The Frangais has its habituis as well as its subvention ;
Antoine and Lugn^ Poe have their subscribers as well
as their intelligent audacity. And the merely frivolous
theatres, whatever we may think of their ethics, main-
tain a level of workmanship which, compared with that
of our '' musical comedies," may almost be called
intellectual. It is true that the entertainments offered
by the Ath^n^e and the Nouveaut^s, the Capucines
and the Grand Guignol — the favourite resorts of
" mundane " pleasure-seekers — are more often than
not quite heartless and conscienceless ; but it is also true
that they are anything but silly. Paris has not been
Theatropolis all these years for nothing. Its playhouses
are for the most part more stuffy than ours, more
uncomfortable, far less pleasant houses than ours to
gossip or to lounge or to slumber in ; for French
audiences concern themselves far less than ours about
these subsidiary matters. What they do concern
themselves about is the play. By tradition and
temperament the Parisian is a playgoer, and, from
practice, an expert playgoer. Herein he differs from
an Englishman of the same class. No doubt, in all
our modern democracies the average citizen is largely



48 DRAMA AND LIFE

dependent on fiction for his means of realising the
stratum of society in which he lives, and, still more,
those strata in which he does not live. But while it is
a typical English habit to seek this fiction in print and
nowhere else, it is a typical French habit to seek it on
the other side of the footlights.
To this constant and urgent theatrical demand in
France corresponds an unfailing and abundant supply.
