When the bell rings for the curtain Madame hurries out of her apron and back to her part in “Les Deux Jarretières,” a farce so replete with amusing complications that the small audience is kept in a continual titter of good humor. In the comedy following, entitled “Le Sofa de Monsieur Dupré,” the story is even more simple. A respectable widow, Madame Dupré, living alone in her old age, is attended by her maid Pauline, whom she has come to regard as an indispensable companion. Pauline makes the old lady comfortable in her favorite chair, tucks under her feet her foot-warmer, and, leaving her mistress, goes out to post a letter.
In the interval which elapses before her return a neighbor calls and kindly informs Madame Dupré that the indispensable Pauline has been the mistress of Madame Dupré’s revered husband. When Pauline returns, Madame, in her indignation, turns her out of the house. The foot-warmer grows cold, the fire in the grate goes out, a thousand little comforts have not been attended to, and the old lady decides to send for Pauline and forgive her, preferring that her few remaining years should pass in peace and comfort.
Quite different is the Théâtre de la Bodinière, founded by Monsieur Bodin, the former secretary of the historic Comédie Française. The Bodinière is devoted to interpreting the work of young authors by celebrated artists. It is a theater where respectable _jeunes filles_ may be taken in safety. The plays are as harmless as the Rollo books.
The playwright, Aimé Ducrocq, is the founder and manager of a cozy blue-and-gold bonbonnière of a theater called the “Rabelais,” in Montmartre. Here, as the title suggests, the comedies and farces are thoroughly Rabelaisian. It might even be averred that they are more so than elsewhere, which is saying a great deal. Here farces like “La Vertu De Nini,” “La Journée d’une Demi-Mondaine” and “Le Corset de Germaine” pack the small auditorium nightly. Many of these are written to a point where the curtain discreetly drops upon the situation, but none of them harbors a line or a gesture of vulgarity. It is not worth while having trouble with the police, and happily the French policeman is both broad-minded and discreet in enforcing an arbitrary rule. When you ask a policeman here why a thing is prohibited he will shrug his shoulders, stare at you in astonishment, and reply brusquely: “It is prohibited because it is prohibited!”