"It was Voltaire that taught the French to despise Shakespeare. He called him a barbarian, and the French believe that saying true to the present time. Yet he did not hesitate to steal _Othello_ when he wanted to write _Zaïre_, or, rather, he went out on the boulevards, picked out the first good-looking barber he could find, dressed him up in Eastern garments, and then fancied that he had created a French Othello."
"I saw Mounet-Sully at one of the performances of your _Othello_" I remarked. "I wonder what he thought of his own personation of Orosmane when he witnessed the real tragedy?"
"Had Mounet-Sully been able to appreciate _Othello_" answered Rossi, "he never could have brought himself to personate Orosmane."
Some one then asked Rossi what he thought of the Comédie Frarçaise.
"The Comédie Française," said Rossi, "like every school of acting that is founded on art, and not on Nature, is falling into decadence. It is ruled by tradition, not by the realities of life and passion. One incident that I beheld at a rehearsal at that theatre in 1855 revealed the usual process by which their great performers study their art. I was then fulfilling an engagement in Paris with Ristori, and, though only twenty-two years of age, I was her leading man and stage-manager as well. The Italian troupe was requested to perform at the Comédie Française on the occasion of the benefit of which I have spoken, and we were to give one act of _Maria Stuart_, When we arrived at the theatre to commence our rehearsal the company was in the act of rehearsing a scene from _Tartuffe_ which was to form part of the programme on the same occasion. M. Bressant was the Tartuffe, and Madeleine Brohan was to personate Elmire. They came to the point where Tartuffe lays his hand on the knee of Elmire. Thereupon, Mademoiselle Brohan turned to the stage-manager and asked, 'What am I to do now?' 'Well,' said that functionary, 'Madame X---- used to bite her lips and look sideways at the offending hand; Madame Z---- used to blush and frown, etc.' But neither of them said, What would a woman like Elmire--a virtuous woman--do if so insulted by a sneaking hypocrite? They took counsel of tradition, not of Nature. In fact, the French stage is given over to sensation dramas and the opéra bouffe, and such theatres as the Comédie Française and the Odéon have but a forced and artificial existence."