The Sun.
London, England, 1864-03-29 00:00:00

SURREY.
This theatre, in accordance with unvarying cue-
tom, presented its patrons with a novelty for their
Pasebal entertainment, and in accordance also with
their unvarying custom, the -patrons of the theatre
assembled in overflowing strength to welcome the
novelty. Tae ardour of Surrey audiences for the
drama cannot be doubted, for none but the most
devoted enthusiasts would undergo such bodily
agonies, such physical pressure, as were endured
last night fur nearly six hours by the occupants of
the pit and gallery of this theatre. While it cannot
truthfully be said that they endured their sufferings
uncomplainingly or unresistingly, yet it marked an
advanced step in civilisation to notice how much
good humour and how little angry feeling was dis-
played among so vast a mass of persons. The
novelty presented last evening bore the promising
title of " The Soldier of Fortune, or the Devil's
Death Tower," and was stated in the bills to be a
translation from and adaptation of a French piece,
by Mr. J. Anderson, one of the managers of the
theatre. The story, as dramatised, although his-
torical as history, as represented in Dumas's novel
is exciting, and to a sensitive mind startling, if not
revolting. Marguerite of Burgundy, the Queen
of Louis X., during her husband's absence from
Paris, indulges her and her sisters' guilty passions
by receiving lovers in the Death Tower, on the banks
of the Seine, and, at the conclusion of each evening's
revel, their unfortunate paramours are assassinated,
and their bodies cast into the river by a band of
ruffians under the orders of one Guido Malatesta, a
creature of Marguerite's, and ostensible keeper of
an auberge adjoining the Tower. At this
auberge meet Leander do la Croix, an orphan,
who has come to Paris to his twin brother Lionel,
who is Captain of the Queen's Body Guard, and
high in Marguerite's favour, and one Captain Ber-
trand, the soldier of fortune. The latter oppor-
tunely interferes to save Leander from a cowardly
attack by an envious Paris mob—a noble action,
which elicited the loudest applause of the Surrey
audience, probably because their English notions
favoured the man who ventured to fight one against
nine, as was the case in this instance. The two be-
come intimate, and from their mutual confidences
it appears that they have each received an assigna-
tion to meet an unknown lady that evening. Lionel,
the captain, who appears, endeavours to dissuade
his brother from keeping the appointment, bat
in
vain. In the next Beene, the circular room in the
Devil's Tower, the Queen and her two sisters
are seen masked and retiring from the tower ;
but Lionel, after in vain essaying to obtain a glimpse
of his fair companion's face, determines to insure re-
cognition by puncturing the cheek with a silver pin.
This act alarms and enrages the masked Queen, and
she revokes some exceptional orders which she had
previously given for the safety of the young man,
and accordingly ho and another victim are mur-
dered, and their bodies cast into the river. Ber-
trand is more fortunate, for although doomed to the
same fate he finds in Jacques Sangnoir, the chief
assistant of Malatesta, an old comrade, who per-
mits him to escape. In the second act Bertrand
appears at the Queen's Court in the disguise of a
Bohemian fortune-teller, and by his subtle hints so
works upon Marguerite's fears that he extorts from
her the promise to meet him at Malatesta's tavern.
At the interview which there takes place Bertrand
threatens to acquaint Lionel de la Croix with the
fact that his brother had been assassinated by the

Queen's order,to avert which disclosure Marguerite
gives Bertrand a warrant appointing him chief
minister of the realm, which she subsequently nul-
lifies by another warrant for his arrest, which imme•
diately takes place. He is visited in his prison
by the Queen, who comes to gloat over his suffer-
ings, and to taunt him with his prospective fate,
but by a disclosure that he is her lover of past
times, Bertrand de Longueville, the parent of the
twin children and the murderer of her father, he
invokes her fears anew, and to prevent certain cri-
minatory letters from reaching the hands of the
King, she agrees to release Bertrand, and to carry
out her former promise to make him chief minister.
Notwithstanding this arrangement mutual distrust
exists between the two principal characters, and a
plan is laid whereby each plot the death of the
other at the Devil's Tower. Lionel, drawn thither
by his infatuation for the Queen, is murdered by
her creatures, and Bertrand, who has learned too
late the identity of the two La Croix with the off-
spring of himself and Marguerite, arrives only to
acquaint her with the dreadful fact that she has
been the murderer of both her children. She
in despair stabs herself, and Bertrand, re-
sisting a Royal order for his arrest, is mortally
wounded. The piece thus terminates, if not
pleasantly, at least intelligibly, as none of the prin-
cipal characters remain to invite speculation as to
their future earthly career. The drama, full of in-
cident and of horrors as it was, seemed to afford
satisfaction to the large audience, who warmly ap-
plauded the most striking passages, and with a
slight curtailment it will probably be found attrac-
tive for some time to come. Mr. J. Anderson as
Bertrand, and Miss Pauncefort as the Queen, were
sufficiently vigorous in the delineations of their
respective characters, and were honoured with spe-
cial notice at the close of the piece. The perform-
ances concluded with the nautical drama of " Ashore
and Afloat," itself se full of sensations and striking
situations as to fairly entitle it to stand alone as an
Easter attraction.