THE PALAIS-ROYAL THEATRE.

I.

WHEN the Comédie Française came over last year in a body seeking to win the approval of a London public, it was my pleasant duty to introduce the company to the readers of the Nineteenth Century, and to relate at the same time the history of the great establishment known throughout the world under the name now a legendary one -of the House of Molière.'

I must admit that the Palais-Royal Theatre does not lay claim to so illustrious a past; that its origin is not so remote, and the influence it has exercised over the stage less considerable. Anything affecting French theatrical art cannot fail to be of interest to the polished minds of both worlds. The Palais-Royal is one of those local celebrities-une de ces réputations de quartier, as we say in France-which have not yet taken root on your side of the Channel that I know of, much less on the other side of the Atlantic. But to turn their attention to all subjects alike, great or small, bearing on the march of civilisation, is the distinctive trait and peculiar merit of that admirable body-the British public. They will read perhaps, not without some pleasure, a few correct particulars respecting the new company which is come to solicit their commendation, and the circumstances that gave birth to the body.

I need scarcely say I will endeavour in the present sketch to dwell less on matters of detail, not likely to be of much interest for foreigners, than on the broad outlines whence the Palais-Royal Theatre draws its characteristic features.

The generation preceding mine, and the two or three that came into the world after me, can testify to the important position maintained by this theatre in Parisian pleasures from the year 1835 to within a period of a few years. To those who were not witnesses of the fact nothing could convey an exact idea of the celebrity it achieved when other theatres were in question and the public would scrutinise the playbill before securing a seat: with the Palais-Royal no hesitation ever occurred. People were sure of being amused: 'You are bound to laugh there' was a stereotyped phrase having the force of a prejudice-than which we know nothing is more tenacious

and will not bear discussion. The thing was accepted; traditions would have it that one had to laugh at the Palais-Royal, and laugh people did. They laughed on their way upstairs to the boxes; the footlights were scarcely lit before the laughing began. The actors opened their mouths; but without taking the trouble to make out what they had said the audience broke out into laughter, cracked their sides and went into fits; it was 'the thing.'

Every evening at half-past seven Véry's, Véfour's, the Trois Frères Provençaux, and the innumerable two-francs and one-francsixty ordinaries' lower down the galleries (où sont les neiges d'Antan !), disgorged their thousands of diners, mainly country folk and foreigners. Some-the select few, alas!-bent on bracing themselves up in the spring of classic play, wended their way to the Comédie Française: the rest would flock to enjoy the broad jokes at the Palais-Royal. The gardens of that name, then the fashionable rendez-vous, the centre of Paris, the great Vanity Fair of the time, added to the animation of the crowd around the doors of the theatre in no small degree. No one had it in him to find fault with the theatre for being small, narrow, ill-arranged, uncomfortable, and dusty. You went there to laugh and cared for nothing else.

A bridegroom would promise his young wife to take her, together with a select party of friends, for an evening's enjoyment at the Palais-Royal. It seemed that the right of witnessing a play at the Palais-Royal Theatre, like that of wearing a cashmere shawl and diamonds, constituted a natural and indisputable due attaching to the marriage day. I shall go to the Palais-Royal!' the young woman would blushingly say in a whisper to her bosom friend; as if such were the ideal of forbidden pleasures!

And we, shut up within the four walls of that prison yclept a college, we, too, dreamed of the Palais-Royal. We gloated at the right of the five-francs piece that was to open to our gaze the mysterious portals of that Eldorado some holiday evening. And how proud we were the next day, and in high feather, to be able to tell an admiring and envious circle of schoolfellows where we had been, and to imitate the gnouf, gnouf! of Grassot!

The prestige of the theatre lasted fifty years with us; and it has only been on the wane for the last two or three years. So persistent a vogue cannot be ascribed solely to a caprice of fashion; fashion is far more fickle. No; this success rests on causes which it were worth while to seek and explain.

II.

The Palais-Royal Theatre dates back to 1783 and was built by Louis, architect to the Duke of Orléans. I will not retrace its vicissitudes between that epoch and 1831, when for the first time the

house as we knew it, and as it still exists, was inaugurated. The history would have no interest for an English public; and I see but one fact worthy of mention, and that is that Mademoiselle Montansier took over the lesseeship of the house in 1790 under a licence from the king. This circumstance explains how, when in 1848 a general erasing of the word royal from all public buildings was all the rage, the theatre was styled Théâtre de la Montansier,' a name it is sometimes designated by at the present day. Here it was that Mademoiselle Mars, while still a child, made her début under the auspices of Mademoiselle Montansier. But those prehistoric times have left no trace in our memories.

The Palais-Royal, the real theatre, the one we have to speak about, dates from the 6th of June, 1831, the day on which the house reopened under the management of M. Dormeuil, who had taken M. Poirson, brother of the manager of the Gymnase Theatre, as sleeping partner.

Expressing myself for an English Review, I feel bound to explain several peculiar circumstances more familiar to a French mind. The managers of former times in no respect resembled those we have to deal with to-day or those you have in London. They were not men who by reason of their fortune and spirit of enterprise undertook the lesseeship of a theatre, got up a company, played three or four pieces, and, the season over, took out a new lease or went somewhere else.

They held, on the contrary, a kind of official position under a privilege granted by the State, the duration of which extended over a lengthened period-in virtue of the very deed constituting them managers bound down to a particular house and even to a particular style of plays they were prohibited from deviating from. The Minister who to a certain extent was responsible during the period of the lessee or lessees' management chose only men celebrated for their experience and well-known taste for the stage; and then he reserved to himself the right of supervision and reprimand.

