of shreds and patches on the
boards came to blows and the Roman toga concealed a poignard. For a
time "idolatry" triumphed at the Nation, but Talma and the patriots at
length won. A reconciliation was effected, and at a performance of the
_Taking of the Bastille_, on 8th January 1791, Talma addressed the
audience, saying that they had composed their differences. Naudet, the
Royalist champion, was recalcitrant, and amid furious shouts from the
pit, "On your knees, citizen!" at length gave way, embraced Talma with
ill-grace, and on the ensuing nights the Revolutionary repertory, _The
Conquest of Liberty_, _Rome Saved_, and _Brutus_, held the boards.

In the stormy year of 1830, when the July Revolution made an end for
ever of the Bourbon cause in Paris, the Comedie Francaise again became
a scene of fierce strife. _Hernani_, a drama in verse, had been
accepted from the pen of Victor Hugo, the brilliant and exuberant
master of the new Romantic school of poets who had determined to
emancipate themselves from the traditions, long since hardened into
dogmas, of the great dramatists of the siecle de Louis Quatorze. On
the night of the first performance each side--Romanticists and
Classicists--had packed the theatre with partisans. The air was
charged with feeling; the curtain rose, but less than two lines were
uttered before the pent-up passions of the audience burst forth:--

DONA JOSEFA--"Serait-ce deja lui? C'est bien a l'escalier
Derobe--"

The last word had not passed the actress' lips when a howl of
execration rose from the devotees of Racine, outraged by the author's
heresy in permitting an adjective to stray into the second line of
verse. The Romanticists, led by Theophile Gautier, answered in
withering blasphemies; the Classicists began to

"... prove their doctrine orthodox
By apostolic blows and knocks,"

and the pit became a pandemonium of warring factions. Night
after night the literary sects renewed their fights, and the
representations, as Hugo said, resembled battles rather than
performances. The year 1830 was the '93 of the classic drama, but the
passions it evoked have long since been calmed and _Hernani_ and _Le
Roi s'Amuse_, the latter suppressed by Louis Philippe after its first
appearance, have taken their places in the classic repertory of the
Francais beside the tragedies of Corneille and Racine.

At No. 161 Rue St. Honore, now Cafe de la Regence, beloved of chess
players