I the

I could possibly devise of wearying your attention, and mayhap of exhausting your patience altogether, would be to continue the plan adopted in my preceding article, and inflict upon you a detailed description of all the Parisian theatres seriatim, including their ups and downs, triumphs and bankruptcies, and other incidental accidents. But rassurez-vous, as poor Félix used to say, 'je n'en ferai rien.'

'It is never too late to mend,' truly and originally remarks Mr. Charles Reade; and therefore, if you please, we will henceforth go on a new tack, eschew dates, and, as Pelham happily expresses it, be as rudderless as possible.

Besides, are not all these things written in the delectable work of M. Brazier, yclept Les Petits Théâtres de Paris' (the 18mo edition is the most complete, by the way); and even in a certain volume, to which the inditer of these lines pleads guilty, and which may perhaps still be found on the shelves of some dramatic enthusiast? Sufficient shall it be for us that the Théâtre des Variétés still stands on the Boulevard Montmartre, and long may it remain there!

A strange creature was its original founder, Mdlle. Montansier. Successively actress at Guadaloupe, and manager at Versailles, under the special patronage of Marie-Antoinette, she finally settled in Paris, invested part of her savings in her theatrical venture, and with the rest opened a salon, where she received the best society of the day. Barras (always to be met with

and one evening brought le petit Bonaparte, who had just attained his twenty-fifth year, to sup with the ci-devant actress, then on the verge of sixty. Nay more, anxious to further his young friend's fortune (for la Montansier was still, as times went, a wealthy parti), he tried to negotiate a match between them. This, however, failed, and she consoled herself by wedding the actor Neuville, at whose death the old lady, at the age of seventyeight, fell in love with, and is said to have married, the rope-dancer Forioso.

One of the regular habitués of the theatre was Cambacérès, the chancelier of the Empire, and as renowned a gourmand as Brillat-Savarin himself. There exists a caricature, entitled 'La Promenade au Palais Royal,' representing him with his two inseparables, the exProcureur-Général d'Aigrefeuille and the Marquis de Villevieille, leisurely undergoing the process of digestion during a stroll, or rather waddle, through the garden, until the arrival of the hour which was to summon him to his box at the Variétés, the magnet of attraction being (dit-on) a black-eyed houri, named Mdlle. Cuizot.

*

I arrived in Paris too late to see either Potier or Brunet, but had, fortunately, several opportunities of enjoying the refined comedy of Vernet, and the inimitable drollery of Odry. The Père de la Débutante of the former was a masterpiece of acting, of which no description can give an adequate idea. So happy a blending of nature and art, of quaint humour and strong

dramatic effect, I never saw before, nor shall certainly ever see again. Vernet, like many of his brother artists, betook himself, after quitting the stage, to the country, pour planter ses choux, as he said; but that mysterious yearning, which all retired actors have more or less experienced, and which has been aptly termed 'la nostalgie des planches,' soon brought him back to Paris, to die there, alas! in his fifty-ninth year. At the sale of his effects, the old umbrella, which he had so triumphantly carried through all the performances of 'Ma Femme et mon Parapluie,' was purchased by his comrade Bouffé for forty francs.

I have often amused myself by trying to establish a comparison between the last-named performer and our own William Farren in the part of Michel Perrin, and never could arrive at any other conclusion than that it was a 'drawn battle.' Bouffé was, undoubtedly, the more finished comedian of the two; but his byplay, his ficelles, were always the same; whereas Farren more than compensated the disadvantage of coming second into the field by a greater variety of tone and gesture, which rendered his version of the character exceedingly attractive. In any case, the impersonation of the old Curé by either was an intellectual treat, which neither I nor my readers are ever likely to see surpassed.

I can only say of Odry that he was the most unapproachable farceur that ever convulsed an audience. His face was so marvellously comic that, like Liston's, one glance at it was sufficient to excite a most contagious roar of laughter, while the extraordinary antics in which he delighted to indulge were such as no mortal gravity could resist.

VOL. XXV.NO. CL.

His 'en v'là assez,' in 'Madame Gibon et Madame Pochet,' and, above all, his famous phrase in 'Les Saltimbanques,'' Cette malle est-elle à nous? Elle doit être à nous!' were indescribable.

