True, we find, without reckoning _les Enfants d'Édouard_ and _Louis XI._ by Casimir Delavigne, _Bertrand et Raton_ and _la Passion secrète_ by Scribe, who had just protested against that harvest of unknown, forgotten and buried works, flung into the common grave without epitaph to mark their resting-places,--it is true, I say, that we find four or five pieces more at the Théâtre-Français than at the Porte-Saint-Martin; but that does not prove that they played those pieces at the Théâtre-Français for a longer period than those of the Porte-Saint-Martin, especially when we carefully reflect that the Théâtre-Français only plays its new pieces for two nights at a time, and gives each year a hundred and fifty representations of its old standing repertory! You are therefore perfectly correct, _Monsieur l'acadèmicien_: it was to the Porte-Saint-Martin and not to the Théâtre-Français that the subsidy ought to have been granted, seeing that, with the exception of two or three works, it was at the Porte-Saint-Martin that genuine literature was produced. We will proceed, or, rather, the author of _Joconde_ shall proceed: "If the Chamber of Deputies is not so eager to vote for laws dealing with financial matters, we must hope, that in so serious a matter as this one, so intimately connected with good order and the existence of civilisation, some courageous voice will be raised to protest against such an abusive use of public funds, and to recall the Minister to the duties with which he is charged. The deputy who would thus speak would be sure of a favourable hearing from an assembly, whose members every day testify against the unprecedented license of the theatres, destructive of all morality, and who are perfectly cognisant of all the dangers attached thereto." But you were a member of the Chamber, illustrious author of _Joconde!_ Why did you not take up the matter yourself? Were you afraid, perchance, that they might think you still held, under the sway of the younger branch of the Bourbon family, the position of dramatic critic which you exercised so agreeably under Napoléon? "We shall return to this subject," continues the ex-dramatic censor, "which seems to us of the highest importance for the peace of mind of private families and of society in general. We have on our side every man of taste, all true friends of our national institutions and, in fact, all respectable persons in all classes of society!"