THEATRE A T PARIS. 1% I 



blunt expreffions, without attending to the double -fig- 

 &ification couched beneath. 



The rope- dancing, and other neck-or-nothing ex- 

 ploits that were given between the acts, or between the 

 •different pieces, I never faw in equal perfection, i. e. 

 in equally terrifying excellence. One among the reft 

 made my hair quite fraud on end. Four bottles were 

 placed upon a table, upon the four mouths of which a 

 chair was fet in its natural pofition, on this another 

 chair reverted, in fuch a manner that its four feet were 

 torned up into the air, as its feat refted on the elbows 

 of the former. On this tottering fcaffold mounted the 

 man (who feemed to have no bones at all) with infinite 

 sflexterity and caution, laid his two hands and his feet 

 on the four feet of the chair, and then firfl: ftretched 

 aloft one foot, and afterwards the other, took away the 

 left hand, and laid his head in its place, took the 

 tight hand away, and now ftood with his head on one 

 of the feet of the chair, quite firm and intrepidly for 

 above two minutes. ■ — Every creature prefent obferved 

 a profound flience, and no one ventured to clap till he 

 had wound himfelf down with the fame dexterity, 

 without giving to the fcaffold any other motion than a 

 ftrong and tight trembling. What efforts do not the 

 French repay with clapping, and what exertions da 

 they not make to obtain it ! 



I would not again fee a mart lavifh away fo much 

 fkill, for wriggling himfelf within a hair-breadth of 

 death, and accordingly took myfelf away at the end of 

 the third piece, and went, x as one is always in time 

 there, to the fpectacle des afTocies. I found here what 

 they call in th* auftrian Netherlands the threepenny 



Q 4 comedy, 



