heard in Versailles. My company was practically engaged, my models done--and no play! I wrote to M. Richepin, and gave him my opinion of the manuscript. I did not utterly condemn his first draft, for I hoped that with some suggestions, he might be able to reshape his material; but the longer he worked the more impossible the manuscript became, until at last I lost all faith in it. It possessed a certain charm, but--it was not a play. By this time I had paid M. Richepin something like $3,000 in advance royalties, and the properties and scenes were almost all delivered. I was so deeply involved that I saw no way out of it. As du Barry was free to any dramatist, I decided it was time to have a hand in dramatizing the lady myself. I knew exactly what I wanted and what was best suited to Mrs. Carter. Under the circumstances, it seemed to me that I could save time and cablegrams by taking my own suggestions instead of sending them to Paris. I arrived at this decision only when I found that M. Richepin was a far greater poet than playwright. So I threw out his play and set to work on my own.” Speaking of the character of “the little French milliner,” Belasco has said: “History paints du Barry as the most despised woman of her time. She is said to have been the most evil creature antedating the French Revolution. I had a vast number of books relating to du Barry, and ransacked them all for one redeeming trait in her character: not one kind word. Alas! Not _one_! For the first time in my life I found myself in the hands of a really bad woman. I had never met one before (bad men I _have_ met, but women,--never!). I felt a desire to rush to her defence.... But--I need not have troubled myself to defend the lady, for, good or bad, from the first night until the close of the play three years later the public liked the French milliner and the houses were sold out.” A little more careful ransacking of his vast du Barry library might have revealed some of the kind words about “the lady” which Belasco sought. Voltaire, in 1773, signified his appreciation of du Barry’s charms in the following couplet, which certainly carries adulation to an extreme limit: “C’est aux mortels d’adorer votre image; L’original était fait pour les dieux.” The following description of this handsome female explains, at least partially, the influence that she exerted. It was written by the Comte de Belleval, one of her many admirers: