The name of Mademoiselle Aimée Desclées reminds me of our Lord Chamberlain. Extremes meet, in the mind as well as elsewhere! That actress, who, after many years of hard struggle, floated triumphantly as La Dame aux Camélias, and after a few years’ progress over sunny seas slowly sank in sight of port, was discovered and brought out by M. Dumas _fils_. A year or two ago she came to London with his plays, the above ‘Dame,’ the ‘Princesse Georges,’ the ‘Visite de Noces,’ and some others. But they stank in the nostrils of our Lord Chamberlain, and he would no more allow them to be produced than the Lord Mayor would allow corrupt meat to be exposed for sale in a City market. Great was the outcry that arose thereupon, from the French inhabitants, and some of the ignorant natives of London. The Chamberlain’s prudery and English delicacy generally were made laughing-stocks. But, gently! Is it known that the French themselves have raised fiercer outcry against plays which our Lord Chamberlain has refused to license than ever Jeremy Collier raised against that disgusting school of English comedy which Dryden founded, and the filth of which was not compensated for by the wit, such as it is, of Congreve, or the humour, if it may be so called, of Wycherly? The _Gaulois_ and the _Figaro_, papers which cannot be charged with over straitlacedness, have blushed at the adulterous comedy of France as deeply as the two harlequins at Southwark Fair blushed at the blasphemy of Lord Sandwich. A French critic, M. Fournier, referring to the ‘Visite de Noces’ of the younger Dumas, remarks that ‘the theatre ought not to be a surgical operating theatre, or a dissecting-room. There are operations,’ he adds, ‘which should not be performed on the stage, unless, indeed, a placard be posted at the doors, “Women not admitted!”’ With respect to this suggestion, M. Hostein, another critic, says: ‘People ask if the “Visite de Noces” be proper for ladies to see. Men generally reply with an air of modesty, that no woman who respects herself would go to see it. Capital puff!’ exclaims M. Hostein, ‘they flock to it in crowds!’ Not _all_, however. Not even all men. Men with a regard for ‘becomingness’ are warned by indignant French critics. The dramatic critic of the ‘France’ thus vigorously speaks to the point: ‘We say it with regret, with sadness, in no other country, no other civilised city, in no other theatre of Europe, would the new piece of M. Dumas _fils_ be possible, and we doubt whether there could be found elsewhere than in Paris a public who would applaud it even by mistake. The “Visite de Noces” has obtained a striking and decided success; so much the worse for the author and for us. If our tastes, if our sentiments, if our conscience be so perjured and perverted that we accept without repugnance and encourage with our cheers such pictures, we are truly _en décadence_.’ Such is the judgment of the leading critics. One of them, indeed, tersely