We have less interest in recalling the figure of Madame de Pompadour, playing and warbling the chief parts in the sparkling little operettas on the stage of her private theatre at Bellevue, than we have in recalling the figure of the young Dauphine, Marie-Antoinette, with the counts of Provence and Artois (afterwards Louis XVIII. and Charles X.), with their wives, and clever friends, playing comedy especially, with a grace and perfection which were not always to be found in the professional actor. But what the old king Louis XV. had encouraged in the Pompadour he and his rather gloomy daughters discouraged in Marie-Antoinette. It was not till she was queen, and had profited by the lessons of the singer Dugazon, that the last royal private theatre in France commenced its career of short-lived glory, at Choisy and the Trianon. Louis XVI. never took kindly to these representations. He went to them occasionally, but he disliked seeing the queen on the stage. It is even said that he once directed a solitary hiss at her, as she entered dressed as a peasant. It is further stated that the royal actress stepped forward, and with a demure smile informed the house that the dissatisfied individual might have his money returned by applying at the door. It is a pretty story, but it is quite out of character with the place and the personages, and it may be safely assigned to that greatest of story-tellers, Il Signor Ben Trovato. Adverse critics have said of Marie-Antoinette’s Rosine, that it was ‘_royalement mal jouée_.’ Perhaps they opposed the whole system of private acting. This amusement had the advocacy of Montaigne, who was himself a good amateur actor. Of course, the thing may be abused. It was not exemplary for French bishops to go to hear Collé’s gross pieces in private. There was more dignity in Louis XIV. and Madame de Maintenon listening to ‘Esther’ and ‘Athalie,’ acted by the young ladies of Saint-Cyr; and there was less folly in the princes and nobles who began the French Revolution by acting the ‘Mariage de Figaro’ in private, than there was in the Comte d’Artois (afterwards Charles X.) learning to dance on the tight rope, with a view of giving amateur performances to his admiring friends.