While it is true that M. Rolland recognizes the motive power of the people in the first two plays of his Revolutionary cycle, and while they direct and influence practically every event, he is not blind to the excesses into which they fell, and the last two plays, _Les Loups_ and _Le Triomphe de la Raison,_ to some extent show the degeneration of the people. _Les Loups_ is perhaps, from the purely theatrical viewpoint, the best play M. Rolland ever wrote; it treats of the moral decay of the Revolutionists, and the situation developed is as gripping as any of Henry Bernstein's famous second acts. A former nobleman is suspected of treachery by his fellow officers, and a pretext readily found to kill him. At the last moment one of his comrades discovers that he is innocent; however, in order to conceal the treachery of a successful Revolutionary general, he is sacrificed. _Le Triomphe de la Raison_ is similar in theme. No attempt at dramatic reform, no theory, no ideal--whatever its eventual worth--ought to obscure the fact that all of M. Rolland's plays are unsuccessful from the viewpoint of production. Good reading they undoubtedly make; literature they assuredly are, but they have not pleased audiences for consecutive days, weeks, and months. This does not of necessity damn them, but it should cause us to ask whether or not they belong to that class of hybrids, the closet-drama. M. Rolland's first mistake was in writing plays for a hypothetical and practically nonexistent public. The first edition of _Le Théâtre du Peuple_ concludes with these words: "Do you want a people's art? Then begin by having a people!" France is in many ways an aristocratic country with an aristocratic art; it is but natural, therefore, that all reform should be slower than in younger countries; and M. Rolland in his impatience attempted the impossible. In trying to avoid what was conventional in the French drama, he restricted himself to a more or less formless medium, and the people who saw his plays missed what they were accustomed to see: a well-defined story. What success would have attended his innovations in another country it is hard to say; what success will attend him if he perseveres, seems easier to predict. The past five years have witnessed a profound change in French thought and art, and perhaps Romain Rolland will once more find his faith justified in a new France where the people shall have a theater of their own. Meantime, his ideas have spread to other lands and there borne the fruit he had hoped would flourish in his own beloved France. BARRETT H. CLARK. THE FOURTEENTH OF JULY _(LE 14 JUILLET_) A Play in Three Acts Pour qu'une nation soit libre. il suffit qu'elle le veuille. LA FAYETTE. 11th July. 1789. [_Le 14 Juillet_ was produced in Paris in 1902.] _Dedicated to the People of Paris._ AUTHOR'S NOTE