The reading of the play gives the impression of a melodramatic touch in this catastrophe. It seems at first as if the author in despair had solved his problem by a hasty theatrical stroke. As performed by the inimitable Bartet and Le Bargy and Paul Mounet there is only a faint suggestion of the theatric. Like the divorce theme, the tragedy at the close is but an aid to expand M. Hervieu's thesis. Not the inviolability of ecclesiastical marriage, not the dispute of two men for the possession of a woman, but his thesis is the exposition of the truth that a man and a woman are forever linked by that bond of flesh, their child. Otherwise the dramatist holds no brief for heredity or one against divorce. He selected his material like an artist. What would have been the result if Marianne had had a child by her second husband? Probably we should have had no play. We must accept the premises of Hervieu or else avoid challenging his conclusions. In the remotest analysis a drama may be an entity for the crucible of the metaphysician; yet if it be great it will defy the test of logic as does life itself. And there is not only logic in Paul Hervieu's Le Dédale, but life, a great section of throbbing, real life. It is certainly the most significant French play thus far of the new century. I tested the validity of the foregoing criticism written after reading the play by attending a performance at the Français, Paris, October 20, 1904. Madame Bartet was superb, far exceeding my rather suspicious expectations. Her serenity and dignity in the earlier acts; the maternal anguish, the maternal--literally--passion that caused her defection; the remorse and almost hysterical confession, were all indicated by this mistress of fine nuances. Le Bargy has seldom been better cast, while Paul Mounet was excellent; and I was almost convinced by the finale, though I wish the playwright, taking a hint from Ibsen, had ended on an unresolved cadence. But M. Hervieu is too logical, too Gallic, to treat his audiences thus. He even re-wrote The Enigma so as to make the end clearer. The Enigma, which London saw in March, 1902, at Wyndham's Theatre, was then called Cæsar's Wife, which is, as Osman Edwards justly remarks, a pompous title.