Very different in spirit was the puppet drama, Noël ou le Mystère de la Nativité, by the poet Maurice Bouchor who had been active also in the Erotikon theatron and that of M. Signoret. It was written in four tableaux, in verse. The music for this delicate little mystery was composed by Paul Vidal, the dolls were designed by MM. Henri Lombard and J. Belloc, scenery by Félix Bouchor, brother of the poet, Henri Lerolle and Marcelle Rieder. Lemaître described the performance as a masterpiece of grace and beauty, particularly the last tableau of the Adoration. “The music of the lullaby, rarely exquisite, soft and celestial, etc. The Virgin puppet, almost immobile, merely inclining slightly forward toward the Infant while singing, had the candor of a lily and appeared as beautiful in the light in which she was bathed as the purest and most naïve Virgin of the primitive painters.” Another play by the same poet was given in 1894. It was in verse, five tableaux. M. Lemaître considered it even superior as a drama to Noël though possibly a bit strong for the puppets in its philosophy. It was the last performance, unfortunately, of the “delicious marionettes of Maurice Bouchor.”

The latest word I have heard of French puppets comes from the war zone. Mr. Henry S. West has written in a recent number of the Literary Digest of French troops in the forests of Champenoux and Parroy who had taken an oath “never to retreat from Lorraine.” Hence they have made themselves a comfortable park with flower beds, gravel paths, rustic bench, all in their Parc des Braves. Most diverting, however, are their elaborately constructed scenes of puppet warfare. The most famous of these is The Seven Chasseurs of Domèvre. It appears that seven French soldiers at Domèvre held a bridge against a small horde of Germans. It was a brave deed which resounded through Lorraine. Some clever lad wrote several stanzas about it and tacked them up on trees. This gave the idea to a dramatic critic who was off active duty for the time. He and his friends worked together and in a week completed the little show and placed it where it could be seen by every soldier passing on his way to battle.

A grassy knoll was chosen. An arched bridge of two feet was erected under which real water was made to flow. On one side of the bridge were piled tiny logs and trees behind which were the seven Chasseurs eight inches high dressed in the old red and blue French uniform, little caps on their heads, wooden guns in their hands. Twenty Germans in real field-grey were attempting to charge. Some were dead, others falling, three running away, all with scared expressions carved upon their little wooden faces. The verses were nailed up near by: