The Sully County watchman. (Clifton, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1894, 1888-09-15
A GREAT HISTORIC BELL.
A Tour Through the Most Celebrated Play
house In the World.

house In the World.
In the Theater Franchise ct Paris we
pass the side wings that lead to the stage,
aud soon reach the foyes des ar istes or
| green room, to which the actors and ac-
| tresses retire during intervals OF their
parts in the play.
| 1t is the most celebrated room of its
kind in the world, says a correspondent
of the Boston Transcript. The ceiling is
low, the floor we'll waxed, the furniture
covered with dark green Utrecht velvet;
the high windows are heavily shaded with
faded curtains, which, like the chairs and
tables, recall the days of the First EN-
pire. The place has an austere, dingy
| look about il. But the company is, no
doubt the real ornament of the Rue de
RicheliGu green room. It should be
! lighted up, perhaps, to look its best.
| There, i'll recent days, priviledged visitors
might have seen Mile. Brohgn at her
knitting; Mouuet-Sully reading, with
| tragic eyebrows, some vellumbound edi-
tiou of the latest poet; Maubant, in his
moments of good humor, playing cup
and ball; Worms, talking antiquities, and
Got agriculture. And, in former years,
when that demon of discord, Mime. Sarah
| Bernhardt, swept in With her train of
courtiers and her courtly train, it must
! have been an interesting sight.
My guide points out some of the chief
curiosities among the portraits and pic
lures of the room. Mignard's well known
canvas of Moliere, which some assert not
TO be the work of that renowned French
painter; beautiful portrait OF Mile.
Duclos; the noble Roman head of Taima,
Rachel in her flowing, classic drapeTy,
etc. Portraits, IN fact, here abound, TO
each Of which some romance Oh story is
attached. Geoffrey has a coaple of ex-
ceilent paintings, one representing the
Theater Franchise ia 1910, and the other
grouping the troupe as 1t was composed
in 1864, with NJ. NJ. Mauoaut, Coquelin
and Got and Mines. Brohan, Jouassin and
Favart. The marble chimney piece, re-
presenting tine apotheosis OF Moiiere, is
marvelously we'll executed. One of the
most curious r.iics of the past, I WIS told,
is the bell which, now included among
tho properties" once hung i'll the belfry
of the abbey church of st. Germain fAux-
errois, and on that terrible night in Au-
gust, 1872, sounded out the signal for the
massacre of St. Bartholomew. When the
revolution came the bells from the
churcher were requisitioned, thrown in
to the crucible and recast into cannon.
By strange coincidence the company at
the Theater Franchise were playing
"Charles TX" bell was wanting to toll
the signal Of the Huguenot massacre, ana
Marie Joseph Chenier asked the Conven-
tion for the famous bell, which was given
to the theater, so that the iron tongue
which bade our factors murder the
the other three centuries before spoke
again in tones of reproof to the actor
who played the weak king, standing by
his window OF the old Louvre, and start
ing when he heard the solemn tollirg.
The bell is seldom neard now. 1t was
taken out, however. and swung temporal
rily when Victor Hugos drama of "Mar-
ion Delorme" was being performed.
Mrs. Mackay Is going to rent the duke
of Sutherlaud's celebrated mansion,
stafford House, in London.