I went, a night or two since, to one of the minor theatres to see the representation of a play, which has been performed for the _hundred and second time_!--"Napoleon at Schoenbrun and St. Helena." My object was to study the feelings of the people toward Napoleon II., as the exile's love for his son is one of the leading features of the piece. It was beautifully played--most beautifully! and I never saw more enthusiasm manifested by an audience. Every allusion of Napoleon to his child, was received with that undertoned, gutteral acclamation, that expresses such deep feeling in a crowd; and the piece is so written that its natural pathos alone is irresistible. No one could doubt for an instant, it seems to me, that the entrance of young Napoleon into France, at any critical moment, would be universally and completely triumphant. The great cry at Lyons was "_Vive Napoleon II.!_"
I have altered my arrangements a little, in consequence of the state of feeling here. My design was to go to Italy immediately, but affairs promise such an interesting and early change, that I shall pass the winter in Paris.
I went last night to the French opera, to see the first dancer of the world. The prodigious enthusiasm about her, all over Europe, had, of course, raised my expectations to the highest possible pitch. "_Have you seen Taglioni?_" is the first question addressed to a stranger in Paris; and you hear her name constantly over all the hum of the _cafés_ and in the crowded resorts of fashion. The house was overflowed. The king and his numerous family were present; and my companion pointed out to me many of the nobility, whose names and titles have been made familiar to our ears by the innumerable private memoirs and autobiographies of the day. After a little introductory piece, the king arrived, and, as soon as the cheering was over, the curtain drew up for "_Le Dieu et la Bayadere_." This is the piece in which Taglioni is most famous. She takes the part of a dancing girl, of whom the Bramah and an Indian prince are both enamored; the former in the disguise of a man of low rank at the court of the latter, in search of some one whose love for him shall be disinterested. The disguised god succeeds in winning her affection, and, after testing her devotion by submitting for a while to the resentment of his rival, and by a pretended caprice in favor of a singing girl, who accompanies her, he marries her, and then saves her from the flames as she is about to be burned for marrying beneath her _caste_. Taglioni's part is all pantomime. She does not speak during the play, but her motion is more than articulate. Her first appearance was in a troop of Indian dancing girls, who performed before the prince in the public square. At a signal from the vizier a side pavilion opened, and thirty or forty bayaderes glided out together, and commenced an intricate dance. They were received with a tremendous round of applause from the audience; but, with the exception of a little more elegance in the four who led the dance, they were dressed nearly alike; and as I saw no particularly conspicuous figure, I presumed that Taglioni had not yet appeared. The splendor of the spectacle bewildered me for the first moment or two, but I presently found my eyes rivetted to a childish creature floating about among the rest, and, taking her for some beautiful young _elève_ making her first essays in the chorus, I interpreted her extraordinary fascination as a triumph of nature over my unsophisticated taste; and wondered to myself whether, after all, I should be half so much captivated with the show of skill I expected presently to witness. _This was Taglioni!_ She came forward directly, in a _pas seul_, and I then observed that her dress was distinguished from that of her companions by its extreme modesty both of fashion and ornament, and the unconstrained ease with which it adapted itself to her shape and motion. She looks not more than fifteen. Her figure is small, but rounded to the very last degree of perfection; not a muscle swelled beyond the exquisite outline; not an angle, not a fault. Her back and neck, those points so rarely beautiful in woman, are faultlessly formed; her feet and hands are in full proportion to her size, and the former play as freely and with as natural a yieldingness in her fairy slippers, as if they were accustomed only to the dainty uses of a drawing-room. Her face is most strangely interesting; not quite beautiful, but of that half-appealing, half-retiring sweetness that you sometimes see blended with the secluded reserve and unconscious refinement of a young girl just "out" in a circle of high fashion.