"This is a modern refinement," writes Mercier, just before the Revolution of 1789, "or rather a public and very indecent nuisance introduced to please the humour of a few hundreds of our women of fashion. These boxes are held by subscription from year to year; nay, from mother to daughter, as part of her inheritance. Nothing could ever be devised better calculated to favour the impertinent pride and idleness of a first-rate actor, who, being paid handsomely by his share of the subscription, even before the beginning of the season, takes no trouble about getting up new parts, but solicits, under some pretence or another, leave of absence, and receives annually some 18,000 livres from the inhabitants of the capital, whilst he is holding forth at Brussels. Another objection against these hired boxes is that the comedians have constantly refused to admit the authors of new plays to a share in the subscription money; and they are so sensible to this advantage that they are daily improving it by throwing part of the pit into this kind of boxes. Whilst the public complain loudly of such encroachments on the liberty of the playhouses, hear the apology set up by our _belles_: 'What! will you, then, to oblige the _canaille_, compel me to hear out a whole play, when I am rich enough to see only the last scene? This is a downright tyranny! I protest! There is no police in France nowadays. Since I cannot have the comedians come to my own house, I will have the liberty to come in my plain deshabille, enjoy my arm-chair, receive the homage of my humble suitors, and leave the place before I am tired. It would be monstrous to deprive me of all these indulgences, and positively encroach upon the prerogatives of wealth and _bon ton_.' A lady therefore, to be in fashion, must have her _petite loge_, her lap-dog, etc.; but above all, a man-puppy who stands, glass in hand, to tell her ladyship who comes in and goes out, name the actors and so forth, whilst the lady herself displays a fan, which, by a modern contrivance, answers all the purpose of an opera-glass, with this advantage, that she may see without being seen. Meanwhile the honest citizen, who, like a tasteless plebeian, imagines that play-houses are opened for entertainment, cannot get in for his money, because part of the house is let by the year, though empty for the best part of it, so that he is obliged to put up, instead of rational amusement, with the low, indecent farces acted on the booth of the boulevards." [Illustration: THE COMMITTEE ROOM OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE: ALEXANDRE DUMAS (THE YOUNGER) READING A PLAY. (_From the painting of Laissement in the Comédie Française._)] [Illustration: BEHIND THE SCENES: COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE.] CHAPTER XVIII. THE NATIONAL LIBRARY AND THE BOURSE. The "King's Library"--Francis I. and the Censorship--The Imperial Library--The Bourse.