Surpassed only by the _Belle Helene_ is the _Grande Duchesse de Gerolstein_. It is nearly fifteen years since all the world went to Paris to see an Exposition Universelle and to gaze at the "sabre de mon pere," and since a Russian emperor, going to hear the operetta, said to have been suggested by the freak of a Russian empress, sat incognito in one stage-box of the little Varietes Theatre, and glancing up saw a Russian grand duke in the other. It is nearly fifteen years since the tiny army of Her Grand-ducal Highness took New York by storm, and since American audience after audience hummed its love for the military and walked from the French Theatre along Fourteenth street to Delmonico's to supper, sabring the waiters there with the venerated weapon of her sire. The French Theatre is no more, and Delmonico's is no longer at that Fourteenth-street corner, and Her Highness Mademoiselle Tostee is dead, and M. Offenbach's sprightly tunes have had the fate of all over-popular airs, and are forgotten now. _Ou sont les neiges d'antan?_ It has been said that the authors regretted having written the _Grande Duchesse_, because the irony of history soon made a joke on Teutonic powers and principalities seem like unpatriotic satire. Certainly, they had no reason to be ashamed of the literary quality of their work: in its class it yields only to its predecessor. There is no single figure as fine as Calchas--General Boum is a coarser outline--but how humorous and how firm is the drawing of Prince Paul and Baron Grog! And Her Highness herself may be thought a cleverer sketch of youthful femininity than even the Hellenic Helen. It is hard to judge the play now. Custom has worn its freshness and made it too familiar: we know it too well to criticise it clearly. Besides, the actors have now overlaid the action with over-much "business." But in spite of these difficulties the merits of the piece are sufficiently obvious: its constructive skill can be remarked; the first act, for example, is one of the best bits of exposition on the modern French stage.