Chapter V: Part 5

“There are those who have said hard things of me even in the old days,” said La Goulue, “but they lied. I am a good girl with a good heart (_je suis une bonne fille_),” she cried, looking me straight in the eye. “It was the life that was bad, not I, monsieur.”

There is great risk to life and limb in training and showing these animals; the lion Bob a while ago closed his jaws upon “M. La Goulue,” crunching half through the shoulder. Yet it is the injury to others that the Goulues fear the most.

One of the panthers tore the arm from a child during a performance in Rouen. It was an expensive accident for La Goulue.

At the time I saw this small menagerie wintering in a corner of the earth, La Goulue was waiting for an engagement in a coming _fête foraine_. As yet the letter had not arrived, and I believe the bear knew it.

“M. La Goulue” did not smile, and spoke but rarely. You felt his absolute domination and fearlessness. He took the hyena by the throat, then stroked its ears kindly. When he rolled Alice, the lioness, over on her back, he did so with gentleness and firmness; when she rebelled and struck at him viciously, he cuffed her ears and stood talking to her as to a disobedient child.

Photo by F. Berkeley Smith

LA GOULUE’S ANIMAL SHOW WINTERING]

I felt that this man with the steel-gray eyes regarded the world in general in the same manner—with ease and a cool head.

The Avenue de Neuilly in June is suddenly transformed into a glittering bedlam. Shows line both sides of the broad avenue for nearly a mile.

These exhibitions are of varied character. Many of them are counterparts of those along the “Bowery” of our own Coney Island, but many spectacles may be witnessed inside the enclosures of these claptrap barracks of canvas and board that are wholly foreign to us. Their ornamental façades are adorned with marvels of pictorial art representing all manner of wonderful things not found in this or any other clime.

Side-showing is a science. Some fakirs have become rich with little more than a dirty red curtain to screen from view the wonders promised within, a good “barker” to heighten the desire and imagination of the gaping crowd in front, and a tame ape tied outside to attract the little ones. That there was after all nothing worth even two sous to behold behind the mysterious portal, the spectators in front knew by the sheepish smirk of those coming out, yet they paid their sous just the same and filed in to see what had fooled the other fellows!

In the Fête de Neuilly I did not find these fake methods existing. It is a dangerous thing to fool a French crowd, and so it is the custom to parade upon an elevated platform at the entrance in plain view of the passer-by the troupe advertised to show within.

There stand the girl in tights, the clown, the juggler and the strong man, and the spectator may judge fairly for himself whether he thinks it worth while to part with his sous to know them better. For one franc he may study their talent from a kitchen chair, alluringly termed a “_fauteuil d’orchestre_.” A bench seat generally within a foot of it rents at half price, and a bleacher seat at five sous, with a reduction to children and the military.

There are certain hours and special days when the generous manager lowers even these prices—dinner hours when the passing throng thins out, and rainy days when the clown appears in a mackintosh and the girl in the pink cotton tights wraps a plush boa about her powdered neck and wears the clown’s galoshes, while the monkey at the end of his chain buries his head out of the drip and falls asleep.

One of the most popular shows of the _fêtes foraines_ is that of the female wrestlers. Many of these combatively inclined ladies cultivate a pose that would put to the blush Hercules leaning on his club. Some of them gird their loins in imitation lion skins, others wear wristlets of heavy leather “to protect them from the brutality of their adversaries,” who, the manager assures the interested crowd, are drawn from all corners. So you will see a burly looking bourgeois elbow his way through the crowd and agree openly before the spectators to wrestle Mademoiselle Blanche “La Tigresse” through three rounds, catch-as-catch-can. He tells the manager he was trained by the great Marseille himself and, giving his name and place of residence in case of accident, enters the tent with his candy-haired opponent. All the strong men in these _fêtes foraines_ seem to have been trained by Marseille!

The two file into the amphitheater beyond the curtain, while the manager roars outside exhorting the crowd to follow.

In the second round Mademoiselle Blanche has thrown her bourgeois fairly, while six other lady wrestlers sit on the edge of the ring and applaud. The crowd grows enthusiastic.

In the third round the bourgeois by a neck-hold slaps his adversary down on the platform, squarely on her back. Both her shoulders touch. The crowd cheers. The bourgeois has won.

The band in the corner pumps forth a mournful waltz, and another wrestler prepares for the second bout.

When the show closes, the chance bourgeois and Mademoiselle Blanche will return to their home in one of the sea of shanties beyond the barrier, and the manager will turn up his coat collar, give a fresh rub to his silk hat, deposit the contents of his tin cash-box in his wallet, and hail a passing omnibus.

The Fête de Neuilly during the afternoon and evening is alive throughout its length and breadth with a vast throng of pleasure seekers of all classes and conditions. Along the route of attractions mammoth carrousels, gorgeous in gilt and mirrors, swing round at a giddy pace, filled with screaming, laughing women and their escorts. Another form of carrousel is the “Montagnes Russes,” with undulating circular tracks over which gilded chariots rush to the accompaniment of powerful steam calliopes.

Farther on are a row of swings. In one of these sky-scraping affairs a chic little _blanchisseuse_, her blond hair flying beneath a soldier’s cap jammed over her ears, is holding on tight and screaming with laughter while her escort the soldier pulls the rope with renewed effort, until they both come near bumping their heads on the upper supports.

