“Why,” he reflected, “should we show the fashionable people who annually fill the boxes of the Molier, some old fairy story remounted in a new form? Men of the present day with money and audacity accomplish greater prodigies than the magicians of old.” [p327] M. Champsaur resolved to show us his contemporaries at work—and this is the plot of his pantomime— The charming Mademoiselle Rivolta, from the Eden, appeared disguised as a little Spring looking for her course. No one had thought of using her to fill a lake, rush down a waterfall or turn a mill. She therefore wandered about the Cirque Molier, shedding floods of tears. Good Luck, who never likes to see pretty girls cry, led two speculators in the same direction. They remark to each other:— “Look! here’s a little Spring! And there’s no casino on the bank!” “No race game!” “No gambling house!” “Cannot this little Spring cure some illness?” “If not, she is the only one of her kind!” To satisfy themselves on this point they then take Mademoiselle Rivolta’s hand, lead her to the house of Madame Dezoder, a lady doctor in the same neighbourhood, and knock at the door. Armed with a goblet, Madame Dezoder tastes Mademoiselle Rivolta. After carefully testing her, her gesture says “Pooh!” “What does that matter?” replied the bankers. “We will bottle Mademoiselle Rivolta and, with a good label, she will cure as well as her companions.” No sooner said than it was done. And since a godmother was required for the new Spring launched upon the world, the bankers fetch Fortune, Mademoiselle Renée Maupin, from the Opera! [p328] Ah! what a delightful person! I always liked Fortune instinctively, before I knew her; but since I have seen her feet, figure, and eyes! . . . . . [Illustration] “You shall cure everything!” Fortune assured the Spring. They placed the bottle in the doctor’s house and in it Mademoiselle Rivolta, who looked like a saint in her shrine. Then the procession of those wounded by Life (_Ereintés de la Vie_)—this is the title of the pantomime—commences. [p329] They are all invalided by love: first, a number of pretty girls who have flirted too much; then all the gentlemen who have been wounded by these flirtations. Love himself comes to the Spring. He is very ill. His poor little wings hang down his back in a lamentable way. “Douche him! Douche him!” The child is dipped in the water and is drawn out transformed into a Farnese Hercules, with enormous muscles which stand out in huge rolls upon his arms from the shoulder to the elbow. The entertainment closes by a procession accompanied by a blast of trumpets, at the end of which appears the Golden Calf, led by Fortune with a leash. I have quoted this pantomime by M. Champsaur in preference to others of more recent date which have been equally successful, because it clearly indicates the nature of the entertainment given in the Cirque Molier.