could quell it until the
intruder had left the theatre.

By a bourgeois was meant a man who wore broadcloth and a top hat, but
especially the latter. In fact, that headgear was rarely seen within the
inner precincts of the Quartier-Latin, even during the daytime, except
on the head of a professor, or on Thursdays when the collegians--the
term "lyceen" was not invented--were taken for their weekly outing. The
semi-military dress of the present time had not been thought of then.
The collegian wore a top hat, like our Eton boys, a white necktie, a
kind of black quaker coat with a stand-up collar, a very dark blue
waistcoat and trousers, low shoes, and blue woollen stockings. In the
summer, some of them, especially those of the College Rollin, had a
waistcoat and trousers of a lighter texture, and drab instead of blue.
Th