However trifling or meagre a French play may be, it
generally leaves the pleasing impression that it has been written by a man who understands his business. The French vaudevilles are often deficient in colouring, but they are generally finished as to form. The comic opera of Ne touches pas a la Reine has been shorn of its music, and reduced into a petite comedy, which is played at the Princess's under the title of Dying for a Kiss. The tale is of a law of Leon, which makes it capital for any one to kiss the Queen. A young officer, whom the Queen likes, renders himself ob- noxious to this law; and the Queen, to be even with the Minister, who is the youth's chief persecutor, traps him also into the forbidden kiss, and makes two criminals instead of one. As no one can pardon the offender but the King of Leon, the Queen marries her favourite, and thus enables him to absolve himself.
Trifling as this piece is, being a mere skeleton of what it was intended to be, the hand of the master in conducting the incidents, in distributing the situations, and in working up everything to a point, is plainly discern- ible. The Queen of Leon makes a showy part for Madame Vestris.
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