PARISIAN THRATRICALS.
A scepticisin'as to the soundness of scepticism has lately been exhibit- ed in two or three French plays, so that whereas it has been for men some time fashionable to disbelieve in the existence of virtue, this disbe- lief is in its turn beginning to be disbelieved, and the truth is let out that there are hypocrites of vice as well as of goodness. Last week we no- ticed the maiden production of M. Charles de Courcy as a case in point ; we have now another in Les Panfarons de Vice, written by MM. Duma- noir and Bieville, and produced at the Gymnase. A young man with a good heart affects to be bad, for the mere fashion of the thing ; and among other unwilling rascalities, stakes the honour of a young lady, to whom he is attached, against a friend's race-horse. He is, however, re- formed at last—which is a good thing ; and made happy—which he does not deserve.
MM. Mole Gentilhomme and Constant Gueroult, having written a novel entitled "Mesdemoiselles de Nesle," in which the heroines are the celebrated mistresses of Louis XV, have founded on the same a five-act called La Comtesse de Novailles, in which one of the "Mesde- moiselles" is represented as a monster of atrocity, who at last relieves the world of her presence by accidentally- smelling a bouquet she had poisoned for the benefit of another. The liberties taken with history in this piece are so great, that a knowledge of the early days of Louis XV is rather a hindrance than an assistance to the proper understanding of the plot. The place of production is the Ainbigit-Comique.
At the Theatre Lyrique, the example of the Opera Comique has been followed in the revival of Gretry's _Richard Occur de Lion.
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