A few steps farther on, another merry-go-round is on the point of starting. Astride of a wooden camel sits a young negro wearing a straw hat with a pink satin band, and a suit known as “nobby.” Two girls pass. They are evidently two little _couturières_ out for a holiday. One of them, a little brunette, catches sight of the coal black youth with the pink satin tie. The two girls hold a hurried conversation. Suddenly the little brunette runs up to the surprised gentleman in the nobby suit, throws her arms about his neck and kisses him.

“_Voilà_,” she says as she runs on to join her companion, bubbling with laughter over the joke.

“_Je pourrai dire que j’ai embrassé un nègre!_”

At night the Fête de Neuilly is ablaze with light. Carriages crawl slowly through the crowd, some of them are smart private turnouts which have driven to the fête after dinner at Armononville or elsewhere.

Parading side by side with these are others containing jolly parties waving great paper chrysanthemums and sunflowers carried upon long sticks. These pretty souvenirs are sold by the thousands in the fête, and nearly every party of merrymakers brings them back to the boulevard cafés.

Among other attractions are circuses and menageries where hourly exhibitions of animals in training draw steady audiences. There is little attempt to decorate the interior of these menageries—a few kitchen chairs fronting a row of cages and standing room back of these furnish the necessary accommodation for the audience. As a rule, the animals in these small shows are well cared for and kept in unusually good condition.

The name Pezon in France is traditionally suggestive of the best animal show. Through three generations the Pezons have been animal trainers and maintained menageries throughout France. There is not one of this intrepid family who has not at some time been dragged bleeding from beneath some infuriated beast. One of the sons who still risks his life daily is minus an arm, having been mangled by a lion a few years ago.

I saw one veteran trainer in the Pezon show turn pale as he realized that an ugly lion he had forced into a corner had become unmanageable and blind with rage. Keepers ran to his help, and most of the audience rose in a panic and started to rush through the exit. The cage rocked as the lion sprang from side to side and the ground seemed to tremble beneath his snarling roar, but the man within the bars held his ground. He was a short, thick-set fellow with blond hair. Step by step he forced the lion back into its corner, and as firmly and slowly he conquered him until the crouching beast who could have killed him with a blow sprang panic-stricken out of his way. Then the little man turned to the audience, bowed with the air of a dancing-master and sprang through the safety door. Cheers of “Bravo!” rose from the audience who had remained as if hypnotized; but the man who had been so near death did not seem to notice them, for he shrugged his shoulders and smiled as if the episode were of little importance. Lighting a cigarette, he disappeared through a door in the rear.

I once knew an old French trainer and owner of a menagerie, Champeaux by name, who came to grief in a different way. He was a jovial old fellow and when he was not training lions, hyenas, panthers, or bears, spent most of his time over the flowing bowl in some nearby café, telling stories and spreading the sunshine of geniality among his old cronies. He had been in the cages so much of his life and had such a host of friends, in fact he was such a popular old fellow and so jolly and genial withal, that I believe he grew to think that the animals he trained loved him too.

At one time having installed his animal show in the _fête foraine_ at the Place du Trone, he attended the wedding festivities of a friend. It happened to be a bourgeois wedding, and the bride and groom and their guests made merry with champagne and congratulations in one of those Parisian restaurants where the second floor above the café is rented to wedding parties and banquets. The festivities kept up until the hour grew late. Champeaux was the most hilariously happy of the guests. He embraced the bride and groom and toasted the happy pair in numerous bumpers, and at last proudly zigzagged his way back to the menagerie. “All his lions should hear what a good time he had had,” he said to himself. As he reeled along, he imagined that he was twenty-one and a bridegroom; then somehow he dreamed that most of his lions had grown wings and had pink fur on their paws and that all his cages had turned to solid gold.

And so he lurched on towards his pets, singing a song of cheer. He reached his menagerie before daylight. His keepers, snoring peacefully in their bunks, did not hear him as he stumbled in through a hole in the tent and proceeded to the row of cages. A lioness, wakened out of her sleep, recognized him, and pacing to the end of her cage, peered out at him. He must have presented a strange sight, for she roared twice, half waking the other animals. Then my friend did a foolish thing; he stumbled up the steps of the trained bear’s cage, apologized to the steps for tripping over them, slipped the spring latch and entered the den. Taking his hat off politely to the bear who, at his unexpected entrance, rose on her hind legs, Champeaux fell into her arms.

“Pepita,” he said, “I have had a good time, a good time, old girl,” and he slapped her enthusiastically on her scrubby neck.

Pepita squealed, embraced him in turn, as if in sympathy, and looked at him queerly with her small round eyes. Then Champeaux groaned—Pepita had broken his ribs.

In America the roof of the three-ring circus holds a network of trap apparatus upon which a dozen aerial performers exhibit at the same time. In the first ring there is a bareback act, in the second a juggling family upon an intermediate stage, and in the third ring a herd of trained elephants. Over the surrounding race-track twenty clowns play tag, setting small sections of the amphitheater into roars of laughter as they pass.

All this is typical with us of the “greatest show on earth.”

Parisians delight in the circus as much as we do, but they are content in seeing one thing at a time and enjoying it.

Here the _cirques_ are as cozy as theaters and one small ring suffices. The Nouveau Cirque, whose façade on the rue St. Honoré resembles that of a music-hall, is the most comfortable of all the Parisian circuses, and, like the Cirque d’Hiver and the Cirque Médrano, is open the year round. The patronage of the last two is more bourgeois than that of the first one, for both are situated in thickly populated quarters.

