rand tableau, after Martin's picture. That painter, in
like manner, furnished scenes for the Deluge. Vast numbers of schoolboys
and children are brought to see these pieces; the lower classes delight
in them. The famous Juif Errant, at the theatre of the Porte St.
Martin, was the first of the kind, and its prodigious success, no
doubt, occasioned the number of imitations which the other theatres have
produced.

The taste of such exhibitions, of course, every English person will
question; but we must remember the manners of the people among whom they
are popular; and, if I may be allowed to hazard such an opinion, there
is in every one of these Boulevard mysteries, a kind of rude moral. The
Boulevard writers don't pretend to "tabernacles" and divine gifts, like
Madame Sand and Dumas before mentioned. If they take a story from the
sacred books, they garble it without mercy, and take sad liberties with
the text; but they do not deal in descriptions of the agreeably
wicked, or ask pity and admiration for tender-hearted criminals and
philanthropic murderers, as their betters do. Vice is vice on the
Boulevard; and it is fine to hear the audience, as a tyrant king roars
out cruel sentences of death, or a bereaved mother pleads for the life
of her child, making their remarks on the circumstances of the scene.
"Ah, le gredin!" growls an indignant countryman. "Quel monstre!" says a
grisette, in a fury. You see very fat old men crying like babies,
and, like babies, sucking enormous sticks of barley-sugar. Actors and
audience enter warmly into the illusion of the piece; and so especially
are the former affected, that at Franconi's, where the battles of the
Empire are represented, there is as regular gradation in the ranks of
the mimic army as in the real imperial legions. After a man has served,
with credit, for a certain number of years in the line, he is promoted
to be an officer--an acting officer. If he conducts himself well, he may
rise to be a Colonel or a General of Division; if ill, he is degraded to
the ranks again; or, worst degradation of all, drafted into a regiment
of Cossacks or Austrians. Cossacks is the lowest depth, however; nay,
it is said that the men who perform these Cossack parts receive higher
wages than the mimic grenadiers and old guard. They will not consent
to be beaten every night, even in play; to be pursued in hundreds, by a
handful of French; to fight against their beloved Emperor. Surely there
is fin