Rue de Richelieu, on a Place of its own, a light, animated, illuminated Place, dominated by the columns of the Théâtre Français. This was established here after the Revolution, and, thanks to the famous Decree of Moscow, its name is almost as eternally linked with that of Napoleon as with those of the immortal Molière and of Louis XIV., a more liberal but not less exacting master of France than the Corsican adventurer.
There is not a civilised land that has not something to learn of other lands. While the French may well envy the more stable and self-respecting government of England, England might just as well borrow something of France; and one of the things it ought to envy is the establishment, two centuries ago, of a national theatre. The result for France has been the most perfect dramatic school of the world. The suppression of excessive individuality is a benefit to the entire company, as it forbids any ambition to "star." We have seen what the star system has done for the two great artists who broke away from its traditions to amass fortunes and fling their reputations to all the quarters of the globe. South America has had the privilege of hearing Sarah Bernhardt, but the artist who left the Théâtre Français had genius of a finer quality and theatrical cultivation of a higher order than those displayed to-day by this extraordinary woman in the various more or less