The Médrano, on the boulevard Rochechouart in Montmartre, and the Cirque d’Hiver, on the boulevard du Temple, are patronized for the most part by the people of the rue du Temple and around la Place de la Bastille.

All Paris pours to Longchamp the day of the Grand Prix. Seen from the grandstand, the track stretches away in a velvety green ribbon. Every square foot of the remainder of the vast enclosure is packed with people. Part of this human sea, that which fills the grandstands and broad promenade, is gay in the smartest of toilettes, silk parasols, and shining top hats. The rest is made up of all sorts and conditions.

Indoor displays of horsemanship, where the incentive of betting is lacking, have not been a success in Paris—at least when conducted upon a large scale. The old Hippodrome, founded for track exhibitions, has passed out of existence. It was too big to be popular, and the new Hippo-Palace, a splendid structure forming a spacious angle with the rue Calvalotti and the rue Caulincourt, after a short life proved an absolute failure. Its exterior was vast and exceedingly attractive in color. The whole was done in a scheme of gold and turquoise blue velvet, with a huge stage for ballets at the end of the three-ringed amphitheater. The performance was excellent, and for a while it looked as if the Hippo-Palace might be a success. But the same criticism caused its downfall. There were too many things to watch at once from seats too far removed from the performers.

Parisians enjoy the intimacy of a small circus.

Between the acts the pretty stables behind the scenes are crowded with people who enjoy looking at the horses in their neatly kept stalls—indeed, many of these remain in the stables after the bell announces the continuance of the performance, in order to view at leisure the byplay of the performers before they go into the ring.

A pretty bareback rider comes tripping down the stairs from her dressing-room. Her horse is brought out for her from its stall, and, while an elderly gentleman with a ribbon in his buttonhole stands chatting with her for a moment, her groom gives a final cinch to the mare’s white kid girdle and rosins its broad back.

Applause announces the end of an act, and a trained bear, held in check by his keeper, shuffles past you.

It is mademoiselle’s turn now, and the old gentleman with the decoration lifts his opera hat as mademoiselle leaves him and runs into the ring.

From the circular _promenoir_ behind the second tier of boxes you catch glimpses of women in _chic_ toilets who nightly frequent the circuses.

Immortal are the names of the famous of French clowns—Boum-Boum, Auguste and Chocolat. For years they have made Paris roar with laughter, and the little French children kick their bare legs in glee.

Chocolat and Auguste, who appear together, are far more than ordinary clowns. They are past masters in the art of nonsense. Every effect is carefully planned and studied. Their performance is pantomime of the first order. To keep the amused attention of an audience for half an hour by a representation of Hamlet played with no costumes and no scenery, and for the most part executed wholly in pantomime, requires rare skill and subtle humor, and that rarest of qualities in comic men, the time to know when to stop.

There is something especially attractive in the coziness of these one-ring circuses of Paris. The buildings themselves are circular, like those built for permanent panoramas. From the ring, with its red velvet border, begin rows of orchestra seats, reaching to the balcony of pretty boxes, behind which is a circular promenade.

The stables themselves are models of well-ordered cleanliness, and each stall that contains some beauty of the ring shines in polished brass. The stall posts are bound with fresh sheaths of straw tied with gaily colored ribbons.

An attractive feature of the Nouveau Cirque is the aquatic performance which concludes the show. The big ring mattress is suspended between two giant wheels and rolled away; the floor of the ring sinks slowly, and water rushes in until a safe diving depth is attained. Calcium lights are turned upon this improvised lake, and an aquatic burlesque follows. This naturally concludes the program, for every one taking part tumbles in as often as possible and retires dripping to his dressing-room. One of these farce comedies ends in a wedding party where the bride and groom are ferried across in the little boat. The clown who acts as ferryman is invariably upset, and the wedding party have to kick out and swim for shore, on which they climb or are hauled minus most of their clothes.

The Thursday matinées are filled with happy French children. What a never-to-be-forgotten ecstasy it must be to Jacqueline, François and little Antoinette to be taken between the acts to the café of the Cirque Médrano and be served with a huge _cérise à l’eau_ by the clown himself. How delightful to hear his special jokes as he pours out for them their _cérise_ and nearly spills a whole trayful of cakes over their heads as he serves it!

I spent the afternoon yesterday with a famous old clown at the Médrano. At intervals during our chat my friend would leave me to run back into the ring and play the fool. Yet he was a grave and a sad old man. His heavily chalked face with its traditional black lines between his eyes and his painted cheeks seemed strangely incongruous as he talked seriously of his life.

Behind his mask of chalk his old eyes burned with a brave light in them still, for his life had been one of trying struggle. He spoke of the death of his only daughter, of the hardships of many touring adventures in many lands.

“I went with my family to Constantinople to start a circus there, and it took me five years to earn enough money to return, for we not only lost all we had, but were forced into debt.

“We managed to get free at last and returned to Paris. Here we worked hard, all of us, and at last we opened again a circus of our own. My son-in-law was the trapeze performer, and my boy was a clown like myself. We had with us a family of old friends, the Lorettis—you may remember them? The opening night of that show brought with it the old sensation of ruin staring us in the face. We opened the doors that evening just thirty-five thousand francs in debt. Gradually by hard work we managed to pull out of it, and,” he added, “to-day, thank God! I am free from worry and anxiety. I know that I can make but a living at the best. I get my money here; it is not much, but I get it regularly, and here I shall stay. I am sixty years old and have been a clown nearly forty years of my life.”

