ed by the plague; but all this
cannot blind us to the support given to the struggling playwright,
Dumas, in the early part of his career. During the winter of 1841-'42,
which was a severe one, Lireux sent foot-warmers to the rare audience
that patronized him on a bitterly cold night, "when tragedy still
further chills the house"; the little bit of charlatanism cannot disturb
the fact of his having given one of the foremost dramatists of the day a
chance with "La Cigue." I am alluding to the first piece of Emile
Augier.

This kind of thing tells with a general public, more so still with a
public composed of generous-minded, albeit somewhat riotous youths like
those of the Quartier-Latin in the early forties. Gradually the latter
found their way to the Odeon, "sinon pour voir la piece, alors pour
entendre Lireux, qui est toujours amusant"; which, in plain language,
meant that come what may they would endeavour to provoke Lireux into
giving them a speech.

Flattering as was this resolve on their part to Lireux's eloquence, the
means they employed to encompass their end would have made the existence
of an ordinary manager a burden to him. But Lireux was not an ordinary
manager; he possessed "the gift of the gab" to a marvellous degree:
consequently he made it known that he would be happy at any time to
address MM. les etudiants without putting them to the expense of apples
and eggs on the evening of the performance, and voice-lozenges the next
day, if they, MM. les etudiants, would in return respect his furniture
and the dresses of his actors. The arrangement worked exceedingly well,
and for four years the management and the student part of the audience
lived in the most perfect harmony.

Lireux did more than that, he forestalled their possible objections to a
doubtful episode in a play. I remember the first night of "Jeanne de
Naples." The piece had dragged fearfully. Lireux had made three
different speeches during the evening, but he foresaw a riot at the end
of the piece which no eloquence on his part would be able to quell. It
appears--for we only found this out the next day--that the condemned
woman, previous to being led to execution, had to deliver a monologue of
at least a hundred and fifty or two hundred lines. The unhappy queen had
scarcely begun, when a herculean soldier rushed on the stage, took her
into his arms and carried her off by main force, notwithstanding her
struggles. It was a truly sensational endi