The Sun. — 1865-05-09 (London, England)

FRANCAISE.—A new piece entitled " Le Supplice d'une Femme," has been brought out at this theatre with a success which is well deserved, though the incidents are rather sensational than delicate. The curtain rises upon a home which has the outward appearance of happiness. M. Dumont has a charming wife, a charming daughter, and a trustedfriend, Alvarez, who has saved him from ruin and has become his partner. Alas ! there is crime in this seeming Paradise; Madame Dumont had hardly been married when she forgot her vows, and the fruit of her forgetfulness is her daughter Jeanne ; her married life has been spent in remorse, for she never loved her seducer, Alvarez, a man of violent temperament and jealous of her husband. This false situation has lasted for years, but at last it becomes suspected and insupportable ; a dismissed maid and some scandal-loving ladies soon made known a secret which remains hidden from the husband alone, and the passion of Alvarez and his jealousy reach their climax. Alvarez leaves the house and writes to Madame Dumont to join him with Jeanne ; this letter is delivered to her in the presence of a lady who with perfidious kindness informs M. Dumont that his wife has been greatly afflicted by a letter which she has just received. Several ideas pass rapidly through the brain of the unfortunate woman—death, flight, or shall she remain and acknowledge all ; she is still undecided when her husband enters and finds her in a state bordering on madness ;• kind and gentle as ever, he tries to console her and asks for the fatal letter, which after a slight hesitation his wife places in his hands. M. Dumont at first fails to comprehend its meaning, and fearful is the scene which follows between the deluded man and the penitent woman as she kneels and confesses gradually the whole extent of her crime. M. Dumont has nothing left to him but vengeance, and this shall be the signal : " The robb'd that smiles steals something from the thief." He asks for Alvarez, and shows hir that the whole measure of his iniquity is known ; he tells him that his wife prefers the anger of an injured husband to flight with a man she never loved. He will have recourse to no tribunal, nor will he fight the wretch who has dishonoured him. "Ifl do not kill you, where is the reparation ? If you kill me, where is the justice ?" Dumont exacts that Alvarez shall ruin him by demanding immediate payment of certain sums. It is in vain that Alvarez protests against this infamy ; in case of his refusing Dumont threatens suicide. He then, refusing to pardon his wife, who continues to protest that she never loved another, orders her home to her parents, and directs her to write that, unable to support poverty, she has preferred to leave him. Dumont saves his wife's character, for scandal imagines that Alvarez has ruined Dumont to revenge his wife's resistance. Dumont retains Jeanne, who, sitting on his knee as the curtain is about to fall, asks if she shall ever see her mother again, and the answer is, " perhaps," for Dumont knows that his wife is not irrecoverablylost. During the three acts of this piece the interest never flags ; the incidents of the plot follow each other with wonderful rapidity but perfect clearness, and the author makes this passion, pent up for seven years, and this concealed crime, appear natural by the vigour of his delineation and the lucidity of his dialogue. The play is admirably acted by Regnier, Lafontaine, Mlle. Favart, Mlle. Ponsin, and a little girl called Duquesnois. At the close of the piece Regnier came forward and announced that " the author desired to remain anonymous." His name is, however, well known—it is M. Emile de Girardin ; but the play having been touched up, on-dit, by M. Dumas, fils, M. de Girardin declined to assume the honours of paternity—at least, such is.the story current on the subject.