ius who have since illumined the French theatre, was so much outraged by the treatment she received one night that she abruptly retired from the stage in the height of her fame and powers, and could never be induced to return to it. It was this famous actress who, with Lekain, introduced costumes congruous with the historic scenes of the plays upon the French stage. Previously to this, the French artists were wont to appear in magnificent toilets, indeed, but in costumes utter songs before the court, with ample grimace and broadly suggestive gesture; making, indeed, a mountebank of himself. After these performances, the noble company, stirred by plentiful champagne, and put in wild humor by the play, would indulge in frolics which are surely amazing to read of as happening in so polite a society. Madame de Genlis relates how on one occasion "they upset the tables and furniture; they scattered twenty carafes of water about the room; I finally got away at half-past one, wearied out, pelted with handkerchiefs, and leav-ly out of keeping with the legendary and historical ing Madame de Clarence hoarse, with her dress torn to shreds, a scratch on her arm, and a bruise on her forehead, but delighted that she had given such a gay supper, and flattered with the idea of its being the talk of the next day." In such manner the butterflies of the court danced and gamboled on the already smoking volcano of revolution. characters they assumed. Juno appeared in a broad hoop-dress, with powdered hair and veil; Jove's head was adorned with plumes, and he wore topboots; Julius Cæsar wore full-bottom wigs, kneebreeches, and frilled shirts; gods and goddesses, heroes and heroines, always appeared in the most fashionable and elegant attire of the period. The first performance in which the costumes were in harmony with the play was that of Voltaire's “Orphelin en Chine," in which the actors appeared in Chinese dresses, Mademoiselle Clairon among the rest. She discarded the panniers which had hitherto been invariably used on the stage, and Lekain in like manner tabooed the traditional plumes and tinsel. Even in those days of dramatic luxury, the theatres were Side by side with this theatrical taste and rage of the great people, the theatre rapidly grew and flourished. Crébillon rose to provide comedies with which to vary the monotony of always listening to the jokes of Scapin and the humorous complaints of the Malade Imaginaire. The Italians were allowed to return, and were the best company of comic artists in Paris for many years. French comic opera, rising from the humble beginnings of a fair-lighted by nothing better than tallow-candles; and show, attained a permanent footing of popularity, and has ever since preserved its position as the “Opéra Comique." The Théâtre Français, reviving from the gloom of Madame de Maintenon's displeasure, now took its place as the foremost dramatic temple of Europe and the world, a place which it retains to this day. Early in the last century, the company of the Français was noted for adhering to the highest standards of the dramatic art, and for being in itself composed of the most accomplished artists on any stage. This company was, indeed, a business association as well, and managed the affairs of the theatre by a majority vote. Above them, however, was the royal censorship, exercised by four gentlemen of the bedchamber selected by the king; these acted as arbitrators between the public and the actors, and “also intervened in cases of misunderstanding between the actors themselves; saw that the regulations in regard to the theatre were carried out, granted retiring pensions, ordered the début of a new actor, sanctioned the programme for each evening, and sometimes reprimanded any actor who failed in his task." It is curious to observe that, while the theatre was held in such high esteem by every class in the middle of the eighteenth century, and was peculiarly fostered by royalty and high society, the actors and actresses themselves were under both an ecclesiastical and a social ban. Actors were refused the offices of the Church; they were "vagabonds," as in England in the time of Shakespeare, and from society were outcasts. The audiences assumed it as a palpable right to hiss and stamp them down, and even to pelt them on the stage; and woe to the actor who resented this treatment! Mademoiselle Clairon, the first of the long line of actresses of gen these were snuffed between the acts by attendants. It was not until 1784 that tallow-candles were replaced by oil-lamps. The prices of admission, toward the end of the century, were forty-eight cents for the pit, and a dollar and a quarter for the orchestra and first tier of boxes. The love of opera increased as the century advanced, and the Royal Academy of Music became a subject of speculation among financiers; but was almost always in debt, and was soon abandoned by successive managers. Finally, its management was assumed by the city of Paris, which sublet it to contractors. The Palais Royal Theatre became the rival of the Academy, and the music of Gluck and Piccini, the forerunners of the great German and Italian operatic composers, was performed there to the great delight of the theatre-goers. The staff of this theatre comprised three hundred persons in 1780, including actors, actresses, ballet - dancers, musicians, inspectors, and