of the bloodless Classical style, and substituted for the actionless and ill-contrived declamatory tragedies of his time his own romantic dramas, breathing passion and full of diversified movement. The conflict was deadly. The young generation hailed with applause the new Messiah of letters, and grew intoxicated with the harmony of Hugo's phrases, which sounded so much fuller and fierier than the measured speech of Corneille and Racine. The Théâtre Français, recently benumbed as with the quiet of the grave, became all at once a tumultuous battlefield. There they sat, when Hugo's _Cromwell_ and _Hernani_ were produced on the stage, correct, well dressed, gloved, close shaven, with their neat ties and shirt collars, the representatives of the old generation, whose blameless conduct had raised them to office and place. And in contrast to them, in the pit were crowded together the young men, the "Jeune France," as Théophile Gautier described them, one with his waving hair like a lion's mane, another with his Rubens hat and Spanish mantle, another in his vest of bright red satin. Their common uniform was the red waistcoat introduced by Théophile Gautier--not the red chosen for their symbol by the men of the Revolution, but the scarlet-red which represented the hatred felt by these enthusiastic young men for all that was grey and dull, and their preference for all that is luminous and magnificently coloured in life. They held that the contemplation of a beautiful piece of red cloth was an artistic pleasure. A similar change took place at the same time in ladies' toilettes. As the Revolution had in ladies' costumes rejected all colour in favour of the Grecian white, so now dresses once more assumed vivid, and especially deep red hues; deep red ribbons adorned the hat and encircled the waist. [Illustration: THÉODORE GÉRICAULT.]