The French Plays were resumed at the St. James's on
Monday ; when Mademoiselle PLESSY, who is the star for the present, appeared in Valerie, on rAveugle. Valerie, it will be remembered, is a blind girl, who suddenly gains her sight by an operation, and whose first exercise of the newly-awakened sense is to behold and recognize her lover. Mademoiselle PLESSY enacts the part very cleverly : you see by her manner that she is blind ; "her eyes are open, but their sense is shut "; her face is turned towards any one who speaks to her, but not on the person—she seems to look past the object. Her ecstasy of joy when she rushes in and gazes with wonder and delight at the friends and objects around her, is as though she had not lived till that moment : " J'existe ! " is the climax of her happiness. The style of Mademoiselle PLUMY is eminently artificial : it is start- ling and full of "points," yet modish and polished ; her emotion is that of the drawing-room. She coquets with passion ; letting her feelings have just so much scope as to be under her control, like a pet bird that is allowed by its mistress to flutter about the room for a while only to be caught and caged again. It is the comedy of sentiment. The art is perfect of its kind, and is admirable even to those whom it does not satisfy. The acting of Mademoiselle PLESSY has not the repose, the bland genial serenity, nor the depth and force of Mademoisdle MARS: the difference between them is that between French nature and French art. Mademoiselle PLESSY, we thought, was more at home in a light afierpiece, Le .lieve de num Mari, on le Manteau ; in which her vivacity has free play, and she appeared a French Mrs. Nntintrr.
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