Photo by F. Berkeley Smith

A COUNTRY CIRCUS]

He excused himself for a moment and ran out into the ring, turned a flipflap, and ran tripping over things in a fruitless endeavor to assist the lady in pink tulle on her cantering white horse. A pantomime followed in which a second clown, his son, having killed him in a comic duel, doubled his father up, packed him neatly in a barrel, and wheelbarrowed him out of the ring.

“You see,” continued the father seriously as he rejoined me, having divested himself of the barrel and run the wheelbarrow out of the way of an advancing herd of elephants, “it is different with your big American shows. An artist there never gets credit for his work. With so many acts going at once it is impossible for him to be fairly seen. He can play only to a small section of the house, and, if he is doing high trap work like my son-in-law, he no sooner gets a neat trick worked up than the bell rings and down the rope he has to come.

“Well, sir, I must wash up and be getting along; we have dinner at home at six and I have a little special marketing to do for we have some old friends coming.”

Chapter Eight

GREASE PAINT AND POWDER PUFFS

The stage of the Folies Bergère during a spectacular _revue_ is a busy place. Sunday evening is always a crowded night at Parisian theaters and a hard one upon players, since all the theaters on that day give matinées as well.

There are few persons in an audience who realize the amount of hard work required of every one behind the scenes in the staging and playing of a spectacular _revue_.

It was nine o’clock Sunday evening and the _revue_ at the Folies Bergère was about to begin, as my friend, a successful writer of many Parisian _revues_, Monsieur René Louis, led me through the crowded _promenoir_ of this thoroughly Parisian music-hall and through a small iron door into another world. I say another world, for it was peopled with fairies—_coryphées_ in pink tights whose eyes were stenciled and lined with blue until they appeared as almond-shaped as an odalisque’s. The stage was crowded with scene-shifters in black caps and long white linen dusters, with ladies protected from stray drafts by warm woolen dressing gowns, with hair-dressers in their shirt-sleeves, with firemen in shining brass helmets, with ballet girls in white tulle and fleshings, and pink satin slippers with padded toes.

We came upon all this suddenly, for, as we entered the iron door leading to the _coulisses_, we found ourselves in a small _entresol_ and in the midst of a dozen _coryphées_ who were giving a final touch to their make-up before an extra mirror.

The air was heavy with the odor of scores of different cheap perfumes.

Down a narrow winding stairway leading from the dressing-rooms above, poured a stream of other _coryphées_, principals, ballet girls and _figurantes_, a moving kaleidoscopic procession of pink tights, glittering tinsel and bizarre head-dresses.

Groups of chorus girls gossiped in safe corners out of the way of hurrying scene-shifters.

“_Attention! s’il vous plait_,” shouted two of the latter as they dodged past with a section of a Venetian palace, while two others followed with half of the Bridge of Sighs and eight feet of canvas water.

Drawing by Pezilla

AT THE FOLIES-BERGÈRE]

“_Dis donc, ma chérie_,” said a petite brunette costumed as a gray pigeon to another pigeon whose dresser was attaching to her shoulders a pair of white wings, “did you find the tailor whose address I gave you yesterday? A hundred francs for a dress like my little brown one, and _tu sais trés, trés chic_. Tell Amélie I am coming to see her to-morrow _à trois heures, n’est-ce pas_?” and the gray pigeon hurried away to her place in the wings.

High up above the busy stage hung the great drops suspended from a network of ropes. Hoisted by the side of an Italian lake hung the back flat of the palace of diamonds, and next to it a dark wood through which at ten thirty-five, by the stage manager’s watch, fluttered nightly a ballet of bats.

My friend led the way through a back corridor to the director’s office. I found the director a serious man of affairs, who looked more like a scientist than a man of the theater. His greeting was most cordial, even hospitable, for, as he left me to attend to the performance, he added, with charming courtesy: “_Monsieur, vous êtes ici chez vous_; go where you will or, better still, let me present you to our stage manager. It is he who is really captain of the ship in the storm, for we have some rapid dark changes to make during the _revue_, when you will be safer in a corner.”

From the wings behind the blaze of the footlights, the crowded house lay like a flower-garden in the dusk. Here a patch of red flamed brighter than the rest from some theater hat; there the white of a shirt-front gleamed.

The prompter sat huddled under his wooden hood with his prompt-book in readiness for the raising of the curtain.

Behind him, the leader of the orchestra wiped his eyeglasses, looked at his watch, passed a word by the second violin to the oboe concerning a late correction, and, tapping his baton, began the overture.

Bang! Bang! Bang! pounded thrice the stage manager with measured precision, and, with a final glance at the people on the stage, gave the signal to the head electrician who turned a switch. Up went the curtain.

The night’s work had begun.

For the three hours that ensued during the _revue_, ballets succeeded ballets. There were burlesques upon current topics and singing choruses. All through this the stage management was perfect.

When you consider the lack of room it was all the more remarkable.

“You see,” said the stage manager, during one of his free minutes, “we are terribly cramped for room here upon this old stage. Our biggest flats we set with this panorama arrangement”—and he pointed to two giant rollers, one on either side of the stage. Then, leading the way beneath the stage, he showed me the two great wheels and the dynamo that moved them.

