It is to the Temple that the correct comedian runs who would fain discover the proper type of a lost mode of the last century. And this reminds me that the law in France is exceedingly strict, even with respect to the costume of a comedian. It is not many months since that a young French actress, possessed with becoming ideas of decency, refused to put on the extremely minute portion of transparent gauze which was allotted to her as her entire costume, in a fairy piece then about to appear. She averred that to stand so attired, rather undressed than dressed, before the public, would be an insult to the audience and a degradation to herself. The manager, not more modest than those delicate creatures generally are, did not comprehend, and therefore could not respect, the sentiment which influenced the young actress; and he accordingly summoned her to the tribunal of the law. The grave magistrate heard the case, examined the bit of gauze, condemned the poor girl to wear it, and went in the evening to see how she looked. The worthy official of the very blind Astræa repaired to the lady’s “loge” when all was over, and inquired pleasantly how she had felt when greeted by the acclamations of the audience. “I felt as if I were in the pillory,” said the really _decens Nympha_, “and that every shout was a missile flung at my head.” The solemn villain smiled, tapped her on the cheek, and bade her take courage; “that foolish excess of modesty,” he said, “would soon disappear!” Thus we see that Paris has not improved in this respect since the days when people saw “the Testament turned into melodramas nightly:”— “Here Daniel in pantomime bids bold defiance To Nebuchadnezzar and all his stuff’d lions; While pretty young Israelites dance round the prophet, In very thin clothing, and but little of it. Here Begrand, who shines in this scriptural path As the lovely Susanna, without e’en a relic Of drapery round her, comes out of the bath In a manner that, Bob says, is quite _Eve-angelic_.” Many a royal garment has been carried off from the Temple to the theatres. The former place is most crowded about eleven in the morning. All the _marchands d’habits_ in Paris assemble there at that hour, laden with the purchases which they have made during the early part of the day; and these purchases are immediately resold to the stationary dealers in the rotunda, who divide the same according to their respective merits and expected customers. One of the best-dressed men in France under the Empire was General Dorsenne. “Look at Dorsenne,” Napoleon would say, “on the day of battle; he looks like the true type of a French general, while Murat has the air of a rider from Franconi’s.”