Voltaire, in writing the poem from which the above stanza is quoted, had simply obeyed his own natural impulse. His verses were not intended for publication, for he knew that if they were seen by the clergy they might get him into trouble. He simply sent a copy of the poem to his friend Thiériot, and perhaps to others, with a strong recommendation to keep it secret. The first thing, however, that Thiériot seems to have done was to take Voltaire's verses with him into society, where he was always received in the character of "Voltaire's friend." The poet had probably exaggerated the danger. The clergy could have no wish to re-awaken the scandal caused by the circumstances of Adrienne Lecouvreur's burial, and though Voltaire left Paris when he found that his poem on the death of Adrienne was being circulated everywhere in manuscript, there does not seem to have been any necessity for this species of flight. The place of Adrienne's burial, which long remained unknown, was discovered years afterwards, during some work of excavation and demolition. Voltaire and Maurice de Saxe were both dead; but an old friend of hers, named D'Argental, was still living, and he hastened to mark the spot by a tablet to her memory. The Comédie Française, beneath whose shadow Adrienne Lecouvreur was brought up, is not the only theatre connected with the Palais Royal. The Théâtre du Palais Royal forms part of the spacious construction from which it derives its name, and is entered from the Palais Royal itself. Standing at the northern extremity of the Galerie de Beaujolais, it was constructed in 1783 by Louis, architect to the Duke of Orleans. Its original name was Théâtre Beaujolais, and its original occupant the manager of a company of marionettes. The marionettes were replaced by children playing exclusively in pantomimes. But in 1790 Mdlle. Montansier, who had formerly directed the Royal Theatre of Versailles, and who had followed the king and queen, took possession of the little theatre in the Palais Royal, and opened it under the title of Théâtre des Variétés. Every kind of play was presented, and it was here that the directress brought out as a child the afterwards famous Mdlle. Mars. In time, under the Empire, the company of the Palais Royal left it to take possession of the theatre on the Boulevard Montmartre, to which the name of Théâtre des Variétés was thereupon transferred. The Palais Royal Theatre now passed into the hands of a succession of managers, who relied, one on tight-rope dancers, another on marionettes, and a third on learned dogs. "These animals," says Brazier in his "Petits Théâtres de Paris," "played their parts with an intelligence not often met with among bipeds. The company was completed with its light and low comedian, its walking gentleman, its heavy father, its chambermaid, its leading actor and actress, and so on. For the four-footed artists was arranged a melodrama which was scarcely worse than many others I have seen. Many