accessible. Of course it was not a court ball, and we could not, even with the most luxuriant fancy, imagine ourselves at the Hôtel Castellane; but it was far from being the very lowest sort. Indeed, the Salle Barthélémy in many respects stands beneath the Elysée.

At this moment the doctor must have the unfortunate idea of setting out in search of further adventures. Destiny unrelaxingly drove us along dark paths, which, though lighted with gas, were in other respects perilous and full of ruin.

Opposite the Elysée is situated the Poule Noire, a well-known inn of evil reputation. Marchand de vins, restaurant, café, all in one; but in reality a slum. I might call it a gambling hell, if the term did not sound too terribly.

"We need not play," said Jones; we will only look on. Besides, who knows us? We have our noses."

And so we went in.

Looking out on the street the establishment is in no way different from other coffee-houses. You order something here, and then retire to the back of the house. A dark passage leads into a yard, and thence you reach the gambling-room. Roulette was being played, and for money, as at a real bank; but the banker was surrounded by cigar-cases, portemonnaies, &c., as if they were only playing for such articles, which is allowed. They, however, simply staked their money, and received their winnings in money. Five-and-twenty to thirty persons were standing round the roulette-table; among them were a few dominos and masks, but the rest were workmen, like ourselves. All punted generally with two and five-franc pieces, though here and there a gold coin was produced. Judging from the white clean hands of some of the gamblers, they did not belong to the working classes; but were our hands, without the white cotton gloves, less suspicious?

The

All at once there was a quarrel between a couple of players and the • banker, who had won extraordinarily in the last few rounds. It was a difficult point to decide whether he had cheated. The players asserted that the roulette-board hung crooked, and that thus the high numbers won more frequently than the low ones, and, in addition, they had on several occasions received bad money from the bank. There was an immense amount of yelling; heads became hot; a couple of blows were dealt, at first upon the table, but they soon strayed elsewhere. banker collected his money, leaped up and tried to bolt. Several of the other players now interfered; the banker was seized; sundry chairs assumed a rotatory movement; the cleverest of the party slipped away; suddenly a shrill cry of " La police!" was raised, and all dispersed. We, too, hurried to the door, and right into the arms of the sergeants. "Au nom de la loi!" was shouted, and we were collared. Saville hurled back his assailant, and thus rendered the affair worse than before. Jones struggled quite as fiercely, and demonstrated that we had got in here by accident; that we had not been playing, but merely looking on, &c. The police did not listen to him, but answered simply, "Suivez nous, messieurs, vous raconterez tout cela au commissaire." What could we do?

66

"Let us put up with the worst," I said to my comrades, in English ; they cannot make a hanging matter of it."

Resistance would have been simply ridiculous. We therefore surrendered, and followed the sergeants with hanging heads. Outside a patrol took charge of us. It was luckily dark, so that no one saw us; besides, it would have been impossible to recognise us in our disguise.

"No matter," said Saville; "I should not like to go along the Boulevard des Italiens in this state. Doctor," he cried to the third of our party, "what do you say? Are you at length satisfied with your adventure ?"

In this manner we arrived at the violon de St. Lazare: the banker and three or four other gamblers who had accompanied us at the outset eventually took another route with their escort, probably to St. Laurent, the chief depôt of the quarter. The corporal appeared to make an exception with us, but we were locked up like the rest, and if I had not made the fortunate discovery of my friendly commissary, we should have remained under lock and key till the next morning, when we would have been examined, signed a protocol, given our names and addresses, paid five or six francs (only drunkards get off for two francs fifty centimes), and would then have been at length restored to liberty, to the civilised world, to the state! Fearful-fearful!

At this moment there was a noise outside, the door of our cell was opened, and the commissary walked in. He had a great difficulty in suppressing his laughter. The hour for our release had arrived. Monsieur le Commissaire is, as I stated, the most respected person in all guardrooms and violons, almost as big as a general or minister: he is omnipotent; that is to say, he can do what he likes.

Excellent M. Chevalier had returned home late (thanks to the Queen of Sheba) from the Opera, and was just going to bed when my collarnote reached him. He put on his paletot again, begirded himself with the tricolor scarf-for he must necessarily appear as a magistrate-and came in person to liberate us.

"C'est un mal-entendu," he said to the officer, who was standing respectfully before him with drawn sword, "je connais ces messieurs, vous les laisserez partir tout de suite." The officer bowed, and we were free.