“Look out!” said he, as we returned to the stage, “that is the finale of the _commère’s_ song and we are going to make a quick change. Stand there!” he said, and instinctively I jumped for the spot he indicated. At the same instant the two electricians pulled a combination of switches and everything went black.

Scene-shifters hurried through the gloom with awkward sections of scenery, all of which had to be taken back through a doorway and replaced in order where they had come from. Others hurried on the stage with properties and sections for the new set.

The stage was, fortunately, warm, otherwise many of the _petites Parisiennes_ who were descending the winding stairs would have suffered from even the slightest current of air, for most of their clothes had been left in the dressing-rooms above.

I saw among this “big family,” that are together during a long season, the best of _camaraderie_ and unusual deference and courtesy by every man toward the women.

During the second act I found that exceedingly _chic_ and attractive _comédienne_, Mademoiselle Léa Dorville, in her loge.

Every available corner of her small room did good service. Rows of pink and Nile green silk petticoats, _frous-frous_ and things hung from hooks under cretonned shelves.

Other hooks held mademoiselle’s stage hats, some of them as big as circus hoops. Her duchesse table was a veritable museum of little necessaries: hare’s-feet and powder puffs, mirrors, sticks of grease paint, a pot of cold cream with a silver top, a box of _poudre de riz_, rouge for her lips, for her nails, for the tips of her ears. It was all artificial, but it was nevertheless one real side of life. Serious gaiety if you will, since to survive the daily routine of the stage is hard work.

Being Sunday, that day they had already gone through a matinée. There is but little time to rest between the matinée and the evening performance, and in Paris the theaters are not out until midnight.

All this activity behind the scenes of the Folies Bergère seemed in strong contrast to the idle leisure of the audience in front, who during the _entr’actes_ strolled among the _demi-mondaines_ in the _promenoir_ or lounged comfortably in arm-chairs pulled up to the café tables of the alcoves, and with a cooling drink listened to the band of Neapolitans.

The curtain fell upon an apotheosis representing the palace of gems; upon La Belle Otéro clothed in solitaires; upon the _commère_ and the _compère_ bowing to an appreciative audience; and finally upon a stageful of _figurantes_ and _coryphées_ who, as the final curtain fell, made a rush for their dressing-rooms. Half an hour later they all said _bonsoir_ to the doorkeeper and scattered among the highways and byways of the city. Some who passed out wore sables; others, who half an hour before stood flashing in gems, went away in modest clothes of their own making. Some departed to meet their sweethearts, others to their families or their children; some to supper at the Café de Paris, to Pousset’s and to the Café Riche, others to little snuggeries where the cheapest dish was the most popular, and where the _vieux monsieur_ with the purse of gold never came.

Photo by Reutlinger, Paris

LA BELLE OTÉRO]

I found the stage of another big music-hall, the Olympia, differing widely from the cramped and picturesque old stage of the Folies Bergère. Here there was plenty of room and sufficient stage height for scenic spectacles. Back of all this, wide corridors led to the offices of administration and comfortable dressing-rooms. Here again I found a safe corner behind the proscenium, out of the way of changing scenery and the toes of the agile mademoiselles of the ballet.

One seldom sees a more beautiful woman than the present _commère_ of the Olympia _revue_, Germaine Gallois. She is tall, lithe and queenly, with clear-cut features and a wealth of golden hair. With Lucien Noël and the statuesque Graziella the _revue_ is not lacking in talent. From the shadows of the wings framed by the side of the proscenium in deep shadow against the flood of orange calcium light, the glitter of the scene upon the stage seemed even more brilliant than when viewed from the house.

Three fourths of the performers in Parisian vaudeville are Americans, English or Austrians. These naturally can not be employed in the _revue_ following the vaudeville, for they do not speak French.

It is the custom to print in English the billposters announcing these artists. It seems more of a novelty to Parisians if the lady on the high wire appears on the bills as “Miss Dorita Gayford, Queen of the High Wire.” In London you will see this lady who is on such good terms with the attraction of gravitation, billed as “Mademoiselle Céleste Pirrizetti, Reine du Fil de Fer.” It is more interesting, just as a “Chateaubriand aux pommes soufflées” is more attractive upon a bill of fare than plain “steak and fried potatoes.”

To us Americans who are accustomed to our modern theaters fitted with every appliance for safety and comfort, the old-fashioned playhouses of Paris, seasoned by time and tradition, seem quite primitive in construction. Many of them have remained for nearly a century materially unchanged. The narrow semi-circular corridors leading to the orchestra through little velveted doors have low ceilings.

That the most sought after seats are those in the first balcony is due to the fact that in many of the theaters the first rows in the orchestra are sunk so low below an unusually high stage that it is impossible to see more than the upper half of the performers. Then, too, the hood of the prompter’s box is invariably placed in the middle of the stage. Add to this a lady in front with a theater hat of such dimensions that it would serve much better as a sunshade, and the spectator near the front row has left to his vision a little triangular space bounded on the base by the footlights, on one side by the prompt-box, and on the other by a bobbing ostrich plume. Across this aperture, provided the ostrich feather keeps still, you may, by good luck, from time to time see the villain pursue the heroine.

