Provisional Casts for French Plays

The plot of "Gringoire", the most serious of the plays to be presented by the Cercle Francais in December, gives an opportunity for the bringing out of the pathetic as well as the comic. The action takes place in the time of Louis XI. At the opening of the play, the king is sitting at table with Olivier-Le-Daim, his barber and favorite, when a great commotion is heard in the street, and Gringoire, the vagabond poet, is seen without. Gringoire has incurred the enmity of Olivier, who summons him into the mansion and compels him to sing a ballad of his with which all the streets of Paris are ringing. The ballad is directed against the king, and Olivier hopes to bring about the composer's ruin by having him sing it in the royal presence. At its close the king commands Olivier to leave the room. When alone with Gringoire, to the latter's surprise, he does not vent his anger, but promises to give him a wife.

Louis then summons before him Loyse, the beautiful daughter of Simon Fourniez, a rich bourgeois whom he has befriended. Olivier-Le-Daim has seen her and fallen in love with her at sight. The king promises Gringoire that he will spare his life if he succeeds in winning Loyse within the hour. When left alone with her, however, the poet forces himself, by a supreme effort, to keep silence on the subject of the king's command. On the latter's return, Loyse for the first time realizes Gringoire's position, and declares that by the subtlety and sweetness of his conversation he has won her heart. The play ends in the ruin of Olivier and the wedding of Loyse and Gringoire.

Roles in the plays have been provisionally assigned to the following men: "J'Invite Le Colonel." Carbonnel,  F. R. Warren, Jr., 2L. Le Colonel Bernard,  G. K. Monroe '10 Jules, H. M. Suckley '10,  F. B. Biddle '09. Isidor,  R. MacVeagh '10, H. W. H. Powel '09. Elisa,  F. R. Leland '10.   "Gringoire." Louis XI, Gringoire,  G. L. Foote '08. Fourniez,  L. Hill '10, M. Crawford '11. Olivier-Le-Daim,  W. G. Wendell '09, L. Woolson '10. Loyse,  H. M. Hines '10, L. Woolson '10 Nicole Andry, J. Millet '10, P. R. Dixon '10. "La Gifle." Blanc Misseron,  A. F. Hurlbut, 1G. Chamberlot,  S. Kelly '09. Un huissier,  R. H. Hutchinson '10, A. King '10.