The theatres in Spain have generally no façade, and are only distinguished from the houses around by two or three smoky lamps stuck before the door. We took two orchestra-stalls, surnamed _places de lunette_ (_asientos de luneta_), and bravely precipitated ourselves into a corridor, where the floor was neither planked nor paved, but was nothing more or less than the bare earth. The frequenters of the place are not very particular about the uses to which they turn the walls of the corridor, but, by hermetically sealing our noses, we reached our places not more than half suffocated. When I add that smoking is perpetually practised between the acts, the reader will not have a very fragrant idea of a Spanish theatre. The interior of the house is, however, more comfortable than the approaches to it promise; the boxes are tolerably arranged, and although the decorations are simple, they are fresh and clean. The _asientos de luneta_ are armchairs placed in rows and numbered; there is no checktaker at the door to take your tickets, but a little boy comes round for them before the end of the performance; at the outer door you are merely asked for the card that admits you within the theatre. We had hoped to find the true type of the Spanish woman, of which we had as yet seen but few specimens; but the ladies who filled the boxes and galleries had nothing Spanish about them save the mantilla and the fan: this was a good deal, it is true, but not sufficient. The audience was mostly composed of the military, which is the case in all garrison towns. In the pit, the spectators stand as in the most primitive theatres. There was, in truth, but a row of candles and a candle-snuffer wanting to give the place the appearance of the Hôtel de Bourgogne; the lamps, however, were enclosed by thin plates of glass, disposed in the shape of a melon, and united at the top by a circle of tin: this was certainly no great sign of an advanced state of the industrial arts. The orchestra, which consisted of one row of musicians, almost all of whom played brass instruments, blew most valiantly on their cornets-à-piston an air which was always the same, and recalled to one's recollection the flourishes of the band at Franconi's.