business subordinates. At the same time there were two singing and dancing schools near by the theatre, where pupils were prepared to go upon the stage. There was also a certain café in the Rue des Boucheries, where, at Easter-time, all the actors, both of Paris and the provinces, who were out of engagements, and wished to secure new ones, were wont to meet as at an exchange. Meanwhile, theatres sprang up during the century in the provincial towns, and in these it was the custom to play pieces composed by local dramatists, and to receive such strolling companies as came into the neighborhood to entertain the people. The common people of Paris in the eighteenth century had ample resources for festivity and pastime. It is said that the Sundays and fête-days, on which the masses were wont to abandon work and to give themselves up to unstinted recreation, absorbed nearly a third of the laboring year. Voltaire complained bitterly of so much waste of valuable time, and estimated that the popular holidays deprived the state of labor worth a hundred and eighty million francs. The occurrence of a holiday was really the loss of more than the day itself; for "the men work half-time on Saturday, and on Monday sleep off the effects of their dissipation; and if there should happen to be a saint's-day in the middle of the week, their employers do not see anything of them the other four days." Yet it is clear, from the narratives of the time, that there was perhaps less actual drunkenness in Paris in the reign of Louis XV. than at any other period. Intoxicated persons were sternly marched off to the lock-up, and spread about, a small stage occupied a corner, and wine and edibles were distributed to the frequenters, while they were regaled with fiddling and dancing. Notable among the old-time guinguettes were three called the Grande and the Petite Courtille, and the "Tambour du Jour," kept by that fat and ideal mine host, the famous Ramponeaux. The latter was not only resorted to by the rag-tag and bobtail of Paris, but not seldom by the quality. It was even said that Marie Antoinette on one occasion supped at Ramponeaux's in disguise, being accompanied thither by the gay and reckless D'Artois. Often, outside the larger guinguettes, there were shows of marvels, and mountebank displays; quacks and peddlers also drove there "a roaring trade." An Italian traveler speaks of seeing a number of these gentry : only released on the payment of a fine. On the other hand, there was a great deal of "guzzling" done at the guinguettes, cabarets, and cafés; and there must have been many days of public festival when nearly the whole population of Paris were in a condition of mellowness from the free imbibing of cheap white wine. An Italian nobleman, who visited Paris in the later years of Louis the WellBeloved, thought he could observe that the popular recreations were not of an evil tendency, and were more harmless than those of other great capitals. The chief resorts of the common people were the three kinds of places of entertainment just mentioned. The guinguette was more modest than the tavern or the café. It was often a mere tent, pitched in some open space outside the barriers, or under rows of trees in the city itself, where tables were "Some offer to replace teeth that have fallen out; others, to fix glass eyes; and all of them are able to cure hopeless diseases. Another has a secret for beautifying the visage, and for imparting perpetual youth; while a third effaces wrinkles, and makes wooden legs." The modern café, which is now so popular, and to which all the world resorts, seems to have come into vogue as a prevailing fashion after the regency had set the example of social revelry to all France. The celebrated Café Procope gave the impetus to this mode of entertainment. The object of the café was to furnish a resort in a convenient quarter of the town where people could sit and sip their coffee, rest, and gossip about the news. There was but little heavy drinking at the café, nor were its frequenters addicted to reckless gambling. They read the A lower order of resort, for poorer and less temperate classes, and one that imitated the café, was what are still called the estaminets. At these a great deal of smoking and consumption of strong drink went on; they were frequented mostly by artisans and laborers. The eighteenth century was, in Paris, emphatically a period of indolent and sedentary recreation. Tennis, bowls, skittles, and archery, had been pretty much given up by young men of good family, and even the apprentices no longer displayed their prowess in foot-ball and running matches on the outer boulevards. A few only of the athletic games which had been in vogue in the previous century survived; among these were such games as prisoner's-base, rounders, and battledoor and shuttlecock. Even swimming was almost a lost art among the well-bred youth, while the only skaters to be seen on the Seine, when at rare intervals during the winter it was frozen over, were Hollanders who had strayed thither, and wished to show off this peculiarly Dutch accomplishment. The most popular every-day recreation of the Parisians of this period was the promenade; and Paris afforded, in many of its quarters, agreeable scenes upon which to saunter up and down, and chat and observe each other. "We have two sorts of