The French playhouse is a slave to traditional custom. The stone stairways worn by the feet of generations of audiences have sunk badly out of plumb. There are comfortable old foyers and _fumoirs_ to which the audience pour during the _entr’actes_, but the approach to these is painfully slow through narrow corridors and up winding flights of stairs.

The boxes lined along beneath the first balcony and circling the orchestra are narrow, and insufferably warm in summer. Besides the open loges there are boxes screened by grilles of gilt lattice, where madame and another madame’s monsieur may secrete themselves, discreet even in their indiscretions—but why gossip of the happiness of others?—there is enough misery in the world as it is.

Those gray-haired old ladies, the _ouvreuses_, are traditional, too; they hang the coats and wraps along the wall of the narrow corridor into which the audience goes out, with the result that at the end of the performance the corridor is jammed with people in search of their belongings.

There is no orchestra except in those theaters in which the performance as in opéra bouffes and musical comedies requires one. During the _entr’actes_ Frenchmen stand in their orchestra places and carefully look over the audience who have remained in their seats, with their opera-glasses, until the stage manager pounds his staff solemnly for the rising of the curtain. It is the custom, too, to use hideous drop curtains between the acts covered with advertisements of perfumery, automobiles, and of winter and summer resorts.

But if there are many little discomforts within Parisians theaters, the interiors themselves are rich in works of art. The foyers contain superb busts and rare pictures. There are ceilings, mellowed in color by time, which were painted by the best masters. If many of these auditoriums are uncomfortable, they possess a charm and a dignity which age alone can give.

Take for example the old Palais Royal. This famous old playhouse has a cozy old-fashioned auditorium and a foyer with a quaint gallery, and a rich frieze which illustrates the history of the theater since the day when Mademoiselle de Montansier in 1789 bought the Beaujolais, a little playhouse constructed as a _théâtre des marionnettes_. From that year the old theater existed under many names, until in 1848 it adopted the title of the “Théâtre du Palais Royal,” a name which it still retains. One feels within it that but for the modern costumes of the audience he might be living in the time of the First Empire. The windows of the foyer look out upon the dimly lighted courtyard of the palace of Richelieu.

Like the ruddy back of some old violin, the interior of the Théâtre du Palais Royal has become rich and polished by the hands of time. It has become a Parisian institution, beloved by men and women of culture because of its associations.

If you ask a Parisian at which theaters you can see the best plays, he will invariably answer: The Théâtre Antoine and the Théâtre Français. He adds the latter as a matter of habit, for the French have been brought up for generations to regard the immortal house of the great Molière as the best stage.

It is there he received his first impression of the theater when in his childhood as a reward of merit he was taken to the Français to see classical plays. He was told it was the best theater, and this impression has remained with him since infancy. For French children are taken as a matter of education to the Français and the Odéon.

True, the Comédie Française possesses finished actors; true, also, they are trying to keep up traditions there more than anywhere else; true, as well, the scenery and costumes are of the best. But it is also true that many of the good actors of the Français have in late years deserted the house of Molière for freer fields, that the managers have refused scores of good plays in late years which have been subsequent successes at other theaters, and that most of the present actors of the Français, wishing to create a “_genre_,” or shall we call it a mannerism, of their own, do so at the expense of the true character of the rôle which they play. Many of them who have become celebrated refuse to play small parts and, what is even more to be regretted, disdain to learn the classical repertoire which is the _raison d’être_ of the house of Molière.

But if the Français does not choose to present new plays and encourage modern authorship for which purposes the government gives it yearly a large subvention, other theaters do, and the public have filled them.

But even these latter theaters are hampered by the system of stars and the desire to attract the public by the well-known name of a successful author on the bill.

Sometimes the play of the successful author, like the little girl with the curl in the middle of her forehead, is very, very good, and sometimes very, very bad, but it is always very, very expensive. On account of these stars and successful authors, the seats have to be sold at a high price. Once the expense of production of the play is covered, the play is forced to a long run, thus limiting the chance of a new one being given.

For these reasons and many others M. Antoine, a young man who was an employee of the city gas company, conceived in 1887 an idea of an entirely different theater where all old traditions would be put aside, where a play would not be given more than two weeks, thus opening the door to a great many authors, and where a company of thirty-six actors would play impartially all rôles and each one would receive for his services the same pay.

The plays given should be upon every-day life, therefore no expensive costumes or elaborate scenery would be needed.

The actors were not to come from a dramatic school, but teach themselves by experience.

Realism was to pervade everything: acting, costumes, scenery and properties.

In March, 1887, M. Antoine organized the first representation of “Jacques Damour,” which was such a success that it was taken immediately by the Odéon. The performance was given in a cheap little auditorium in Montmartre, hired at as low a figure as possible for the occasion. None of the actors were professionals. In this first representation of the “Puissance des Ténèbres,” the cast was: Men—Monsieur Antoine, still employee of the gas company, an employee of the Minister of Finances, a secretary at Police headquarters, an architect, a chemist, a drummer and a _marchand de vin_. Women—a dressmaker, a bookbinder, an employee at the Post-office, etc., etc. All this cast rehearsed in the evening after long hours in office and store.

In spite of keeping expenses as low as possible, Antoine was in debt after the first representation and was obliged to wait two months before he could give another performance.

Finally the company succeeded in giving seven or eight representations in a little _salle_ of the rue Blanche, and from there went to the Théâtre Montparnasse, and thence to the Menus Plaisirs, where the Théâtre Libre exists at the present day under the name of the Théâtre Antoine.

