"The old era is finished; the new era is beginning." Rolland, writing in the "Revue dramatique" in 1900, opened his appeal with these words by Schiller. The summons was twofold, to the writers and to the people, that they should constitute a new unity, should form a people's theater. The stage and the plays were to belong to the people. Since the forces of the people are eternal and unalterable, art must accommodate itself to the people, not the people to art. This union must be perfected in the creative depths. It must not be a casual intimacy, but a permeation, a genetic wedding of souls. The people requires its own art, its own drama. As Tolstoi phrased it, the people must be the ultimate touchstone of all values. Its powerful, mystical, eternally religious energy of inspiration, must become more affirmative and stronger, so that art, which in its bourgeois associations has grown morbid and wan, can draw new vigor from the vigor of the people. To this end it is essential that the people should no longer be a chance audience, transiently patronized by friendly managers and actors. The popular performances of the great theaters, such as have been customary in Paris since the issue of Napoleon's decree on the subject, do not suffice. Valueless also, in Rolland's view, are the attempts made from time to time by the Comédie Française to present to the workers the plays of such court poets as Corneille and Racine. The people do not want caviare, but wholesome fare. For the nourishment of their indestructible idealism they need an art of their own, a theater of their own, and, above all, works adapted to their sensibilities and to their intellectual tastes. When they come to the theater, they must not be made to feel that they are tolerated guests in a world of unfamiliar ideas. In the art that is presented to them they must be able to recognize the mainspring of their own energies. More appropriate, in Rolland's opinion, are the attempts which have been made by isolated individuals like Maurice Pottecher in Bussang (Vosges) to provide a "théâtre du peuple," presenting to restricted audiences pieces easily understood. But such endeavors touch small circles only. The chasm in the gigantic metropolis between the stage and the real population remains unbridged. With the best will in the world, the twenty or thirty special representations are witnessed by no more than an infinitesimal proportion of the population. They do not signify a spiritual union, or promote a new moral impetus. Dramatic art has no permanent influence on the masses; and the masses, in their turn, have no influence on dramatic art. Though, in another literary sphere, Zola, Charles Louis Philippe, and Maupassant, began long ago to draw fertile inspiration from proletarian idealism, the drama has remained sterile and antipopular.