promenades in Paris," writes Dufresny; "the one to which people go to see and be seen; the other, to be seen by nobody." The lady of fashion had ample opportunity to display her new silks and gewgaws; while there were plenty of shady retreats where the grisette might saunter with her apprenticelover in the seclusion proper for such companionship. The chief resorts for promenading were the inner and outer boulevards, the Jardin des Plantes, the Tuileries gardens, the Place Royale, the Place Louis XV., the Luxembourg, and the Palais Royal; while in the suburbs, notably at Bicêtre, Gentilly, Belleville, and Vincennes, were parks and avenues which were all alive on Sundays and fête-days with merry multitudes of the common people, who visited the guinguettes on their way to and fro. The Bois de Boulogne, Champs Élysées, and other places, were reserved for carriages and horseback-riders; and on a pleasant summer afternoon these places must have afforded a gay and brilliant spectacle. The scene in the Palais Royal gardens at the fashionable hour for promenading is described as a most spirited one. It was a custom with the ladies of fashion to appear there in full dress just before and just after the opera, and to sit on the benches under a particular clump of chestnut-trees; while their gallants stood about, fanned them, praised their toilets, and offered them bonbons from gold or ivory boxes, and the common people gazed admiringly on them at a respectful distance. Another corner of the gardens was the habitual resort of those who came thither to read the papers; these clustered under the Cracow-Tree. Here and there were set out tables, where whoever chose could be supplied with tiny cups of coffee or glasses of liqueur from the neighboring cafés. People took their ease at the Palais Royal, lolled about upon the chairs, and enjoyed occasional music (as is still the case) from some military band. On moonlit evenings the gardens which surrounded the chief abode of French royalty were filled with a gayly-dressed and chattering multitude. De la Bretonne exclaims of this sight, “What can be more charming than these serried ranks of beautiful women, who line the noble avenue of the Tuileries of a summer evening, and during the fine days of spring and autumn?” Dancing is a recreation of which the Parisian, high or low, is never wearied. The poorer classes, to whom home-parties and private ballrooms are forbidden, have always been amply provided with public places where with trifling expense to trip the light fantastic toe. In the last century pleasant and prettily-decorated dance-halls and open-air dancegardens grew up in every direction, both within the city and in a wide suburban circle around it. The French readily caught the idea of the London Vauxhall, a place where all classes went to eat, drink, promenade, flirt, listen to songs and fiddles, dance, and laugh at farces and ballets; and a large number of dance-gardens called "Wauxhalls" sprang up in every part of Paris. The people who frequented these did not stop to practise all those Terpsichorean formalities which were the fashion in aristocratic ballrooms. The dancing was not begun with stiff and stately minuet, as was the case at the great hotels; but the garçons and jeunes filles were wont to plunge at once into the rollicking reels and waltzes without ado. Paris quickly adopted the traditional dances of the province. The gavotte and bal of Brittany, the bourrées of Auvergne, the pas of Navarre, the jog of Poitou, and the jig of Picardy, were all to be seen at the open-air Wauxhalls. Dancing was not the only attraction of these popular places. At the Wauxhall Torre and the Colisce fireworks and illuminations were often provided for the public amusement. Here, too, on occasion, there were exhibitions of tight-rope dancing, legerdemain, and marvelous tricks. On public holidays many free entertainments were provided in Paris at the expense of the government, just as under the Second Empire the theatres were thrown open free on Napoleon's fête-day. The Parisians and their families spared no pains and bore every discomfort in order to gain entrance into these "free shows." When there were religious or state processions, as occurred often in the year, the whole populace of the city turned out to witness them. "These processions, which defiled through the streets, hung with flags and emblems, were made attractive by the attendance of official persons in full costume; and the ecclesiastical processions were especially magnificent. They formed a topic of conversation for a week afterward." The Parisian fondness for diversion and sensa tions was often gratified by the exhibitions of people | A certain magician, named Breton, claimed to poswho professed to have discovered mechanical means for doing hitherto impossible feats. At one time a man drew the population out upon the banks of the Seine to see him cross the water with dry feet, which he apparently did, having some contrivance attached to his shoes. At another, it was a certain count, who promised to fly across the Seine to the Louvre, but who ignominiously failed, and fell, amid the jeers of the crowd, midway in the stream. sess the power of causing springs to spurt of a sudden out of dry places; and one day astonished the multitude in the Luxembourg garden by appearing to make good his boast. River-jousts