The history of the French marionettes, during the first half of the eighteenth century, is given in considerable detail by M. Magnin, but does not contain any very striking episodes. It is to be feared their morals got rather relaxed during the latter years of Louis XIV.’s reign, and under the Regency, and Bossuet might then have thundered against them with greater reason than in 1686. Towards the middle of the century, a great change took place in the character of their performances: witty jests, and allusions to the scandal of court and city, were neglected for the sake of mechanical effects and surprises; the vaudeville and polished farce, for which the French stage has long been and still is famous, were replaced by showy dramas and _pièces à spectacle_, in which the military element seems to have predominated, judging from the titles of some of them—The Bombardment of Antwerp, The Taking of Charleroi, The General Assault of Bergen-op-Zoom. It was the commencement of the decline of puppet performances in France; the public taste underwent a change; the eye was to be gratified, wit and satire were in great measure dispensed with. “Vaucanson’s automatons, the flute-player, the duck, &c., were imitated in every way, and people ran in crowds to see Kempel’s chess-player. At the fair of St Germains, in 1744, a Pole, named Toscani, opened a picturesque and automatical theatre, which seems to have served as a prelude to M. Pierre’s famous show. ‘Here are to be seen,’ said the bills, ‘mountains, castles, marine views; also figures that perfectly imitate all natural movements, without being visibly acted upon by any string; and, which is still more surprising, here are seen a storm, rain, thunder, vessels perishing, sailors swimming, &c.’ On all hands such marvels as these were announced, and also (I blush to write it) combats of wild animals.” Bull and bear baits, wolf and dog fights, in refined France, just a century ago, for all the world as in England in the days of buxom Queen Bess. M. Magnin copies an advertisement of one of these savage exhibitions, which might pass for a translated placard of the beast-fighting establishment that complained of the opposition made to them by Will Shakespeare and his players. Martin was the name of the man who kept the pit at the _barrière de Sèvres_; and after lauding the wickedness of his bull, the tenacity of his dogs, and the exceeding fierceness of his new wolf, he informs the public that he has “pure bear oil for sale.” When Paris ran after such coarse diversions as these, what hope was there for the elves of the puppet-show? Punch shrugged his hump, and crept moodily into a corner. Bull-rings and mechanism were too many for him. Twenty years later we find him again in high favour and feather at the fair of St Germains, where Audinot, an author and ex-singer at the united comic and Italian operas, having quarrelled with his comrades and quitted the