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Once more have we been plunged into an Arcadia of the eighteenth century, by a new piece which was brought out at the Lyceum on Mon- day, and is called the Abbe raudreuil. A young military officer of the present French regime thinks he would like to see the court of Louis XV., and he finds in the Abbe Vaudreuil an agenst ready and willing to gratify his whim,—the said Abbe being a sort of demon clad in the style of the old ecclesiastical gallants. Time rolls a hundred years back, and the foolish youth is not a little delighted to find himself and his sweet- heart in the middle of the Parc aux Cerfs, where Madame Pompadour reigns amid all the glories of a fete a in Watteau, surrounded by the esprits forts of her period. Soon, however, the lieutenant discovers that he had better have left his lady-love in the middle of the nineteenth century, instead of leading her into the life of 1764, where she is exposed to the attentions of courtly profligates. Most successful is the treache- rous Abbe, who lures her into a gavotte that makes a deep impression on her heart, but her flirtation is speedily cut short by a sword-thrust in- tended for the Abbe, and received in her own bosom. Happy is the lieutenant to find that he has only murdered his mistress in a dream, from which he emerges to marry her with the most wakeful solicitude. The dream, however, is the essential part of the piece, which is merely constructed for the sake of presenting a living tableau of the days of swords and powder. A view of the Parc aux Cerfs has been beautifully painted by Mr. W. Callcott, and the picture is pleasantly enlivened by dances, in which Madame Celeste, who plays the demon Abbe, takes a conspicuous part.
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