were for some time the rage, and then came a period when the Parisians used to flock to see donkey or bull and dog fights. But the French of a century ago were more humane and civilized than the Spaniards of to-day, and these cruel sports were tabooed by law and opin THE WALK UPON THE RAMPARTS OF PARIS. ion after a brief career. Horse-racing proved an attractive substitute, and this sport may be said to have been borrowed by the French from England just about a hundred years ago. The nobility had previously had some private races, and early in the century a celebrated race on a wager had taken place between the Count de Saillans and the Marquis de Courtauraux, from Versailles to the Champ de Mars. Races began to be held before the court at Vincennes about the year 1775. The invention of balloons gave the Parisians a new and exciting sensation, for it was there that some of the earliest experiments in the science of ballooning were made. When Pilatre de Rozier made his ascent from the Parc de la Muette, thousands of people met to see him venture into the upper air, and great was the amazement when he descended safely an hour or two after near the Gobelins. Besides the ordinary fêtes and holidays, royalty and other great people were accustomed to celebrate events of especial note by providing amusements for the populace. The birthday of a king, the birth of a prince or princess, the anniversary of a victory, the conclusion of a peace, the betrothal of a son or daughter of the royal house, were made the occasions of gorgeous illuminations and splendid dis plays of fireworks. It is stated that the Parisians were more fond of witnessing pyrotechnic marvels than of the free feasts of meats and wines which were sometimes lavished upon them. On the occasion of the betrothal of Louis XV. to the Infanta a match that was soon after broken off — the Spanish embassador gave a brilliant fête to the Parisians, which cost him forty thousand dollars. Among the displays were a hundred illuminated boats, which floated up and down the Seine and cast a dazzling glow over the waters. When royal fêtes were given, "the tocsin of Notre-Dame, sounded day and night for twenty-four hours, invited the inhabitants of Paris to the festival ;" and the whole town answered the gay summons, and crowded the streets. In the country, the pastimes of the people were as primitive and simple as they have continued down to this day. They had their "harvest-homes," and quaint celebrations of the vintage; occasionally the village was enlivened by the appearance of a German or native mountebank, who displayed his tricks and told comic stories; while in the long winter evenings the favorite recreation was the telling of long stories around the cottage or tavern fires, by some rustic gifted in the art, or a villager who had traveled and had returned to tell the wonders he had seen in Paris or in a foreign land. TH I. 'HE extreme terror with which the sight of the stranger had inspired Ulrich Gerhard von Uffeln seemed to have given place to no calmer mood when he had reached Faustelmann's home. His features were still very pale, and the hand with which he rang the bell at the door of the house still trembled. In response to his inquiry for Herr Faustelmann, a maid-servant ushered him through the kitchen into a back-room, where the steward sat behind his writing-table, stooping over books and papers. "What! Back already?" cried Faustelmann, in astonishment. "And how pale and alarmed you look! What can the princess have done to cause such terror? But you cannot have seen her in this short time." "The princess has done nothing. I didn't even see her; but what I have seen is-" Herr von Uffeln looked around to see if the door was closed, and then, sinking heavily into the nearest chair, said, in a low whisper, "But what I have seen is my doublea man who distinctly called himself Ulrich Gerhard von Uffeln !" Herr Faustelmann had risen at the young man's entrance. Now he came forward from behind his writing-table, and, gazing fixedly at Uffeln, said, in a puzzled tone: "You've seen your double! This II. is nonsense! An excited imagination made you fancy it." "I wish I could think so," replied Herr von Uffeln, with a deep sigh. "Tell me exactly how it happened," said Faustelmann. "The affair is certainly very strange." Herr von Uffeln related the incident in detail. The steward listened with a more and more attentive face, and finally, as if infected by the agitation and anxiety of his companion, exclaimed: "It is absolutely necessary for us to go to the bottom of this matter, and the simplest and best way of doing so is to frankly ask the princess who the man who was admitted to her presence to-day in your place is, what he wanted from her, and what he told her." "Must I do that?" "Let me," replied Faustelmann-"it will be better so; besides, I can more easily go to Idar at once. He seems to have greatly agitated you." "He has, indeed," replied Herr von Uffeln, uttering a sigh of relief at the thought that he should be spared the task. So Faustelmann undertook to request from Princess Elizabeth, in case she should be able to give it, some explanation of the matter which had so greatly perplexed the two men. He changed his dress, attired himself with great care, and then set out for Idar, while Herr von Uffeln quietly sought his room |