Do you remember how I used to play Achilles, when in passing through some third or fourth-rate town, the whim would seize us to re-establish the neglected cult of the old French tragedians? Was I not noble and puissant in the gilded helmet with streaming locks of purple blackness, the glittering armor and azure cloak? What a spectacle to see a father as weak and cowardly as Agamemnon contend with the priest Calchas for the honour of immolating such a victim as poor, weeping Iphigenia! I rushed like a thunderbolt into the midst of the forced and cruel action; I restored hope to the mothers and reawakened courage in the daughters, always sacrificed from a sense of duty, to stay the anger of a god, allay the vengeance of a nation, or advance the interests of a family. For it is easy to recognize here the eternal type of human marriage. The father will forevermore deliver up his daughter through ambition, and the mother will sell her through cupidity; but the lover is not always the worthy Achilles, so gallant and terrible, albeit a trifle too rhetorical for a man of war! As for me, I often rebelled against declaiming long tirades in defense of a course so evidently just, in the face of an audience so easily convinced that I was in the right. I was tempted to stab the whole idiotic court of the king of kings, with its sleepy rows of super-numeraries, and so put an end to the piece. The public would have been delighted, but on second thoughts would have found the play too short, considering that time sufficient to witness the sufferings of a princess, a lover and a queen, was its rightful due; a period long enough to see them weep, rage and pour forth a torrent of poetic invective against the established authority of priest and king. That was well worth five acts and two hours of close attention, and the audience would not content itself with less. It desires the humiliation of this proud race seated upon the throne of Greece, before whom Achilles himself dares to thunder but in words; it must sound all the depths of misery hidden beneath this royal purple whose majesty seems so irresistible. The tears which fall from the most glorious eyes in the world upon the swelling bosom of Iphigenia, excite the crowd no less than her beauty, her grace and the splendour of her royal robes. Listen to the sweet voice that pleads for life with the touching reminder that, as yet, she stands but upon its threshold. Who does not favour her lover? Who could wish to see her slain? Great gods, what heart so hard! None, surely!... On the contrary, the whole audience has already decided that she must die for the general good rather than live for one individual. Achilles seems to all too grand, too superb! Shall Iphigenia be borne away by this Thessalian vulture, as, not long ago, the daughter of Leda was stolen by a shepherd prince from the voluptuous shores of Asia? This is the question of paramount importance to the Greeks and to