Undoubtedly the most marvellous example of dramatic eccentricity that was ever put upon record is the one which tells us of a regular performance by professional actors in a public theatre, before an ordinary audience, who had extraordinary interest in the drama. The locality was in Paris, in the old theatre of the Porte Saint-Martin. The piece was the famous melodrama, ‘La Pie Voleuse,’ on which Rossini founded ‘La Gazza Ladra,’ and which, under the name of ‘The Maid and the Magpie,’ afforded such a triumph to Miss Kelly as that lady may remember with pride; for we believe that most accomplished and most natural of all actresses still survives--or was surviving very lately--with two colleagues at least of the olden time, Mrs. W. West and Miss Love. When ‘La Pie Voleuse’ was being acted at the above-named French theatre, the allied armies had invaded France; a portion of the invading force had entered Paris. The circumstance now to be related is best told on French authority. An English writer might almost be suspected of calumniating the French people by narrating such an incident, unsupported by reference to the source from which he derived it. We take it from one of the many dramatic _feuilletons_ of M. Paul Foucher, an author of several French plays, a critic of French players and play-writers, and a relative, by marriage, of M. Victor Hugo. This is what M. Paul Foucher tells us: ‘On the evening of the second entry of the foreign armies into Paris, the popular melodrama “La Pie Voleuse,” was being acted at the Porte Saint-Martin. There was one thousand eight hundred francs in the house, which at that time was considered a handsome receipt. During the performance the doors were closed, because the rumbling noise of the cannon, rolling over the stones, interrupted the interest of the dialogue, and it rendered impossible the sympathetic attention of the audience.’ Frenchmen there were who were ashamed of this heartless indifference for the national tragedy. Villemot was disgusted at this elasticity of the Parisian spirit, and he added to his rebuke these remarkable words:--‘I take pleasure in hoping that we may never again be subjected to the same trial, and that, in any case, we may bear it in a more dignified fashion.’ How Paris bore it, when the terrible event again occurred, is too well known to be retold; but the incident of ‘La Pie Voleuse’ is perhaps the most eccentric of the examples of dramatic and popular eccentricity to be found in the annals of the French stage. _NORTHUMBERLAND HOUSE AND THE PERCYS._