The directors of the Palais Royal Theatre have frequently been at law with their first ladies. Mdlle. Louisa Ferraris, in 1864, signed an engagement to play there for three years at a salary beginning at 2,400 francs, and advancing to 3,000 and 3,600 francs, with a forfeit clause of 12,000 francs. The salary would hardly have sufficed to pay the lady’s shoemaker. In the course of the engagement the ‘Foire aux Grotesques’ was put in rehearsal. In the course of this piece Mdlle. Ferraris had to say to another actress, ‘I was quite right in not inviting you to my ball, for you could not have come in a new dress, as you owe your dressmaker 24,000 francs!’ As this actress was really deeply indebted to that important personage, she begged that this speech, which seemed a deliberate insult to her, might be altered. Mdlle. Ferraris, in spite of the authors, who readily changed the objectionable phrase, continued, however, to repeat the original words. As she was peremptorily ordered to omit them she flung up her part, whereupon the directors applied to the law to cancel her engagement for breach of contract, and to award them 12,000 francs damages. Mademoiselle repented and offered to resume the part. On this being declined she entered a cross action to gain the 12,000 francs for breach of contract on the directors’ side. The Tribunal de Commerce, after consideration, cancelled the engagement, but condemned Mdlle. Ferraris to pay 2,000 francs damages and the costs of suit. It is to the stage, and not to the empress, that inordinate luxury in dress is to be attributed. Sardou, in ‘La Famille Bénoiton,’ has been stigmatised as the forerunner of such an exaggerated luxury that no private purse was sufficient to pay for the toilette of a woman whose maxim was, _La mode à tout prix_.