With this little company it was not always easy sailing. Had it not been at the time for the generous help of the press and the kindness of the director of the vaudeville who sub-rented his hall to the ambitious troupe for next to nothing, it would have met with financial ruin. But the plays they gave attracted attention. Nowhere had such daring realism and freedom from old traditions been attempted.

From 1887 to 1890 the Théâtre Libre produced one hundred and twenty-five new “acts,” and presented the plays of thirty dramatic authors whose work had never been heard before. Besides these, they produced the plays of fourteen authors whose work had been represented in Paris only once.

They had upon their programs among others the plays of Zola, Tolstoy, Turgéneff, and Ibsen, and introduced many plays which subsequently were reproduced upon the best stages of Paris. The good that Antoine has accomplished by his indomitable energy and the efforts of those who have been with him through these experiments is sufficiently proven by the fact that while the company produced one hundred and twenty-five plays, the Français during that same period of time produced only twenty-five new plays and received seven hundred and twenty thousand francs from the government as subvention, a sum given towards the expense of mounting new plays. The Odéon during this time produced sixty-seven “acts” and received three hundred thousand francs from the government!

Monsieur Antoine does not believe in considering that a room has only three sides. That is why he maintains it is legitimate to turn one’s back on an audience if by reason of stage position the situation calls for it. Neither does he believe the room in which the drama occurs can be surrounded by imaginary apartments of dingy canvas, so the doors upon his stage have real locks and open upon other rooms as realistically furnished as the one within whose walls the action takes place.

In the matter of costumes he is equally realistic, and every detail of the style is genuine.

If it is a question of a library, there are real books upon real shelves. These important attentions to detail are carried out through all his plays. He does not believe that, because an object is at the back of the stage, it should be made of papier maché or, what is worse, painted on the back flat.

When you have seen three of his late productions, “La Fille Eliza,” the story of a girl condemned to death; “La Bonne Espérance,” a tragedy of a Holland fishing town; and “L’Indiscret,” a modern society play; you will realize the genius and capability of Monsieur Antoine and his rare company who work conscientiously together for the ensemble of a finished production rather than for individual applause.

Among the _haut monde_ of Paris the finesse of the most complex social intrigue is understood to perfection. The Parisian society play deals with a series of _risqué_ situations.

The noisy, cruel, villain of the society play as we know him is not seen here. The three principal characters are the “Charming and Beautiful Wife,” the “Distinguished Husband,” whom she does not love, and the “Jolly Young Man,” whom she does. Her attractive salon seems to be especially adapted to the furtherance of the amours of certain of her women friends whose husbands, it is to be presumed, are having tea and conversation elsewhere.

Matrimony is taken for granted as a calamity, an unfortunate episode to be remedied as soon as possible.

In the second act the Charming Wife heavily veiled sweeps into the Jolly Young Man’s modest apartment.

“_Enfin!_” he cries, and the lovers embrace as if in a dream.

This is quite an exciting part, for it is not long now before you will hear the heavy foot of the deceived husband upon the stairs.

“_Ah! voilà!_ here he comes!” The Charming Wife emits a little stifled scream as she recognizes his step, and the Jolly Young Man, failing to hide her in his wardrobe, puts on as bold a front as possible and awaits the opening of his door.

Enter the Husband!

Not in a frenzy, with cocked revolver as we are used to seeing him, not a bit of it. He comes in pleasantly and bows formally to madame and to the Jolly Young Man. Through all he preserves the dignity of a visiting general with a flag of truce. He even begs the pardon of the Jolly Young Man for his interruption.

“Will you have the goodness, monsieur, to leave madame and myself alone for a moment; I have something which I wish to say in private?”

“_Parfaitement, monsieur_,” answers as ceremoniously the Jolly Young Man, and goes out.

When the Jolly Young Man has gone, madame attempts the usual distracted flood of explanations, then, realizing the artificiality of them all, shrugs her shoulders.

It is at this juncture that the Husband, as if speaking to some indiscreet comrade, addresses madame as “my friend.”

“_Mon amie_,” he begins, “you must know that I, too, love another.”

“You have a mistress, of course,” replies madame, accepting this foregone conclusion as a preliminary to what may follow.

“Naturally, my friend, but it is not of Mademoiselle de Tréville that I speak, it is of one of your best friends, _une femme sérieuse, exquise, ravissante_!” and he clasps his hand and looks toward heaven.

“Louise?” asks madame.

“_Parfaitement, mon amie._”

“_Tiens!_ That is funny,” replies madame, with a little amused smile; “but what of her husband?”

“It will be difficult, but I think it can be arranged,” replies monsieur dramatically.

Upon the reentrance of the Jolly Young Man, all three begin a breezy conversation touching as lightly as possible upon the painful episode of the interrupted rendezvous.

“I leave for Nice to-morrow,” says the Husband, picking up his silk hat and his yellow kid gloves. “_Bonsoir, mes amis_,” and he bows himself out through the modest portal of the Jolly Young Man’s apartment as the curtain falls.

