_The Massacre at Paris_ is a poor play and therefore need not detain us long. Its only interest is in its attempt to represent quite recent events (1572-89). As a history play it manages to reproduce the French atmosphere of distrust, rivalry, intrigue and indiscriminate massacre, but at the expense of unity. The hurried succession of scenes leads us blindly to an unexpected conclusion: from first almost to last no indication is given that the consummation aimed at is the ascent of Navarre to the throne of France. Rarely has the merely chronological principle been adhered to with so little meaning. Navarre, whose marriage opens the play and whose triumph closes it, might be expected to figure largely as the upholder of Protestantism in opposition to Guise; instead he is relegated to quite a subordinate part. Anjou, again, the later opponent of Guise, makes a very belated bid for our favour after displaying a brutality equal to his rival's in the massacre. The author is careful to paint Catherine in truly inky blackness. But the only character which we are likely to remember is the Duke of Guise. Yet his portrait is of inferior workmanship. The murders by which he tries to reach the throne are too treacherous to be ranked in the grander scale of crime. Even the vastness of his organized massacre is belittled for us by the stage presentment of individual assassination in which Guise himself plays a butcher's part. Greatness is more often attributed to outward aloofness and inactivity than to busy participation in the execution of a plot. Moreover, it was a tactical error to give prominence to the personal quarrel between Guise and Mugeroun, for it dissipates upon a private matter the force which, devoted to an exalted ambition, might have been impressive. However, there are one or two touches which give a cold grandeur to this character and seem half to anticipate the Mortimer of the next play. The following lines are taken from the second scene of the first act--there are only three acts altogether: