treasury of the _Gaieté_. One hundred and twenty-three years ago, Russian susceptibility, it appears, was held quite as easy to ruffle as at the present day. In 1731, the disgrace of Menschikoff was made the subject of a sort of melodrama, performed in several German towns by the large English puppets of Titus Maas, privileged comedian of the court of Baden-Durlach. The curious playbill of this performance ran as follows: “With permission, &c., there will be performed on an entirely new theatre, and with good instrumental music, a _Haupt-und-Staatsaction_, recently composed and worthy to be seen, which has for title—The extraordinary vicissitudes of good and bad fortune of Alexis Danielowitz, prince Menzicoff, great favourite, cabinet minister, and generalissimo of the Czar of Moscow, Peter I., of glorious memory, to-day a real Belisarius, precipitated from the height of his greatness into the most profound abyss of misfortune; the whole with Jack-pudding, a pieman, a pastrycook’s boy, and amusing Siberian poachers.” Titus Maas obtained leave to perform this wonderful piece at Berlin, but it was quickly stopped by order of Frederick-William I.’s government, for fear of offending Russia. In 1794 a number of puppet-shows were closed in Berlin—for offences against morality, was the reason given, but more probably, M. Magnin believes, because the tone of their performances was opposed to the views of the government. In what way he does not mention, but we may suppose it possible that the _Puppenspieler_ had got infected with the revolutionary doctrines then rampant in France. The Prussian police still keeps a sharp eye on exhibitions of this kind, which at Berlin are restricted to the suburbs. In France we find traces of a regular censorship of the marionette theatres. Thus, in the Soleinne collection of manuscript plays is one entitled: _The capture of a company of players by a Tunis rover, in the month of September 1840_. This piece, whose name, as M. Magnin remarks, reads more like the heading of a newspaper paragraph than the title of a play, was performed in 1741 at the fair of St Germains, by the puppets of the celebrated Nicolet, and annexed to it is a permit of performance, bearing no less a signature than that of Crébillon. It is not improbable that the puppet-show had fairly earned its subjection to a censorship by the irreverence and boldness with which it took the most serious, important, and painful events as subjects for its performances. In 1686, D’Harlay, then attorney-general at the parliament of Paris, wrote as follows to La Reynie, the lieutenant of police:—“To M. de la Reynie, councillor of the king in his council, &c. It is said this morning at the palace, that the marionettes which play at the fair of St Germain represent the discomfiture of the Huguenots, and as you will probably consider this a very serious matter for marionettes, I have thought it right, sir, to