The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-05-16
THE PARIS OPERA HOUSE,
Attempted Murder Gives It Birth.

The building that immediately suc- ceeded that of the Rue de Richelieu and immediately preceded M. Garniers owed it's existence to the accomplished assassination of the Due de Berri; just as the structure on the Boulevard des Capucines owes it's erection to the mis- carried attempt on the life of Napoleon Ill. Yet the motives that prompted the two identical measures were essentially different.
 A score of years before the lato Comte de Chambords father fell under the knife of Pierre Louvei, Bonaparte, then first consul, narrowly escaped a similar fate twice within the space of three months. The first affair is known as the "Cerachi of the Arena plot" the second as the explosion of the Rue Saint-Nicaise." Cerachi and his ac- complices intended to stab Bonaparte in his box itself as Louvel stabbed the Due de Berri in the private entrance in the Rue de Rameau; Jean Francois, alias Corbon, and his fellow -chouans relied on a barrel tightly filled with powder and ball, an to which was at tached a gun-barrel with it's hammer and trigger, but minus it's butt end. The contrivance was placed in rick ety old cart, with a decrepit small horse or pony in it's shaft, and was guarded by a child. The vehicle and it's contents stood in the direct road of the consuls carriage, but his escort remov
 ed it, apparently most gently, for the explosion occurred few seconds after the cortege had passed Contemporary reg1cldes have no qualms of conscience with regard to useless bloodshed; the boy guardian was shattered to atoms. The first Bonaparte, though, took no steps for the building of a new opera house. In view of this constant expos
 ure to death on the battlefield. it was scarcely worth the trouble. Nor was the decision of the Bourbons to that effect based upon personal motives. They were entirely swayed by religious considerations. The Due de Berri breathed his last in the opera house of the Due de Richelieu, and partook of the supreme rites of the Church there administered by the Archbishop of Paris. They determined that the place should never open it's doors again to profane entertainemnts, and, in fact, a commemorative chapel had already partly arisen on the spot when the revolution of 1880 drove them from the country. Louis Philippe had not only not the decency to complete it, but up- rooted 1t to make room for the fountain of the Square Louvois, which is there to the present day.
 By that time the opera house of the Rue Le Peletier had been in existence for nearly a dozen years, and, though meeting with varying fortunes, had upon the whole f1ourished exceedingly. The original estimates, exclusive of the ground belonging to the Due de Choiseul like that on which the Opera Comique is being rebuilt, amounted to 1,800,000 francs, but they were finally exceeded by 100000 francs. There was no necessity for new opera house, and least of all for an opera house of the size of the present one. The stage in the Rue Le tPeletier, on which the late Emile Perrin produced that wonderful ship of "L'Africaine," was to all in- tents and purposes big enough for any thing. As for the interior of the new house, mean the portion devoted to the seating of the spectators, the pro- portions differ but little from those of the former one.
 I doubt whether the building of new opera house was included in the origin al plans of Napoleon III. and his pre- feet, Haussmann, for the transforma- tion and improvement of Paris The opera house in the Rue Le Peletier did well enough Its architect, Debret had run the gauntlet of every kind of satire for many years after it's completion, for the house that saw the first perform ances of "Guillaun1e Tell" Robert le Diable," Les Huguenots," and La
 Juive," was not by any means a thing of architectural beauty; but it was comfortable and commodious, and from an acoustic point infinitely superior to it's successor.
 The conceptions of the Second En- pire, whether social or political, were, however not always dictated by neces- sty. Be that as it may, the idea of
 building a new opera house to replace | the old one was never broached even among the immediate entourage of the | Emperor until the early part of 1853.
 On January IA, 1858, the Emperor was proceeding to the opera, and had near | ly reached it's entrance when his life
 was attempted in the narrowest part of | the Rue Le Peletier by Orsini and his l confederates. By something like a i miracle Napoleon IT. escaped the fate of the late Comte de Chamford's fath- | CT who was stabbed to death under
 analogous, though not altogether ident- | ical, circumstances in the old opera
 house of the Rue de Richelieu. But | though Napoleon III. was literally skin whole, the slaughter around him was
 terrible. Balthazar Gerardi, Jacques | Clement and Francois RavaiIlac in old
 en times and Pierre Louvel thirty-eight
 years before that scene in the Rue Le
 Peletier, had aimed at the taking of one | life, and went steadfastly about their | purpose, without fear before the ac-
 complishment of their deeds, without
 remorse afterward. They marked their victims, who, according to them, were | loathsome to God and man; but they
 would probably have hesitated to stain | their hands with the blood of innocent
 fellow creatures, and, in fact post | poned the execution of their designs in order to avoid such useless bloodshed. | We are not idealizing; there is histori- 1 cal evidence to that effect in all the l four cases cited Contemporary would
 be regicides-with the exception, per- | haps, of the Russian Nihilists-have no | such qualms of conscience, or if they