Bataille de dames

[Footnote A: Criticism of Scribe may be found in Brunetière's "Époques du théâtre français;" Weiss, "Le Théâtre et les moeurs;" Matthews, "French Dramatists," p.78; Wells, "Modern French Literature," p. 353. Lanson, "Littérature française," p.966, is perhaps unduly harsh. For contemporary criticism of Scribe see Sainte-Beuve, "Portraits contemporains," ii., 91 and 589.]

[Footnote B: It originated in Italy as a pantomime with songs, which in seventeenth-century France became what we now call "topical." It is of this that Boileau says, "_Le français, né malin, forma le vaudeville._" Later the pantomime yielded gradually to dialogue, and the vaudeville was tending to farcical opera when Scribe gave it a new direction.]

[Footnote C: "Valérie" (1822) and "Le Mariage d'argent" (1827), both at the Théâtre Français.]

[Footnote D: For the serial publication of one of these, "Piquillo Alliago," he received from Le Siècle $12,000.]

[Footnote E: Among them "La Juive," "Fra diavolo," "Robert le diable," "Les Huguenots," "Le Prophète."]

[Footnote F: Manifested most clearly in his "Histoire morale des femmes."]