It was ten o’clock in the morning when we drove up to the door of the world-famous institution, but, early as it was, an animated throng already filled the wide marble-paved entrance-hall—­former pupils in elegant attire; girl aspirants for future honors, accompanied by the inevitable mamma with the invariable little hand-bag; young men and old; celebrated dramatists and well-known actors, visitors, critics, etc.—­all passing to and fro or engaged in conversation while awaiting the hour for taking their seats.  Passing through these, we ascend a narrow staircase that gives one good hopes of a martyr’s death should the theatre chance to catch fire, and we instal ourselves in a narrow and by no means comfortable box in the dress-circle.  The theatre of the Conservatoire, though not very large, is very elegantly and artistically decorated in the Pompeian style, the stage being set with a single “box scene,” as it is technically called, which is never changed, as plays are never acted there.  Here take place the far-famed concerts du Conservatoire, for which tickets are as hard to obtain as are invitations to the entertainments of a duchess, all the seats being owned by private individuals.  But what we are now here to witness is the competition in dramatic declamation, tragic and comic.  The jury occupy a box in the centre of the dress-circle and opposite to the stage.  This terrifying tribunal is enough to try the nerves of the stoutest aspirant for dramatic honors, comprising as it does among its members such powers in the land as Legouve, Camilla-Doucet, Alexandre Dumas, the directors of the Comedie Francaise and the Odeon, and the great actors Got and Delaunay.  An elderly gentleman comes forward on the stage and reads from a printed paper the name of each competitor and those of his or her assistants, and that of the play from which the scene that is to be represented is chosen.  Each pupil selects a scene, and the persons who in French technical parlance are to “give the reply” (i.e. to take the other characters in the scene) are chosen from among the ranks of the pupil’s fellow-competitors.  Lots are drawn to decide the place that each one is to occupy on the programme, the first place and the last being considered the least desirable.  Printed bills are distributed among the audience giving a list of the competitors, with the names of the plays from which they have chosen scenes, and (horrible innovation for the lady pupils!) the age of each one as well.

The competition is opened by M. Levanz, a young man of thirty, who took a second prize last year, and who has chosen the closet-scene from Hamlet (the translation of the elder Dumas) as his cheval de bataille.  He has a marked Germanic countenance, decidedly the reverse of handsome, yet mobile and expressive:  his voice is good, his figure tall and manly.  He has evidently seen Rossi in Hamlet, and models his conception of the character on that grand impersonation.  Next comes M. Bregaint in