Punch: Punch (76.1879)

June 7, 1879.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

" CIRCUMSTANTIAL."

Counsel for the Prisoner. "And yot; tell me, Sir, you saw that blind, helpless Fiddler kick the Prosecutor on the
Head along with his other Assailants?"

Witness. "I did, Surr ! In the thick o' the Shindy, I seen the ould Vagabone a-feelin' round an' round that
honest poor Man down on the Flewer till he'd found a Vacancy, whin he ups wid his Fut an' lits fly, the Divil's
own Shoe-full clane into the centre ov't ! ! ! "

PUNCH, INTEODTJCEE OP AMBASSADORS,

Shows in "La Societe de la Comedie Francaise."

"The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, pastoral "-

Yes, see them in Phedre, Tartuffe, and UAmi Fritz, and then
say if " the immortal " is not down on it, as usual.
First, Monsieur Perrin, Administrateur de la Comedie Francaise.
And you, Les Societaires,

Messieurs Got and Maubant and Delaunay, Coquelin Aine
and Cadet, Febvre and Thiron and Mounet-Sully, Laroche and
Barre and Worms ;

And you, the better half of the Comedie,

Mesdames Madeleine Brohan and Fayart and Jouassain,
Riquer and Proyost-Ponsin, Dinah-Felix and Reichemberg,
Croisette and Sarah-Berhardt,Barretta and Broisat and Samary ■

And you, Messieurs and Mesdames les Pensionnaires, who look to
step into their shoes, inherit their parts, and equal their reputations,
how could you all be more auspiciously presented to the British public
than under the wing of Punch and the " Immortal William ? "

Punch is proud to play Polonius for you.

The Sage of Fleet Street takes off his cap and bells to introduce
the House of Moliere to the Home of Shakspeare.

Happily for us, the House of Moliere is to be, for the next six
weeks, in the hands of the restorers, cleaners, and decorators. If
this rather "eclipses the Gaiety of Nations" in Paris, it illuminates,
better even than the Electric Light, the Gaiety of Mr. John
Hollingshead in the Strand.

It brings within his doors, and those of the British public, for
thirty-six evenings and six mornings, the pick of the performances
of the best company of Actors in the world.

Polonius did not say a word too much for them.

This is the only " company" of actors that really has a right to the
name. _ Others so-called, are not " companies,11 but conglomerates.

This is a " Society " of artists, with a past as well as a present,

and a future assured by their present and past; with archives and
traditions of glory and of art; art that runs back three centuries, tradi-
tions transmitted without a break from the days of the Grand Mon-
arque, glory accumulated by an uninterrupted succession of famous
players all proud to be associated with the House of Moliere.

It is this unbroken chain of memories and traditions this stability
in a land where so many things are unstable ; this inheritance of
famous names and great resources; this constitution planned by Louis
the Great and revised by the Great Napoleon, which assures modest
competence in life as the reward of good service; that _ admirable
school of the Conservatoire which shapes raw material into actors
and actresses before they are allowed to present themselves on tbe
boards, instead of leaving them to learn their art under the eye, and
at the expense, of the public,—it is all these together that have
given to the " Society" of the Comedie Francaise a sense of respect
for themselves and their art, of a common dignity to support and
a common reputation to maintain, of ties of fellowship, obligations
to mutual sacrifice and postponement of self-assertion to artistic
completeness, utterly impossible in bodies of actors like ours,
brought together and scattered by the breath of caprice or the whiff
of speculation, blown about by the wind of popular favour, engaged
for the run of a piece, or, at longest, for the space of a season, looking
to popularity as the sole source of profit, scampering all the world
over for gain, usually hurried in the preparation of their work, and
unfinished in its execution, without any of the unity that only
long fellow-working can give, or of that respect for art which it
requires an atmosphere of art to keep alive.

In one word, the Company of the Theatre Francais is a Society;
the companies of most of our theatres are accidental and brief
assemblages of actors and actresses.

Let us all make the best of our present chance of studying the
finished and refined art of this Society while it is amongst us. And
if it sets the wiser heads of the B. P. thinking that all is not for the
best in the British theatre ; that we might—if we cannot have our own
House of Shakspeare, founded, say, by good Queen Bess, and revised,