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196 OUR FRENCH CORRESPONDENT.
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
« Rose Cheri.
more : than feminine tact disguising the blush of shame under theapparentlflushing cheek of the Bacchante . But to understand
thecharacter y of Madame Montigny and tlie part which she played in societyas well as the difficulties by which her youthful days were
beset , the repetition of a few isolated compliments paid to her would , not sufficefor which reason a brief sketch of her life shall
, now be given to your readers . Hose Montigny was born on the 27 th October , 1824 , in
anobscure country town in one of the south-western departments of Francewhere her fatherwho was in early life a strolling player ,
along with , his wife , had accepted , an engagement in a little theatre ; and according to the directions of its manager , played the parts of
the clown , or prompter , or the principal rdles in such vaudevilles as found their way into an out-of-the-way country town nearly a
hundred leagues distant from the capital ; and not unfrequently appeared in the principal characters of Racine ' s or of Corneille _' s
tragedies . He might have struggled on In this manner till the end of his existence had not the Revolution of July , 1830 , given to the
departmental town in which he nightly slione , an intelligent prefect , instead of the heavy old gentleman , who , remembering the glories of
Versailles , would have thought himself degraded were he to enter the playhouse where Cizos was wont to set the bourgeois in a roar ,
and his daughter Rose , a fair , tender-looking child , to awaken the interest of all "who saw her performing with her sister Anna , in a
little piece written for them by some country dramatist and borrowed from that favorite tragedy of the English nursery , " The Babes of
the Wood . M . _Romieii , like an intelligent person as he was , preferring to join in such gaieties as the chef-lieu afforded , to living like
his predecessor in gloomy solitude at the prefecture , patronised the theatrical performances at _PerigTieux , and no sooner saw the Cizos
on the stage than , as the highest functionary present , he gave the signal for the rest of the house to applaud them . An atrocious pun
is ascribed to him when first he saw Rose and Anna in the characters of Jane and William , whether with or without Robin Redbreast
we are not informed . On being told the names of the juvenile performershe is said to have exclaimed " Quelle jolie paire cle cizos _/"
( ciseauxJ , ) But M . Romietiis now , on , excellent authority , freed front the charge of having ever perpetrated such a play upon the word .
In 1842 , notwithstanding the governmental subsidies , and the prefectorial patronage that he received , the manager of the Perigueux
Theatre failed , and with his failure the family of our heroine suddenly fell from scarcity to absolute want . Their previous pursuits
had utterly incapacitated them from anything of either trade or agriculture , * but Rose and her mother eked out a little bread by
constantly plying their needles . However _^ the former was not longdestined to sing the " Song of the Shirt ; " and when the affairs of
. the family reached the last stage of hopelessness , an accident opened
toher an avenue to fame and fortune . At this juncture M . Cizos _hadj
196 Our French Correspondent.
196 OUR FRENCH CORRESPONDENT .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Nov. 1, 1861, page 196, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01111861/page/52/
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