"I attach one condition, however," M. Chevalier added, turning to me, "to your liberation, and that is, that you will breakfast with me tomorrow in the precise garb you are now wearing, for I should like to give my wife an amusement. I will not listen to any objections," he added, quickly, on seeing that I was about to make a remark. have the choice: you will either remain in prison, or breakfast with me to-morrow as ouvriers."

"You

"I will breakfast with you a dozen times, my dear Mr. Commissary," Jones hastily exclaimed, "and in any costume you like, so long as you get me out of here."

"Besides, we have two days more of carnival," the commissary remarked, sportively," and hence you run no risk."

"I think we had better take a fiacre," Saville said, when we were out in the street, "for a burnt child dreads the fire."

SEVEN YEARS OF THE OPERA.*

THE year of the "exposition universelle" almost exhausted the vital forces of the Opera. There had been five performances a week. Cruvelli's engagement was at an end, the spirit of song was absent in the person of Roger, the ballet perished with Rosati; there only remained Gueymard, Bonnehée, Obin, and Belval, and the singers and dancers who constituted the usual masculine and feminine resources of the theatre. It was at this epoch that M. Alphonse Royer was called to the direction, and began a new season with "Guillaume Tell," in four acts, and complete.

When Madame Lauters obtained an engagement at the Opera, she addressed herself to Duval, an upholsterer in renown, to furnish an apartment for her. Madame demanded ebony and satin; the upholsterer advocated mahogany and chintz. Matters were still in abeyance when the first representation of "La Trouvère" came on. Before the first act was concluded, Duval whispered behind the scenes, "Ebony and satin; you shall have them." "Wait a little," replied Madame Lauters. "Rosewood and damask," exclaimed Duval, at the end of the second act. "Wait a little longer," persevered the artist; and when at the conclusion she was called for by the unanimous voice of a crowded house, "Meuble de Boule, brocart antique, anything you like," was heard over and above the clamour of congratulations, from the delighted up

holsterer.

"Herculanum" was the most successful opera produced during the Royer administration, yet it had many difficulties to contend with, having been a long time put off, and, when acted, often suspended on account of illness. Nothing, however, equalled the scandal on the occasion of the production of "Tannhauser." It only went through three representations; there was a predetermination to put down the German composer, whose want of modesty created him many enemies.

"Billets de faveur" are in great demand at the Opera. Some people pay a high price in order to appear to have free admission. Requests for such are often addressed to the artists themselves, and that not always in a very complimentary vein. "I return you the stall you were kind enough to send me," wrote a friend to Roger the night he was singing "La Favorite." "I will ask you for it some night when G. is in the part." All directors have their intimate friends, who speak of the administration as "us" or we." "We do so and so," is always on their lips. A director once sent a box to a statesman whom he wished to conciliate. The latter returned the order with thanks. He could always obtain one, he said, from M. de L. Now, M. de L. was the director's friend, and got his orders through him. Every order given is so much freedom gone. You have no longer any right to refuse to-day what you granted yesterday, and you will be told so every day of your administration; or, "I don't see why you should not do for me what you do for so and so;" or, again, you do not send me an order, I shall know

"If

Sept Ans à l'Opéra. Souvenirs Anecdotiques d'un Secrétaire particulier. Par Nérée-Desarbres.

what to do;" which implies unfavourable criticism. And yet, if you refuse an order you make an enemy just the same as if you give one, and don't keep on giving. Mademoiselle Mars received a friend three times a week to dinner, yet he only grumbled: "For ten years I have dined with that woman, and she has never offered me a stall at the ComédieFrançaise."

M. Nérée-Desarbres was sent to Italy on a mission for recruits. The "Trovatore" was being played at Turin, at Milan, at Florence, and Naples. There was nothing but the "Trovatore." To go to Italy for artists, is, he declares, an absurdity. Singing and dancing birds fly away from their nests the moment they have found wings or a voice. They must be sought for in London, Vienna, St. Petersburg, or Parisanywhere but at Milan, Naples, Rome, or Venice. The only acquisition made upon this occasion was Madame Merante, and “ our commissioner" met her asleep in a train at Aix.

Few artists but come and knock once in their lives at the door of the Opera. Sometimes a rehearsal is granted, but the results are very rarely satisfactory. A cruel trick was once played upon Mademoiselle Hébé, a Danish artist, who, after many applications made in vain, arrived one day in travelling costume, hurried and distressed with the fatigue of a long journey. She had never been sent for. A rehearsal was, however, granted to alleviate the poignancy of her disappointment, but only to cause her return to Copenhagen the next day. Some people form to themselves the strangest possible ideas of the Opera. The mistress of an hotel having opened a letter addressed to a young artist who was absent, appeared before the secretary to intimate the fact, which she did as follows: "Mademoiselle is gone into the country, but if monsieur wishes it, I have better than her at his command."

