before the war. In a normal pre-war year, the share of profits of a Sociétaire à part entière was about 40,000 francs, or £1,600 at the then rate of exchange. It was not princely, but when the Sociétaire in question took into consideration that he would continue to draw that sum for a number of years when he would be past his prime, and would receive a pension at the end of his service, he might consider himself not too badly treated. A Sociétaire in a similar position to-day will draw 70,000 francs, which is the sum at which a full share has just been worked out for last year—and last year was a bumper year, which has never been equalled before and may not be again. But to-day, 70,000 francs is less than £600. Moreover, that is the share for a part entière, and scarcely one of the younger actors of the Comédie, who could earn large salaries on the boulevards, have as many douzièmes as half of a part entière. It need hardly be said that the salaries of the Pensionnaires are calculated in proportion to these figures; and the case has occurred of a young actor being offered 10,000 francs a year at the Comédie-Française, when he was earning as much in a month at a privately-managed theatre on the boulevards.

Really, the remarkable thing is, not that actors of talent occasionally leave the Comédie-Française, but that the prestige of the theatre is such, that they are ready not only to remain in it when they are there, but to try to get into it when they are not. No doubt there might be economies in the management of the theatre. No doubt the prices of the seats, which are decidedly lower than those of the boulevard theatres, might be raised, if public opinion would admit of the Comédie-Française being made more expensive for the modest bourgeois Frenchman. No doubt the theatre might be rebuilt to carry a far bigger seating capacity; for it is nearly always sold out. The fact remains, however, that a classical repertory theatre is an expensive enterprise to conduct efficiently, and it would require a heavy subsidy indeed to make it possible to conduct it at all, if there were not already a great historic prestige behind it. Whether, even at that cost, it is as much worth while for London to keep Shakespeare from being lost to the theatre as it is for Paris to keep Molière and Racine is another matter.

The Comédie-Française, in its constitution as well as in its influence, is what its history has made it. That history has built

up the triple tradition of keeping alive the dramatic literature of the past, of maintaining the standard of the dramatic literature of the present, and of handing on the torch of the art of acting. These are the three functions which justify the existence of the Comédie-Française as a national theatre to-day. It would be a great mistake, however, to suppose that when it first occurred to Louis XIV to become the patron of the theatrical company of Molière, to give it a home and to assure its existence, there were any such ideas in his head. The early relations of the State with the theatre were inspired first of all by the conviction that it was an unruly and dangerous force which must be kept in order. The action of Louis XIV had also almost certainly the further motive that the theatre was a powerful weapon, which might be used. Molière's attack on the hypocritically religious in Tartuffe was probably in accord with the political desires of Louis XIV at the time, and it is quite certain that, if it had not been for the king, Molière could never have held up against the revenge of those whom he attacked.

It is, however, the first of these principles which has governed most of the dealings of the State with the Comédie-Française during its history, and the remarkable influence which Beaumarchais' "Mariage de Figaro " had upon the movement which ended in the French Revolution was enough to show how dangerous the theatre can be when it is engaged against the forces of the State. The second principle, although it was evidently understood by Louis XIV, has never since been fully appreciated until our own day. Perhaps it remains for the State in the future to understand the possibilities of the theatre as a means of propaganda, as the Soviet Government has already understood them, and to hasten then to appropriate this powerful weapon, from motives which will have little connection with art.

Even in the past, artistic considerations have not had much share in the action of the State with regard to the French theatre, and the conception of the Comédie-Française as a sort of national artistic trust, as a national temple of dramatic art, is something so modern as to belong almost to our own time, even if it is also something so ancient as to belong to the time of Pericles. Although a tradition of artistic responsibility was growing stronger and stronger within the Comédie-Française itself throughout the eighteenth century, it is probable that the king never considered

the theatre as much else than a pretty toy, except when he considered it as an element of political and social danger. The recent quarrels over the engagements of Pensionnaires show that the pretty toy tradition is difficult to kill even to-day, when a more responsible conception of the public function of the theatre has grown up.

The artistic tradition has been built up within the theatre. It began with the remarkable affection and admiration which Molière inspired in the company of which he was the leading actor as well as the leading author. That admiration survived him, and it was indeed after his death that Louis XIV amalgamated what had been Molière's company with the rival enterprise of the Hôtel de Bourgogne, gave it the exclusive privilege of acting in French in Paris and established the company as the "Comédiens du Roy" in the year 1680. Although this year still appears on the play-bills and the writing paper of the Comédie as the date of its foundation, the company may really be said to have been established some years earlier, during Molière's lifetime, and from 1665 it had never ceased to draw an annual subsidy from the king. The year of its origin may even be taken as far back as 1658, when the company began that career in Paris whose continuity has never since been broken, except for a short period during the Revolution, unless it is taken still earlier as 1643, when Molière first set up as a theatrical manager in Paris, although financial disaster then drove him for fifteen years into the provinces.

