In the winter of 1829-30, a French version of Othello was represented in a Parisian theatre, and that theatre--shades of Corneille and Racine--the Théâtre Français! Mademoiselle Mars was the Desdemona. The piece was a decided success, and in the _Revue Française_ for January, 1830, there appeared an admirably written article which was at once a _compte-rendu_ of the representation and a criticism of the tragedy. It was from the pen of the Duc de Broglie, and commanded universal attention. His description of the desperate struggles of the two cliques--the Classical and the Romantic--who were, of course, present in force, his account of the effect of the piece upon the general audience, his analysis of the motives of French admiration or blame of Shakespeare, are all most interesting. But what we specially have to do with is his criticism on the play and the dramatist. Here it is: “The effect of Othello’s narration was irresistible. This portion of the play is translated into all languages--its beauty is perfectly entrancing, its originality is unequalled. Even La Harpe could not refuse it the tribute of his admiration. But perhaps the scene which precedes and that which follows are even still more adapted to exhibit Shakespeare in all his greatness. How wonderful a painter of human nature was this man! How true is it that he has received from on high something of that creative power which, by breathing on a little dust, can transform it into a creature of life and immortality!” Even as the Christian Anglo-Saxon was doomed to suffer at M. Taine’s hands the outrage of attributed paganism, so also was Shakespeare ignominiously foreordained (from the thirty-sixth page of his first volume) to be a maniac Berserkir. And all because the author has his little theory to carry out. Do you find it wonderful that under such treatment the facts should suffer? Alas! other and more important things must also suffer if such a work as this is to receive the sanction of recognized critical authority, and be placed in the hands of the rising generation. To do M. Taine justice, he does not for a moment lose sight of his Berserkir, and keeps him, in the soul of Shakespeare, well up to his work. And so, Shakespeare’s Coriolanus is “an athlete of war, with a voice like a trumpet; whose eyes by contradiction are filled with a rush of blood and anger, proud and terrible in mood, a lion’s soul in the body of a steer” (vol. i. p. 329).