in order to inflict fresh indignities upon his sister-in-law, he yields to
the natural infirmities of rags and pasteboard, and topples against him.

Facanapa, also, in his great scene of the Haunted Poet, is tremendous. You
discover him in bed, too much visited by the Muse to sleep, and reading
his manuscripts aloud to himself, after the manner of poets when they
cannot find other listeners. He is alarmed by various ghostly noises in
the house, and is often obliged to get up and examine the dark corners of
the room, and to look under the bed. When at last the spectral head
appears at the foot-board, Facanapa vanishes with a miserable cry under
the bed-clothes, and the scene closes. Intrinsically the scene is not
much, but this great actor throws into it a life, a spirit, a drollery
wholly irresistible.

The ballet at the Marionette is a triumph of choreographic art, and is
extremely funny. The _prima ballerina_ has all the difficult grace
and far-fetched arts of the _prima ballerina_ of flesh and blood; and
when the enthusiastic audience calls her back after the scene, she is
humanly delighted, and acknowledges the compliment with lifelike
_empressement_. I have no doubt the _corps de ballet_ have their
private jealousies and bickerings, when quietly laid away in boxes, and
deprived of all positive power by the removal of the cords which agitate
their arms and legs. The puppets are great in _pirouette_ and _pas
seul_; but I think the strictly dramatic part of such spectacular
ballets, as The Fall of Carthage, is their strong point.

The people who witness their performances are of all ages and conditions--
I remember to have once seen a Russian princess and some German countesses
in the pit--but the greater number of spectators are young men of the
middle classes, pretty shop-girls, and artisans and their wives and