All these personages explain themselves to us, and claim us, by reason of their vivid humanity, as intimate acquaintances, in the play. Yet not one of them has his or her exact counterpart in English society, for the simple reason that their choice qualities, and entertaining defects, not only belong to the French temperament but are the result of manners, conventions, prejudices and sentiments that do not enter into our actual experiences, although we are in a position to judge, or at any rate correctly to appreciate them, when we have studied them in this dramatic picture.... And now for the situation of the play. It is also essentially French; what the orthodox English critic would probably describe as “disagreeable” and “painful.” But with that neither M. Capus nor ourselves are concerned. Our playwright, true to the canons of his art, has aimed at no more than selecting an episode from _la vie vivante_, and revealing it in its most vital and human moments, and the episode he has chosen is one that has its counterpart, year in, year out, in the gay, irresponsible land peopled by the _jeunesse_ of Paris and the provinces. “Nôtre Jeunesse”—that period, in France particularly, of extravagances and follies; “Nôtre Jeunesse”—those years in the Latin Quarter when irregularity of conduct does not appear reprehensible even to the parental eye. “C’est de leur âge,” says the bourgeois indulgently, thinking, no doubt, of his own _jeunesse_, when he meets a band of students rejoicing riotously in their corduroy clothes, long, flowing capes and amazing hats. And such wild figures were Chartier and Lucien Briant some twenty years before we meet them. And it is of those days that they are speaking, when M. Capus introduces them to his audience in the Chartier Villa at Trouville. Chartier, of course, is in excellent spirits. But Lucien is nervous and despondent, and becomes still more troubled when his friend reminds him of his _liaison_ with Léontine Gilard, a charming and light-hearted girl, whose pet name Chartier forgets. Lucien helps his memory; the name was “Loulou.” Let me quote the passage: _Lucien [with emotion]._ Loulou. _Chartier._ That’s it! I can see Loulou now: fair hair, blue eyes, very pretty hands. You made a charming couple, the two of you! Well—there you have a memory which shouldn’t be disagreeable, surely. _Lucien._ Ah, _mon ami_, one never knows the end of adventures of that sort! _Chartier._ The end? Why didn’t the thing end naturally? _Lucien._ What do you mean by ending naturally? _Chartier._ When you left the Latin Quarter, you made Loulou a handsome present? She took another lover? or, perhaps, she got married? To-day, if you met each other in the street, you wouldn’t recognise each other? That is what I call a natural ending.