On the night of his farewell performance, after he had been applauded until the house rang, and recalled until the spectators had no voices left, he came forward, and tendered his last adieu to the audience as follows:

'Ah! messieurs, vous êtes tous des gâte-Odry' (gâteaux de riz)!

His old associate, Mdlle. Flore, the never-to-be-forgotten Atala of 'Les Saltimbanques,' finally quitted the stage in 1853, after a theatrical career of fifty years. Her subsequently published memoirs have been generally attributed to the vaudevilliste Dumersan.

Two brothers, styled respectively Lepeintre aîné and Lepeintre jeune, after having gained golden opinions, the elder at the Gymnase, where his name is still identified with the 'Soldat Laboureur,' and the younger at the Vaudeville, where he served for many years as compère and butt to Arnal, may be said to have made their final dramatic exit at this theatre. Lepeintre aîné is best known to modern playgoers by his clever creation of le Bénéficiaire. After his retirement he became proprietor of a hôtel garni, the ill success of which, I fear, embittered the close of his life.

His brother, familiarly called le gros Lepeintre, had a figure somewhat resembling the tun of Heidelberg. He was a notorious punster, and a collection of jokes by or ascribed to him was nightly hawked about the theatre with the 'Entr'acte' and 'Journal du Soir,' as 'Les Calembours de Monsieur Lepeintre jeune, vingt-cinq centimes!' 2 N

doubtless, proud) of his physical enormity may be seen by the following extract from a letter, in answer to a request for his autograph:

'Ainsi, ce mince papier va donc survivre à mon énorme individu! Tout s'éteint dans la nature-les plus grands hommes, et même les plus gros! J'en serai la preuve.

'LEPEINTRE jeune.'

One by one the old celebrities of the Variétés have gradually passed away, and a new generation of actors has sprung up in their place. Before speaking of these, however, I would fain offer my poor tribute of admiration and regret to the memory of a great artist who has lately been taken from us, and whose name, though his proudest triumphs were won on other boards, is yet in some measure connected with this theatre. I allude to Lafont.

The first piece I ever saw at the Variétés, as far back as 1843, was 'Le Capitaine Roquefinette,' a comedy written expressly for him, and something in the style of Le Chevalier du Guet.' Lafont was then a brilliant cavalier, in the plenitude of his powers, and at the zenith of his reputation. His subsequent career at the Gymnase, where he mainly contributed to the success of 'Le Père Prodigue' and Les Vieux Garçons,' is well known; nor was his last creation, that of Le Centenaire,' at the Ambigu, less remarkable.

In him the dramatic art has lost one of its best and most popular exponents-one of the few who, on the stage and off it, retain their own individuality, and in whom alone we find that peculiar cachet of elegance and refinement, the distinguishing mark between the gentleman and the cabotin.

And now, friendly reader, as it

warded for having borne me company so far, I will introduce you to a part of the theatre inaccessible to vulgar eyes and footsteps, to which the initiated alone have right of entry, but whose mysteries my 'Open Sesame 'will at once disclose to you the foyer. Not the public resort so called, whither the cramped-up frequenters of stalls and pit betake themselves during the entr'actes, and wander disconsolately up and down, or pause to admire the photographs of the leading artists, ingeniously advertised on the walls, until recalled to their places by the tinkling of a bell-not that dreariest of all dreary quarterdecks, but the foyer des artistes, Anglicè the green-room.

Entering the Passage des Panoramas from the Boulevard, we follow its centre gallery about halfway; then diverging to the left into one of the narrower arteries, we arrive at an open door, at which an individual in a brazen helmet is lounging. This is one of the pompiers or firemen of the theatre. He it is (or rather was, or pompiers are proverbially inconstant) who, enamoured of a fair blanchisseuse de fin, Mdlle. Augustine (familiarly shortened to Titine), indited to her the following billet. 'Je t'attends dans la cour, pour te faire la mienne.'

Nor was the language of the damsel less flowery. On one occasion she had climbed the five flights of stairs leading to her sweetheart's attic, and having vainly rapped with her pretty knuckles (there being no bell), drew a piece of chalk from her pocket, and inscribed on the door, in (I fear) doubtful calligraphy: 'Je suis Venus.

'LA TITINE.'

*

Passing through the above-men