The travelling theatres, too, force comparison with the regular playhouses in the smaller English towns, rather than with the wretched "tuppenny" shows that represent the drama at an English fair. Like the opera-house just described, they are fitted up substantially, and in good taste, the charges for admission ranging from half a franc to three or four francs. Many notable French actors have graduated from these portable theatres, and, indeed, those who perform in them are of a class considerably above the mummers who exhibit in our "fit-ups"; they are the best type of "strolling-players."
One of the most detestable features of an English fair is the appalling noise created by mechanical organs. This is happily absent from the French fête, and of the few contrivances of the kind which I remember at Orleans there was only one designed solely for the sake of noise. Perhaps the most remarkable of these orchestrions was a real triumph of musical machinery, around which, and contained within an immense and brilliantly lighted wooden building, whirled an endless chain of fairy coaches, hobby horses, swan boats, and other fantastic vehicles, eminently contrived for the purpose of producing giddiness. This was truly the _pièce de résistance_ of the Orleans Fair, and it would be impossible to conceive a more striking contrast than that between this really magnificent construction and the familiar English merry-go-round. Externally the building would have borne favourable comparison with a "Palace of Electricity" at some of our international exhibitions. The façade was of Byzantine style, and myriads of beautifully-coloured electric lamps picked out the design, two huge peacocks with outspread tails, also composed of coloured lights, being introduced with most artistic effect on each side of the glittering archway. Inside, the decorations were gorgeous "to the _n_th degree," as Mr. W. E. Henley might have said, but the scheme of colours was in perfect harmony, the whole making up a veritable feast of light that must dazzle and fascinate the simple country-folk wherever this wonderful merry-go-round is set up. At a moderate estimate, I should name £10,000 as the cost of this single show, and perhaps that will indicate the lavish way in which the French are catered for by their travelling showmen.