my arm." She thought the great novelist's declamation pompous and artificial. A friend told her she ought to read her works, that she would find enough reality there.
"I daresay; but I would rather not," was the laughing reply.
"Why not?"
"Because I am afraid I should admire them."
There was, perhaps, a feeling of jealousy between the two women on the subject of the poet who had written the Nuit de Mai for the one and La Servante du Roi for the other.
One of the ideas of the Republican Government, as we have seen, in the Paris of 1848, was the free admission of the populace to the theatres. The Théâtre Français was paid for by the people, therefore it must be the first to throw open its doors to admit them gratis. Citizen Lockroy and his colleagues decreed that the Théâtre Français had a great and noble mission to fulfil. It must rise to the greatness of the crisis. No longer must immoral and frivolous amusement be offered to a nation who, conscious of the greatness of its aspirations, wished to listen exclusively to the masterpieces of its immortal poets.
The following mandate of Ledru Rollin was therefore promulgated:—
