Bouffé was thirteen. She had to sustain five different characters in a ballet-pantomime, entitled Une Vengeance de l'Amour; and, child as she was, she fascinated her boyish admirer; and, nine years afterwards, he won her heart and married her. After taking part in many amateur performances, he resolved upon making application for an engagement, in any capacity, to M. Poirson, the manager of the Gymnase. Bouffé was timid and diffident to excess, and has never ceased to be so. Writing, at the age of seventy-nine, he says, "I have always suffered from self-distrust;" and it was, therefore, with a beating heart, that he was ushered into the manager's room. After listening to what the faltering applicant had to say, M. Poirson brusquely asked him whether he thought his theatre was a place for novices, and recommended him to carry his views elsewhere. Poor Bouffé was so downcast that he could only bow and back out of the room as expeditiously as possible. Nevertheless he resolved upon preferring a similar request to M. Allaux, of the Panorama-Dramatique. "Arrived at the door of the house," he says, "my heart beat just as if I were about to commit an evil deed. At length I mounted the stairs and rang the bell. Ah! what would I not have given if nobody had answered it! Very singular things occur in the course of our lives. I was presenting myself to a man, in the hope that he would accept my application, which was the dearest wish I could form, and yet, just as I was about to be brought face to face with him, I scarcely hoped that I should find him away from home." But M. Allaux happened to be within, and after listening to what the new comer had to say, he asked him what line of business he aspired to play. Bouffé replied "comic parts;” “Very well, then," was the rejoinder, "place yourself over there, under No. 7,"-pointing to a black-board, upon which were inscribed seven different standards of height for leading actors, jeunes premiers, lovers, third-rate actors, principal, secondary and low comedians. Bouffé, who was barely five feet high, was rejected as too short, and was about to take his departure, more crest-fallen than ever, when a young actor of the company, named Solomé, entered the room, and was touched by the sorrowful expression of his countenance. At his request, Bouffé recited a couple of scenes; and then, turning to the manager, Solomé said, "Look here, Allaux, you must engage this young fellow to play small parts: he is intelligent, and has the makings of an agreeable comedian in him." After some demur, the manager agreed, as a great favour, to take him into "the stock," for "general utility" business, and to give him the munificent salary of

twelve pounds a year, the wages of a plain cook. But the first step had been gained, and Bouffé was content to work at his trade for his maintenance, and to abide his opportunity. This occurred sooner than he had calculated upon. On the third night of a successful vaudeville, the principal actor in it was taken suddenly ill, and Bouffé was asked to undertake the part. He sat up all night to study it and to learn the airs incidental to the rôle, and satisfactorily fulfilled it when the evening came. As yet he had concealed from his father that he had embraced the stage as a profession, and when the young man acknowledged the step he had taken, the old gentleman merely exacted from him a promise that he would renounce it in the event of his never rising above mediocrity. "I don't know much about it," said Bouffé père, "but I believe it is a hundred times preferable to be a clever artizan than an indifferent actor." And yet, what heaps of good workmen have been lost to the world, and what scores of sorry performers have trodden the boards, in cruel disregard of this sensible maxim. Nothing is more common than for both men and women to mistake the wish, for the capacity, to shine upon the stage, and the result is mortification of themselves and annoyance to the public.

A change of management at the Panorama-Dramatique led to a change in Bouffé's position. His salary was raised to £120 per annum, and he had an excellent part assigned to him in the original version of our Aladdin, or the wonderful scamp. He played the Sultan Ababa-Patapouf; and in making up for it, he exhibited his devotion to his art in a way which very few actors would have felt inclined to imitate. Just before the performance commenced, the theatrical wig-maker brought him a badly fitting scalp. "This will never do," said Bouffé, "shave my head at once." And it was done. Even in burlesque he refused to be otherwise than true to the requirements of the character he had undertaken to sustain. His success

in it was unequivocal, and at the close of the piece, his severest critic and truest friend, an experienced actor named Bertin, embracing him, said, "At length I am satisfied with you. You have been simple, true and comic without exaggeration. Continue in this

path, for it is a good one."

It was at this stage of his career that Bouffé married the young lady he had fallen in love with as a child, and the union proved to be a thoroughly happy one; although he had not been many months in his new abode, before the bankruptcy of the manager led to the closing of the theatre, and left the young couple without resources.

Soon afterwards, he was offered and accepted a short engagement at the Cirque-Olympique, where he played, in a military piece, the part of an old invalide, and had to sing some couplets concluding thus:

"On trouve, grâce à nos soldats,

Dans le jardin des Invalides,
Des lauriers de tous les climats."

The last representation was given before a certain number of invalides and a regiment of infantry belonging to the garrison of Paris, when a very touching scene occurred, which will be best described in his own words:-

There existed at that epoch, a centenarian invalide. This glorious débris of our army, surrounded by his old comrades in arms, assisted at this spectacle, seated in a box, the front of which was decorated with flags and trophies. Scarcely had I finished the couplet just cited, when the whole audience spontaneously rose to their feet; bravos broke from all parts of the house, and a thousand voices shouted “Long live our old comrades." At the same instant, a young officer placed a crown of laurel upon the aged veteran's head. Then the plaudits redoubled, but the old man's emotion proved too strong for him, and he fainted away. They pressed around him, lavished every attention upon him, and he was soon recovered and raised upon his feet. Sustained by some of his companions, he seemed to wish to speak; a profound silence immediately pervaded the spacious building, and the good old man was heard to exclaim with all the strength of his broken voice :-"Long live France! Long live our young soldiers!" It was truly a moving and a noble spectacle. Some one came round to my dressing-room to tell me that the centenarian wanted to know which of his comrades it was who had sung the couplets. The exact uniform of an invalide, which I had worn, had made him believe I was one of themselves. They replied that it was an actor who had adopted that costume to play the part.

