a theatre long since dead. They
were playing a piece with three actors, called _Pyramus and Thisbe_. As
in the Babylonian anecdote, the lovers of the play agreed to meet under
a mulberry tree at some distance from the town. Thisbe, who arrived
first, was surprised by a lion: she fled, and was about to hide when her
veil fell, and the lion seized it and tossed it about in his bloody
jaws. The lion was Frederic Lemaitre, who thus made his first appearance
on any stage on all fours. One night the actor who played Pyramus got
into a dispute in a neighboring cafe, and could not appear on account of
the exceeding warmth of the discussion, which resulted in sending him
home with a broken head. The manager was in a highly excited state of
mind. "Who the devil will play my Pyramus?" he cried. Whereupon the
lion, who was waiting on all fours to make his entrance, straightened
himself, took off his head, and said, "I'll play it if you
like."--"You?"--"I, who know the part."--"Well roared, lion!" quoth the
manager: "I accept your offer." This was Lemaitre's first essay in a
speaking part. It was greeted by the indulgent audience with cries of
indignation, peltings of apples, insults, hisses, whatever could most
energetically express disapprobation of the lion turned lover. The next
night Lemaitre resumed his dramatic career as a wild beast.

Yet he was at this period as handsome as Antinoeus, with an elegant and
slender but powerful figure, waving black hair, expressive and noble
features, a beautiful complexion, wide forehead, flashing dark eyes, and
a carriage full of grace and poetry. Rare personal beauty and
extraordinary strength were striking physical advantages for the stage:
the mental qualities were as yet but faintly shadowed forth.

On the conclusion of his studies at the Conservatoire young Lemaitre
sought admission to the classic Odeon Theatre, and would have failed had
not the tragedian Talma perceived what others could not, and insisted
that the young man had in him the making of a great actor. He made his
"serious" debut at the Odeon, and remained at this theatre five months,
but without producing any special impression as an actor. Then removing
to the Ambigu, he suddenly achieved a startling and brilliant success,
and created the first of that long list of parts which have since won
worldwide celebrity, and been played in every polite tongue, in every
civilized land. This was Robert Macaire in _L'Auberge des Adret