as she half chanted, half recited the
words, her voice now shrill and harsh, now deep, hollow, and
reverberating--her enraptured auditors likening it in effect to
distant thunder.

To the dramatists who sought to supply her with new parts, Rachel was
the occasion of much chagrin and perplexity. After accepting Scribe's
"Adrienne Lecouvreur" she rejected it absolutely only to resume it
eagerly, however, when she learned that the leading character was to
be undertaken by Mademoiselle Rose Cheri. His "Chandelier" having met
with success, Rachel applied to De Musset for a play. She was offered,
it seems, "Les Caprices de Marianne," but meantime the poet's
"Bettine" failed, and the actress distrustfully turned away from him.
An undertaking to appear in the "Medea" of Legouve landed her in a
protracted lawsuit. The courts condemned her in damages to the amount
of two hundred francs for every day she delayed playing the part of
Medea after the date fixed upon by the management for the commencement
of the rehearsals of the tragedy. She paid nothing, however, for the
management failed to fix any such date. M. Legouve was only avenged in
the success his play obtained, in a translated form, at the hands of
Madame Ristori. In lieu of "Medea" Rachel produced "Rosemonde," a
tragedy by M. Latour de St. Ybars, which failed completely. Other
plays written for her were the "Valeria" of MM. Lacroix and Maquet, in
which she personated two characters--the Empress Messalina and her
half sister, Lysisca, a courtesan; the "Diane," of M. Augier, an
imitation of Victor Hugo's "Marion Delorme;" "Lady Tartuffe," a comedy
by Madame de Girardin; and "La Czarine," by M. Scribe. She appeared
also in certain of the characters originally contrived for
Mademoiselle Mais, such as La Tisbe in Victor Hugo's "Angelo," and the
heroines of Dumas's "Mademoiselle de Belle Isle" and of "Louise de
Lignerolles" by MM. Legouve and Dinaux.

The classical drama of France has not found much favor in England and
America. We are all, perhaps, apt to think with Thackeray
disrespectfully of the "old tragedies--well-nigh dead, and full time
too--in which half a dozen characters appear and shout sonorous
Alexandrines for half a dozen hours;" or we are disposed to agree with
Mr. Matthew Arnold, that their drama, being fundamentally insufficient
both in substance and in form, the French, with all their gifts, have
not, as we have, an adequate form for poetry of the highest c