These managers of the past were neither stupid autocrats who waited in their sanctum for authors to bring them plays or actors to proffer their services, nor were they dealers in dramatic literature eager to prey on the weaknesses of the public. They were, on the contrary, men of enterprise, cultured mind and refined taste, who had formed their own ideas as to what a theatre should be, and strove to realise their ideal. They waited personally on the most eminent authors of the day, suggested subjects to them, encouraged them in their labours, and once the play completed, thanks to their perfect mastery of all details concerning the getting-up, became, so to say, their kind colleagues. Sometimes they found means to bring together two playwrights who had never seen each other before, but who were got to work smoothly in common, and ended by becoming as one much to the advantage of the play. They read every

manuscript left with them; and when perchance they came across a happy idea or an original situation in the inchoate work of a would-be author, they submitted it to an experienced dramatist, and suggested the best means of putting the play on its legs.wan

And the same as regards their company. Not content with engaging an actor on the strength of the fame he had achieved, they took the trouble of doing a round of the provincial theatres; and directly their attention was attracted by any young talent, suiting their taste, they would go to the pains of developing it themselves; so solicitous were they ever about the general effect. First in attending at the theatre, they were the last to leave it. And in this manner, by dint of constant and, watchful care on their part, the theatre under their management became as a living organism, instinct, with their spirit. Thus a theatre got to be known, not by its own, but by the name of its manager; it was a reflection of his taste, an extension of his individuality.

Paris has not forgotten that race of able managers who have, alas! disappeared, leaving but sparse and weakly heirs behind. Who among us does not remember the eccentric Harel; the lordly Hostein; that mad brain overflowing with wit named Marc Fournier; and above all and before all, the prudent Montigny, king of stagemanagers, whose loss we had to deplore but a few short weeks ago? Dormeuil had a right to a special place in that constellation; for it is he who, through a gift of exquisite intuition, his consummate science, and incessant labour, created the Palais-Royal, inaugurated its peculiar style of play, and laid the foundations of such solid traditions that they survived him twenty years, and only barely begin to pale under the influence of time..

His commencement was marked by a stroke of genius. There existed at the time in Paris two dramatic authors, both well known and of equal merit, but whose opposite qualities were thought by everyone unlikely ever to blend-Dumanoir and Bayard.

Dumanoir was a thorough gentleman, as correct in style as he was in his person, who possessed, and even affected in his speech and writings for the stage, a refined and delicate turn of mind, It was said of him in Paris that his plays, like his linen, smelt of lavender or bergamot. Bayard, on the other hand, who would hew his plays as with a hatchet, had all the gift of versatility; but his style was rough, and his levity often verged on licentiousness.

Dormeuil conceived the idea of bringing them together; this was as good as trying to harness an English thoroughbred in the same shafts with a horse of the huge Percheron breed. The odds were against the team pulling together; but it turned out that Dormeuil was not mistaken in his conception. He did not stop to listen to the objections raised by the two authors, but followed his bent; the event proved him to be right. They signed an engage

ment to supply him every year with two plays each, one of these to consist of several acts. He secured by this means a goodly fund of stock plays. For the rest he trusted to current production—a piece coaxed here and there out of Scribe, the successful author of the Vaudeville, brought by the well-known playwrights Brazier, Mélesville, De Courcy, Rozier or others, whose names it is unnecessary to mention. Then came the question of getting a company together. Nothing is more difficult in these days, for the number of actors thoroughly up to their business has considerably decreased-they may almost be said to have disappeared. Then, however, the only difficulty was to choose. M. Dormeuil was, nevertheless, happy in his choice. In the composition of his first company figure the names of many actors whom our fathers, by dint of extolling them, taught us to esteem; as well as a few more whom we ourselves applauded later on, while in the zenith of their celebrity. Thus in the inauguration play, people could see on the bill Lepeintre, senior, who excelled in the part of a soldier-farmer; Sainville, a comedian with a sympathetic yet incisive and joyous voice; Boutin, whose natural acting, discreet and refined, put old playgoers in mind of Tiercelin; Paul Mine, a most original comic; and among actresses Madame Théodore and Madame Lili Bourguoin, who turned our fathers' heads.

This first nucleus was shortly afterwards joined by Alcide Tousez, destined to make his way very soon to the first place among comics, and whose mad drollery is simply inimitable; l'Héritier, then a young man, and now at the head of the company, his three-score and twelve notwithstanding. Then-a circumstance that will astonish English people-Samson and Régnier, the two illustrious members of the Comédie Française, the incomparable comedians, appeared on the boards of the Palais-Royal. Que voulez-vous!

Souvent la parodie est tout près du sublime,

Et le Palais-Royal du Théâtre-Français,

as was sung in a piece reviewing the events of the year. Finally, there came one who was to be the shining light of the young theatre, the wonderful actress whose name became a household word throughout Europe-Virginie Déjazet. The regular engagement of this charming actress, who had seemed unable to settle down anywhere, is the master-stroke of M. Dormeuil's management. She had wandered from theatre to theatre, everywhere exciting the envy and jealousy of the female portion of the house, who got rid of her either by slow and underhand means, or drove her out openly. Her strange destiny had hitherto led her by turns from success to success, and from disappointment to disappointment. She had been compelled on two occasions to beat a retreat before the ill-will her wonderful success could not fail to exasperate. Taking refuge in the provinces, she had resigned herself to the task of winning the hearts of country audiences.