It is interesting to notice how much of the internal organization of the Comédie-Française of to-day goes back to Molière, and to what was the customary organization of a theatrical company at that time. The division of the profits among the members of the company dates from him, although the division was then made after every performance instead of once a year. This division was at first equal. That is to say, every member of the company was à part entière," and one part was given to the author. Very soon, however, Molière, as manager, was given a second part," and the principle that new members of the company should begin with less than a whole "part" followed in 1670. After that came the practice of engaging actors on trial before

66

*The Comédie Italienne continued to exist as a thing apart.

making them permanent members of the company at all. They were then called externes aspirants, but were virtually the same as the Pensionnaires of to-day. From Molière's time dates also the system of self-government by the whole company and the reading of plays by authors to the company assembled, who then decide on acceptance or rejection. The delegation of the general management to the Committee and of the acceptance of plays to the Reading Committee, which is the system to-day, has involved no change in principle, and an author still submits his work by reading it aloud, as doubtless in their day did Corneille and Racine.

From Molière's time dates equally the payment of pensions to the retired actors, although then each new Sociétaire personally paid the pension of his predecessor, instead of the pensions being a general charge upon the theatre. Molière, again, established the principle of the lump sum which the Sociétaire withdraws on retirement, this lump sum representing, partly his share in the capital of the enterprise, and partly a deferred portion of his salary or an enforced contribution to his own old age insurance. Both of these sums were then-and are still-forfeited in the case of an actor leaving the company before the termination of his contract; and then, as now, the actor rendered himself liable, by his signature on entering the company, to a further payment of damages in case of breach of contract. It was also only very shortly after Molière's death that the practice arose of the Sociétaires in turn taking charge of the practical daily organization of the stage for a week at a time, and being called for that purpose, as they still are, "semainiers." It was at about the same time that the general assembly of the Sociétaires, instead of being constantly in session for all purposes, began to break up into committees.

The subsequent history of the Comédie-Française is the record of the gradual development of the constitution of the theatre as Molière left it into that rather different thing which it is to-day. The powers of the Sociétaires, without ever disappearing altogether, are limited by written documents, and with the limitation comes the growing practical interference of the State.

During the eighteenth century this interference was exercised by the "gentilshommes de la Cour." From the moment of their appearance, the intrigues of courtiers and politicians began, on the one hand, to sow dissension among the members of the

company, and on the other hand to sap its independence. That independence remained great, however. It was sufficient to lead the whole company to go on strike in 1753 against an order, which suppressed the ballets of the theatre, and to get the order withdrawn. It enabled the actors once more, in 1765, to refuse to obey a decree which instructed them to continue to employ a dishonest Sociétaire whom they had expelled. For their disobedience they were sent in a body to that curious prison of For-l'Evêque, which was called the Bastille des Comédiens, and was specially devoted to the disciplinary confinement of actors. But they were taken there in triumph-Mademoiselle Clairon rode in the private carrosse of the Intendante of Paris; their supper parties there became famous, and they came out every evening to give their performance at the theatre. Moreover, they won their case, for the undesirable actor was retired, and La Clairon resigned in protest at the indignity of the incarceration.

The eighteenth century, until the Revolution, was, in fact the period when, in spite of the growing interference of the State, the Comédie-Française enjoyed more prestige on the one hand and more internal independence on the other than at any other time. The prestige was not quite of the same kind as that of to-day. It was, perhaps, less heavily weighted with solemn and traditional responsibility, and was largely derived from the power attached to the monopoly which the Comédie continued to enjoy, as did the Patent Theatres of Drury Lane and Covent Garden in London. The measure of practical independence may be recognised by comparing the comparative freedom of the set of regulations drawn up by the gentilshommes in 1766 with the Napoleonic decree which has, ever since 1812, been the charter of the theatre. It may also be inferred from the facts that the Comédie should have dared, under the monarchy, to produce a play so full of the revolutionary spirit as Beaumarchais' " Mariage de Figaro," and that it was through most of his life the mouthpiece of Voltaire, whose ceremonial reception upon the stage, in 1778, when his bust was crowned by the company assembled, in view of the audience, was perhaps the first of those enthusiastic public demonstrations of regard for its heroes, in which the modern theatre is inclined to be a little too sentimentally profuse. The excitement was certainly too much for Voltaire, who died a few days later, at the age of eighty-four.