But she was always ah intriguing figure. Perhaps, indeed--for the apparel does not always proclaim the man, and the _Eaglet_ was no _Hamlet_ in the matter of his clothes--her rather striking costumes were a source of too much distraction.
[Illustration: THE LITTLE EAGLE TRIES TO FLY.
In a very large cast, whose identities were here and there a little shadowy, the interest was so distributed that nobody except Miss LÖHR had very much chance. But Mr. FISHER WHITE made a touching picture of the weak old Austrian Emperor, torn between love of his grandchild and fear of _Metternich_. _Metternich_ himself, in the person of Mr. HENRY VIBART, seemed hardly sinister, enough for the part he had to play in keeping the _Eaglet_ under the talons of the "two-headed fowl." But it is perhaps difficult to look really sinister in the full official uniform of a Chancellor.
Mr. LYN HARDING, as _Flambeau_, veteran of NAPOLEON'S Army, introduced a faint suggestion of badly-needed humour, and relieved the general atmosphere of Court artificiality by a touch of nature which almost reconciled us to the improbable burst of eloquence that ROSTAND, with his reckless prodigality, assigned to this rough soldier.
Miss LETTICE FAIRFAX gave a pleasant air of irresponsibility to the shallow _Maria Louisa_, and made her bear very lightly her cross of widowhood (with bar). The briefest possible vision of Miss BETTY FAIRE as _Fanny Elssler_ made me want to see much more of her; but Mr. Louis PARKER had been Napoleonically ruthless with the text. His translation sounded well, though the delivery of it sometimes left me doubtful as to what was prose and what was verse. As for his production of the play, it showed the old skill of a Past-Master of Pageantry.
Altogether Miss MARIE LÖHR has been justified of her courage. In a happy little speech from which we learnt that every one of the voices (off) in the Wagram scene was a demobilised voice from the fighting fronts, she told us that her revival of _L'Aiglon_ was intended as a tribute to Art after all these years of War. We were not, I think, meant to take this as a reflection upon the part played by the British Theatre in sustaining the nation's soul during the War. Anyhow, I for one shall read into her words just a brave promise--not, I hope, too sanguine--of what we may expect from the new birth of the Arts of Peace.