private persons took their dogs to this theatre to act as 'supers.' Nothing droller can be imagined than these performances." From 1814 to 1818 the theatre was changed into a café-concert, inappropriately entitled Café de la Paix. This establishment became famous during the Hundred Days. Men of different periods met there as on some appointed fighting-ground; and as a result of many violent scenes the house had to be closed. After the Revolution of 1830 the theatre, still associated with the name of Mdlle. Montansier, was restored to its original purpose. Entirely reconstructed, it was opened to the public in June, 1831, under the title of Théâtre du Palais Royal. A company of excellent comedians had been engaged, many of whom, such as Alcide, Tousez, Achard, Levassor (who loved to impersonate eccentric Englishmen), Grassot, Ravel, and the fascinating Virginie Déjazet, were to attain European fame. Here were produced a number of highly diverting pieces, several of which have become known in translated or adapted form at our London theatres; for example, _Indiana et Charlemagne_ (_Antony and Cleopatra_); _Le Chapeau de Paille d'Italie_ (_A Wedding March_); _La Chambre aux deux Lits_ (_The Double-Bedded Room_); _Grassot embêté par Ravel_ (_Seeing Wright_); _Un Garçon de chez Véry_ (_Whitebait at Greenwich_); with many others. The liveliest and most risky pieces of the French stage have for the most part seen the light at the Palais Royal Theatre. These productions were, not without reason, considered in a general way unfit for the ears of young girls; and it became one of the recognised privileges of the married woman to be able in her new state to witness a Palais Royal farce. Even wives, however, in many cases thought it as well, while seeing, not to be seen at the Palais Royal; and for the benefit of such ladies were provided an extra number of _loges grillées_--those _loges grillées_, otherwise _petites loges_, one of which a certain abbé wished to have for the first performance of _The Marriage of Figaro_, when the author declined, declaring with indignant satire that he had "no sympathy with those who wished to unite the honours of virtue with the pleasures of vice." The _petite loge_ of France, like the private box of England, is comparatively a modern invention. In neither country were such things known till the end of the last century; and it is probable that, like most other theatrical novelties, they were imported, not from England into France, but from France into England. Even thirty or forty years ago private boxes were much less numerous at our English theatres than they have since become. They have increased in proportion as the pit has diminished, and, in some theatres, entirely disappeared. On their first introduction they were unpopular in both countries.