The players, however, did not remain many months in their old home. The Faubourg Saint-Germain, so long the centre of rank and wealth, was being abandoned in favour of more central spots, while, as a result of the existing free trade in theatrical matters, there were now several playhouses within a narrow radius of the Palais-Royal, whose advantage of situation rendered them formidable competitors. In January 1795, accordingly, the members of the Comédie-Française, not, as may be supposed, without many regrets, migrated to the Théâtre Feydeau, a house which had been erected, some years before, for a company of Italian _farceurs_, and was now under the control of a speculative gentleman named Sageret. To be the paid servant of Sageret, who does not appear to have borne the best of reputations, seemed to Mlle. Raucourt a kind of degradation--the arts and humanity, she declared, cried out against the subjection under which they had been led to place themselves; and, in the following December, that lady withdrew from the company, followed by Larive, Mlle. Joly, Saint-Prix, and several others, and took possession of a theatre in the Rue de Louvois, intending apparently to make it the central point of a reunion of the entire company. The flower of the Comédie-Française was now divided between three playhouses: the Théâtre de la République, the Théâtre Feydeau, and the Théâtre de Louvois. Of these the latter, which was inaugurated on Nivôse 5, Year v. (December 25, 1796), with _Iphigénie_ and a little play by Laya, entitled _Les Deux Sœurs_, was for a time the most successful; Mlle. Raucourt securing a great personal triumph in another masculine part--that of the hero in Legouvé’s _Laurence_. Laurence, it may be explained, was the young gentleman who became enamoured of Ninon de Lenclos without knowing that he was her son. The Directory, however, like the despotism which it had succeeded, kept a jealous eye on the theatres, and was in the habit of closing them, temporarily or altogether, upon the slightest provocation; and an incident which took place during the performance of _Les Trois Frères rivaux_ ruined all the hopes of Mlle. Raucourt. One of the characters, addressing his _valet-de-chambre_, by name Merlin, exclaims: “Monsieur Merlin, you are a scoundrel! Monsieur Merlin, you will end by being hanged!” Now Merlin de Douai, the Minister of Justice, was just then in very bad odour with the public; and the audience applied the speech to him and cheered vociferously for several minutes. A few days later (September 9, 1797), at the moment when the curtain was about to rise on a performance of the _Barbier de Seville_, an order arrived forbidding all further representations at the Théâtre de Louvois.