An adverse decision was pronounced, the reasons for discrediting the legend on the subject being fully set forth by M. Letrenne, the secretary of the commission. * * * * * The Boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle, which comes next to the Boulevard Saint-Denis, is bounded on the right by the Faubourg Poissonnière, and on the left by the Butte aux Gravois, on which was built in the seventeenth century the quarter named, after its parochial church, Notre-Dame de Bonne Nouvelle. The Bonne Nouvelle Bazaar, constructed in the reign of Louis Philippe, contained, in the basement, a sort of theatre of considerable size, where, in 1848, several political clubs and other conventions were established. Here on one particular day, arriving together by opposite staircases, Victor Hugo and Frédéric Lemaître would present themselves at the speaker's desk erected for political orators. Ultimately, but not without some hesitation, the interpreter of Ruy Blas gave way to the creator of the part. The object of the assembly was to constitute in a permanent way a club for Parisian writers and artists of the dramatic and other schools. Close by, at No. 26, is the Viennese beer-house, established on the site of the theatre opened in 1838, where the company of the old Vaudeville Theatre took refuge when, on the 18th of July in that year, they were burnt out. There is now but one theatre on the Boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle--that of the Gymnase, opened on the 20th of December, 1820, under the patronage of the Duchess of Berri, who four years afterwards allowed it to take the title of "Théâtre de Madame," which it retained until the Revolution of 1830. It was then entitled the "Gymnase Théâtre Dramatique," afterwards to be known simply as the Gymnase. For the last seventy years the Gymnase has been one of the very best theatres of the second order, ranking immediately after the theatres subventioned by the State. It was at the Gymnase that Scribe made his brilliant reputation with a long succession of little masterpieces, until at length he was followed by Alexandre Dumas the younger, who here produced "Le Demi-Monde," "Diane de Lys," and many other pieces less imposing, perhaps, but more thoughtful and more powerfully written than those of his predecessor. It was at the Gymnase, too, that Sardou brought out many of his best pieces, such as "Les Ganaches," "La Perle noire," "Nos bons Villageois," and "Fernande." This theatre, moreover, was the birthplace of Meilhac and Halévy's "Frou-Frou." The first house on the Boulevard Poissonnière, at the corner of the street of that name, bears an inscription which fixes at this point the boundary of Paris in 1726, though by some authorities 1726 is said to have been substituted for the true year in which the boundaries of Paris were marked--namely, 1702.