In her second play, _Le Redoubtable_ (produced at the Odéon Theatre in January, 1912, and withdrawn by the author after three representations), Mlle Lenéru shows still more forcibly the monstrous, the almost cancerous growth that a too exasperated personality may become in an organised community of mediocrities. Georges Malte is the most brilliant naval officer of his promotion; all that an individuality can acquire and possess in one generation, he has acquired, he possesses. But nothing else, neither traditions, nor inherited breeding, nor the instincts of a gentleman, nor even fortune; Malte is the son of an Italian pastrycook, and no more French by birth than Napoleon, or Zola, or Gambetta--who, after all, were pretty tolerable Frenchmen. And his soul is devoured with ambition for the refinements he does not inherit; and his mind is consumed by the desire to be first, by that _amor dominandi_ which is, in certain natures, the strongest passion of all. And his heart is wholly occupied by the mistress he adores, who is, most simply and most naturally, all that he can never be: the child of a ruling race. Laurence Villaret is the daughter of one admiral, the wife of another. For six years she and her lover have belonged to each other in secret, and at length the time comes when Malte (who in his love of supremacy has affected the rich man) feels his creditors close upon him and disgrace near at hand. Money he must have or farewell to his career, good-bye to the love of his life. Unfortunately, a brilliant officer has always at his disposal one means of raising funds--if he listen to temptation. And Malte listens. He communicates to a foreign power certain secrets, and the good ship _Redoubtable_ is rendered worthless--just as the _Affranchis_ were not free; just as _La Triomphatrice_ will be shown to be an unloved, broken-hearted, solitary woman. All Mlle Lenéru’s titles are epigrams of irony! Yet, in _Le Redoubtable_, Mlle Lenéru has given us the _reductio ad absurdum_ of her former theme. If, at the close of the _Affranchis_, we doubted whether the lovers were wise in sacrificing their utmost joy ‘au bon gouvernement du monde’ (and such is the contagious force of passion that we had left the theatre happier after seeing them elope to some undreamed of isle), we doubt no longer when we have seen _Le Redoutable_. Although we may admit that the moral law is in process of evolution, though we may look forward to a day when a new vital order shall supplant our established order, yet, meanwhile, we must observe the rules of the game, even though they mean no more to us than the rules of a game! In fact, however we choose to _think_, there is but one profitable way of _living_: that which consists in treating as fundamentally true those truths alone which have weathered the experience of generations. _Foris ut moris, intus ut libet._ Or as Pascal puts it: ‘Il faut dire comme les autres, mais ne pas penser comme eux.’