We made our way to the Odéon. A first representation was a great affair in those days--especially when the play to be acted for the first time was by a man belonging to the new school. Nevertheless, this play of Soulié was not epoch-making: had it been produced before the visit of the English company to Paris, it would have been looked upon as extremely advanced, but, coming after their representations, it was by no means up to date. There was no fear, indeed, of its being an out-and-out failure, but there was no chance, either, of its being a grand success. Observe, too, that it was to be played on the same stage, and, probably, with the same _mise-en-scène_ that had accompanied Kemble's and Miss Smithson's acting of Shakespeare's _chef d'œuvre._ Anaïs and Lockroy were entrusted with the principal parts. It was almost Lockroy's first appearance. He was handsome, young, romantic and daring--an actor of whom great things were expected, especially in this particular kind of rôle. But it was otherwise with regard to Anaïs. In comedy she was admirable and delightful, unfailing in taste, in wit, in delicacy of style and of interpretation; but in drama and tragedy she was entirely inadequate. And she was to appear on those same boards, before that same audience, in the same part of Juliet which Miss Smithson had presented with wonderful skill, and with all the qualities that go to the making of a great tragedienne! Besides, there was not a single woman in Paris in those days who could act Juliet, nor, we may add, have we anyone who could do it now. What is the reason for our lack of that charming type, the woman who combines gaiety of spirit with dramatic and poetic faculties? Why have we never produced, and probably never shall until some far distant future, anyone who will recall to both eyes and memory the personalities of Miss Smithson and Miss Faucett? Why was Mademoiselle Mars unequal to the part of Desdemona, and Madame Dorval herself unequal to Juliet? Because the dramatic education of our actresses is only conducted on the lines of three masters, without doubt of great merit, but whose genius does not include, as Shakespeare's did, that happy mixture of natural, dramatic and poetic expression to be found in most of the works of the English poet. Moreover, at the Conservatoire, pupils are only prepared for a single branch of the art, either tragedy or comedy, never for tragedy and comedy combined. Why, again? Because in the masters studied--Molière, Corneille and Racine--these two styles are never found intermingled. It is a fatal mistake to exclude comedy from the education of the tragedienne, and tragedy from the training of the comedienne; it makes the tragedienne heavy in comedy, the comedienne affected in tragedy. Our seventeenth and eighteenth century theatres knew nothing beyond the realism of Molière's women, the boorishness of Corneille's women; the rage or the gentleness of the women of Racine;