"Ah! it is an actor? I should very much like to see him, and shake him by the hand."

I resolved to gratify his wish, and next morning I repaired to the Hotel des Invalides. I did not know his name, but I had no occasion to designate him. You might have put all the centenarians under a glass shade-they were such rare plants. I had simply to ask for "the centenarian." They directed me to a small garden, where I found him playing at piquet.

"Hold on, father," said my conductor, "here is a little gentleman who wants to speak to you."

"To me?"

"To you."

And then depositing his cards upon the table, and fixing his eyes upon me, as if endeavouring to recognise me, he said smiling—

"I never remember having seen you before. But that does not matter. What have you got to say to me, young man? my old ears are open to you."

"I want to speak to you for a few minutes, but do not let me interrupt your game. Finish it, I beg of you. I will wait."

"Not at all. We are in no hurry; the Cossacks are not at the gate, and there is plenty of time to beat that youngster there."

In saying this, he waved his hand towards his partner, and added with a mischievous smile,

"He is scarcely seventy-five years of age, and believes he is strong enough to beat his elders. Go along with you, greenhorn."

"You know very well," responded his partner, "that you have never been beaten either in cards or war."

"Hold your tongue, you old flatterer."

Then returning to my side, he said, "Sit down, young man, and tell me what you want."

"I'm told that you have expressed a wish to see the actor who, yesterday evening, at the Cirque Franconi, where you were, played the role of an invalide.”

"That is very true. I said so then, and I say so still."

"Very well; he also has wished to see you, and to grasp you by the hand. if you will allow him. It was I who played the part last night."

"Get away with you. None of that. Do you suppose that because I am 102 years old I have lost my eyesight? The comrade who played the part yesterday was sixty at the very least. I am sure of it."

"I thank you for the compliment, for it is one you pay me, without doubt." "What will you sing me now?"

Profiting by that reply, I said, “I will sing the couplets which you heard me give last night." Then, assuming the voice of an old man, such as I had adopted in the part, I delivered the verses which had moved him so much.

"Oh, yes, it is you," he exclaimed, I recognise you now;" and rising up like a man of thirty, he said, stretching forth his hands, "Will you allow me to embrace you?"

"With all my heart. I came for that purpose."

"But how the devil did you make yourself look so old as you did last night?” "Ah! my dear sir, we comedians have our little secrets, by which we can change our figures at will.”

"Ah, bah! have you anything, also, to make yourselves young again?" "Ah! that is more difficult, not to say impossible."

"So much the worse. If you had, I should have begged of you to give me the recipe, for I should like to see myself a young man again.”

During this interview, Bouffé studied with the utmost attention the gestures, voice, attitudes, and smallest movements of the old man, deriving from them lessons which proved to be of the highest value to him afterwards, when playing very old men upon the stage; and the actor and veteran soldier took leave of each other with expressions of mutual respect.

From the Gaieté, Bouffé soon afterwards transferred his services to the Nouveautés, under an engagement for four years; and the applause bestowed upon him here, for his performance of what he calls a "sympathetic" part, caused him to animadvert upon the indiscriminating character of popular approbation. "The moment you please the public," said he," it looks upon you as superb. It little knows how many bad actors it has made in applauding where it ought to have hissed." He was a severe judge of his own performances; and at the close of his career he frankly admitted that he had never been completely satisfied with the best of them. In three or four pieces, the success of which depended upon rapid changes of costume, he pronounces himself to have been simply "detestable." He was always self-distrustful, and constantly aimed

at an ideal higher than he succeeded in attaining. "In the dramatic art," he writes, " as in all the other arts, one may be well persuaded that one can never achieve perfection, and that there is always something to be sought for. This was the opinion of those two very great comedians Talma and Potier. The latter one day signified to me his regret at growing old, not from any fear of death, but because there was no time before him in which to accomplish that which he perceived to remain still unachieved in the beautiful art of the comedian. Talma said that the lifetime of an artist would scarcely suffice to qualify him to play properly the Hamlet of Shakespeare and the Misanthrope of Molière, which proves how carefully one ought to guard oneself against a liberal acceptance of the commonplace compliments of those dangerous friends, who may mislead us if we are weak enough to believe them. I have always preferred the counsels, however severe, or even a little rude, of those sincere connoisseurs, like my dear Davesne, for example, who scarcely put on the mittens' in their strictures on my acting.” Bouffé's respect for honest and capable animadversions must have been quite phenomenal; for, as a general rule, actors and actresses, while greedy of applause, and while quite willing to admit that the eulogies they receive in the press are not merely well-deserved, but are also the result of the exercise of a sound judgment on the part of their critics, are equally prone to assume that anything in the shape of censure must necessarily spring from ignorance, prejudice, malice, or the secret machinations of professional rivals or enemies.

Just as Bouffé was tasting the delights of prosperity and success, he had the misfortune to lose his wife, to whom he was tenderly attached, and who died of brain fever at the age of twenty, just after giving birth to a son. But there was no evading the cruel necessity of appearing upon the boards, where the grief-stricken comedian must mask his sorrows under a show of mirth. Who has forgotten the picture of the poor clown, called away from the buffooneries of the circus, to receive the last pressure from the hand of his dying wife, while the laughter of an applauding crowd is still ringing in his ears? Bouffé's own account of his first performance, after his bereavement, is touching in its candour and simplicity:"As soon as I appeared upon the scene," he writes, "plaudits broke forth from all parts of the house. One felt that that ovation was addressed less to the comedian than to the man stricken by a heavy calamity. The public intended to prove to me that it shared in my grief, for it, also, loved the angel whom God had recalled to Himself.