A play was written, some twenty years since, called the _Auberge des Adrets_, in which the characters of two robbers escaped from the galleys were introduced--Robert Macaire, the clever rogue above mentioned, and Bertrand, the stupid rogue, his friend, accomplice, butt, and scapegoat, on all occasions of danger. It is needless to describe the play--a witless performance enough, of which the joke was Macaire’s exaggerated style of conversation, a farrago of all sorts of highflown sentiments, such as the French love to indulge in--contrasted with his actions, which were philosophically unscrupulous, and his appearance, which was most picturesquely sordid. The play had been acted, we believe, and forgotten, when a very clever actor, M. Frédéric Lemaître, took upon himself the performance of the character of Robert Macaire, and looked, spoke, and acted it to such admirable perfection, that the whole town rung with applauses of his performance, and the caricaturists delighted to copy his singular figure and costume. M. Robert Macaire appears in a most picturesque green coat, with a variety of rents and patches, a pair of crimson pantaloons ornamented in the same way, enormous whiskers and ringlets, an enormous stock and shirt-frill, as dirty and ragged as stock and shirt-frill can be, the relic of a hat very gaily cocked over one eye, and a patch to take away somewhat from the brightness of the other--these are the principal _pièces_ of his costume--a snuff-box like a creaking warming-pan, a handkerchief hanging together by a miracle, and a switch of about the thickness of a man’s thigh, formed the ornaments of this exquisite personage. He is a compound of Fielding’s ‘Blueskin’ and Goldsmith’s ‘Beau Tibbs.’ He has the dirt and dandyism of the one, with the ferocity of the other: sometimes he is made to swindle, but where he can get a shilling more, M. Macaire will murder without scruple: he performs one and the other act (or any in the scale between them) with a similar bland imperturbability, and accompanies his actions with such philosophical remarks as may be expected from a person of his talents, his energies, his amiable life and character.