however he has disappeared. The intrigue of the seventeen scenes, although clearly unravelled in the play, is a little complicated, and it must suffice to relate by an accident Adolphe appears at the castle. Upon being asked his name he answers: “Lord Ruthwen. An Englishman,” whereupon he is immediately taken to be a Vampire and the servants are thrown into a state of panic. Eventually he is reconciled to his uncle who recognizes him as the brave young hero by whom his life was saved on a recent battlefield; Nancy’s fidelity is rewarded with the hand of the man she loves, and who now realizes that Hermance’s heart was never his; so that the curtain falls upon a double wedding.
Several pretty lyrics are interwoven with the dialogue and Nancy’s first song, to the air “De sommeiller, encor ma chère” from Fanchon la vielleuse, is as follows:
Oui, ces paysans respectables
Nous rapellent le bon vieux temps:
Chez eux on croit encore au diable,
Aux vampires, au revenants;
On croit à toutes les magies,
Aux amours, aux soins assidus,
Aux grands sorciers, aux grands genies …
Bref à tout ce qu’on ne voit plus!
Les Trois Vampires, ou le clair de la lune[43] which was being played at the Variétès is a thoroughly amusing farce in one act by Brazier, Gabriel, and Armand. It shows the adventures of a bon bourgeois, M. Gobetout, who has so distracted his brain by reading stories of Vampires and ghosts that when one night he sees in his garden three shadowy figures he is well nigh beside himself with terror as he supposes they can be no other than three vampires infesting his house. A little later he catches sight of his two daughters and their abigail who appear actually to be eating with the mysterious strangers. “Les vampires qui soupent avec mes filles!” he groans in accents of despair. However it proves that the supper is very material, cold chicken and a glass of good wine, whilst the rendezvous is of an amorous nature, since the visitors are two young sparks and their valet. So the play ends with a triple marriage. One remark of the worthy M. Gobetout was, it is said, nightly greeted with a hurricane of applause. He was wont to murmur in pensive accents: “Les vampires