All Paris poured into the Grands Boulevards on Mardi Gras. From the Madeleine to the Place de la Bastille, this broad thoroughfare was a compact surging sea of human beings. Those who had space enough danced, some as clowns, some as harlequins. There were women in doublets and hose, in boys’ clothes, in every conceivable get-up that could be dragged from the boxes of cheap costumers. This human sea laughed at each other in the best of good nature and threw paper confetti tit for tat all day and half the night. Paris seemed to have been visited by a vari-colored blizzard that roared whirling by, a February wind, over the heads of the sea of merry-makers. It piled itself in great kaleidoscopic drifts in the gutters and got down thousands of people’s necks. The air was filled with dust, and from the balconies shot long streamers of paper ribbons, some caught in the trees below, others fell entangling themselves round the _chapeaux_ of the passing crowd.

At certain points the busses crossed amid cheers, but otherwise no vehicles were allowed on the boulevards. A rabbit would have had hard work getting through in a hurry from the Madeleine to the Bastille, so compact was the crowd. In all this fun and gaiety I did not see a fight or a drunken man, and I observed the show as long as it lasted. It began on Sunday, when a procession of students started from the Sorbonne and marched across the Seine, a somewhat disappointing cavalcade in length but which, nevertheless, half of Paris turned out to see and applaud.

The carnival reached its height on Tuesday and in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

There were _bal masqués_ galore, for nearly every one had dressed for them in the morning.

At the Bullier, the Gay Tivoli, and the Moulin de la Galette, carnival reigned supreme.

At the Bal Bullier one had to take more than a passing glance to tell the boys from the girls, for the Mimis and Fantines had often tucked up their hair and donned sailors’ clothes or a Tuxedo. Others went in scantier attire and were more distinguishable. There were feminine Méphistos, Spanish dancers, little brunettes as bullfighters, and blondes as Oriental favorites of the harem. When the ball was over, this motley crowd romped down to supper along the “Boul Mich” in their fantastic clothes, and had _Marennes vertes_ and cold champagne and beer and sandwiches in the hostelries of the Quartier Latin.

But all this was only a slice in the carnival pie, for Montmartre was a bedlam, and the boulevards were still packed and as jolly as they had been when I crossed that thoroughfare on the top of a bus and saw a surging sea of color. Such screaming and cheering I have never seen elsewhere.

Clowns were everywhere, acrobats did flip-flaps from the sand bins along the route of the Metropolitan, street bands blared away from the _terrasses_ of the cafés, sidewalk venders did a thriving trade in confetti, sold in paper bags, which were warranted to hold a true kilo. Later some of these confetti hawkers began replenishing their stock from the sidewalk where it could literally be gathered by the shovelful.

All this happened a day ago; before noon Wednesday, Paris had been swept as clean as a whistle.

Alas! the famous Bal Masqué de l’Opéra is no more in its splendor.

The _bal masqué_ to which once upon a time all of gay Paris went in domino and mask is now filled by the daughters of _concierges_, by barbers and jockeys and a general riff-raff, most of whom have entered by billets of favor. Besides these there are a few dominoed ladies in the boxes who may once have graced the ball in the old days, and now and then a pretty woman in black silk tights passes through the foyer, and is ogled by the remnant of the aged _roués_ who stroll about comparing the present with the glitter and beauty of the Opéra ball when it was one of the sights of the world, frequented by the most celebrated and beautiful of women. All this has gone; the crowd is motley, noisy and common. The leading feature at the Opéra ball this year was the cake-walk, over which all Paris has suddenly gone mad.

It is an amusing sight to see the Parisian dance it; he forms his ideas of the cake-walk mostly from some of the exaggerated illustrations published in the London journals, and combines these with a touch of plantation grace taken from the steel engravings out of a French history of early Alabama.

I know a celebrated French ballet master who has had his hands full training Parisians in the art of cake-walking. As a _maître de ballet_ there is none better to be found, but his ideas upon the innate grace of “Syncopated Sandy” are somewhat vague.

Chapter Nine

IN PARISIAN WATERS

Madame Thérèse Baudière’s brown eyes and the pink-and-white freshness of her skin are in charming contrast to her gray hair, which she wears in the coiffure of a certain marquise of a century ago. Sometimes on fête days, madame encircles her white throat with a black velvet ribbon. Upon these occasions, she mostly resembles the Watteau-like marquise whose portrait hangs in the inn adjoining Madame Baudière’s garden. A seasoned old hostelry is the inn, famous for its vintages and its sauces, both of which go far toward cheering the stranger who comes to Poissy.

This quaint town upon the bank of the Seine would be a drowsy little hamlet indeed were it not so close to Paris that its cobbled streets are filled on Sundays and holidays with _tuff-tuffs_ and formidable red racers, which rattle and roar in their endeavor to stand still long enough to deposit their dust-begrimed occupants at the door of Monsieur Dalaison’s inn, the Esturgeon. For it is quite the thing for Parisians to take their Sunday _déjeuner_ or _dîner_ at this hostelry.

When I first saw her, Madame Baudière was stepping out of the narrow doorway of her bait shop and calling lustily to her garçon André, who had reached the shore of a feathery green island just opposite, and who upon hearing madame’s voice turned his boat about and bent his broad back to his oars in haste to return.

“_Dépêchez-vous!_” cried madame, as he drew nearer. “Monsieur wishes the big boat.”

“_Bien, madame, tout de suite_,” answered André, plunging the clumsy blades into the glassy river which swings along past the island and glides peacefully on its way down to Normandy and the sea.

Photo by F. Berkeley Smith

THE ESTURGEON]