If all dancers are not so rich in Cashmere shawls as Mesdemoiselles Marquet, Schlosser, Pilvois, and Mercier (it is Pilvois who always asks of a person introduced to her if he belongs to the Jockey Club, and if the answer is in the negative makes the prettiest little face imaginable), or as bejewelled as Mesdemoiselles Lamy, Rousseau, and Stoikoff, they are all relatively more or well dressed, and of irreproachable cleanliness. One or two exceptions to this are alone on record. The knowledge possessed by these young ladies of the world beyond the Opera is, however, often exceedingly limited. A gentleman having presented one of them with a dress of Lyons silk, she asked him how he had succeeded in getting it over the frontiers? To another, when asked if she were a Jewess, No, I am a Parisian," was the reply. Another being told that she was "as beautiful as an antique," declared the remark to be an impertinence. The by-names of artists are not always very refined. There are the inevitable Titïnes and Fifines for Léontine and Joséphine, but there are also Gnouf-gnoufs, and even Nez qui Danse and Gueule d'Acier!

Nowhere are the principles of equality before the law so efficiently carried out as in the presence of the dancers. In that "foyer," embalmed in rice-powder, cold cream, and carmine, princes, titled personages, bankers, artists, and literary men are all on the footing of equality. No matter if a Rothschild, a Daru, an Auber, or a Jules Janin, they are all there on the same level of seeking favours-and yet not appearing to do so. One day, a pretty figurante sought for change for a louis to give

back in return for an order she had disposed of. Luckily for her, she addressed herself to Dr. Véron, who immediately gave her two ten-franc pieces, and told her to keep the louis for change. The mystified demoiselle kept counting the money, and could not make it out. Singers and dancers alike are authorised to be accompanied by a relative, but they sometimes abuse the privilege, and are waited upon by certain melodramatic traitors whom it is impossible to mistake for mother, aunt, or femme de chambre.

The perpetual repertory of the Opera is composed of eight works: Guillaume Tell, Robert le Diable, les Huguenots, le Prophète, la Juive, la Muette, la Favorite, and Lucie. These chefs-d'œuvre represent, each in its particular line, five composers: Rossini, Meyerbeer, Halévy, Auber, and Donizetti. It is true that, now and then, two or three other composers arise to break the barrier of exclusion, but whether they are named Prince Poniatowski, Félicien David, Gounod, or Wagner, their isolated works can never command a claim of admission into the regular repertory. When "Tannhauser" was in course of rehearsal, certain enthusiasts prognosticated one or two hundred representations. 666 "Le Tannhauser," exclaimed its author, "will be played always." Wagner had the pretension also of succeeding without the claque, and his play only lived, as we have seen, three nights, amidst a storm of opposition. After the composers come the dramatic authors, librettistes paroliers, among the first of whom was Scribe. M. de St. Georges has inherited his royalty, and few works go before the Opera without having been revised and corrected by him. After M. de St. Georges come Messrs. Pacini and Ch. Nuitter. M. Paul Foucher, Alphonse Royer, and Gustave Vaëz, labour in the sister arts of song and dance. The author and composer's rights are five hundred francs the night, with a kind of patent for the provinces.

or

The great difficulties of an administration lie in avoiding to wound susceptibilities. Vanity is an essential condition with artists, and with some actresses it is carried to the extreme limits of endurance. If some of the ladies had it in their power, they would have the theatre closed on the occasion of their illness, rather than a rival should take her place in a favourite part. Artists do not generally trace their descent, from the Montmorencys or the Godfroy of Bouillons. Mademoiselle de la Pommeraye is, however, of noble descent, and her mother said, on her début, "You must feel that, when one calls oneself De la Pommeraye, one cannot content oneself with a mediocre success; to-morrow my daughter will be first at the Opera, or the fine stipulated by contract will be paid by us. The next day Mademoiselle de la Pommeraye was not the first, but she not the less continued to sing. Renard, on the contrary, signed himself, "Renard, formerly a workman, actually singer at the Opera at thirty thousand francs the year."

Artists are, strange to say, superstitious. The latest manifestation has been what the Italians call la jettature. The secret lies in closing the two middle fingers and holding out two others, so as to form a kind of horn-the effect of which is as bad as the evil eye. The pretty ballet of Graziosa suffered so much from this kind of manifestation, that a pitchfork was actually placed in the box of a certain Italian cavalier, to ward off his supposed necromancy. Madame Barbot, who attained great