Vol. VI No. 1 - Modernist Magazines Project

THE BERMONDSEY BOOK
unsurpassed success. Motor-mad crowds, unable to gain access, and traffic tied
up around the Salon were the usual characteristics. While two hundred cars
were housed inside the large hall, no less than two thousand were outside, and
whatever has resulted from this gigantic show it has at least proved the
vitality of French industry and the possibility of obtaining comfortable and
handsome cars for next to nothing. Woe betide the traffic of Paris if 100,000
new vehicles are put into circulation (as it is predicted) in the already too
congested streets.
The great topic now is of the next Colonial Exhibition to take place in 1929.
A big movement with regard to Fair Exhibitions is steadily acquiring vast
importance throughout all the Provinces. These fairs offer unlimited attractions
and bring a number of visitors from town to town, besides which they
have a decided commercial utility. They show the latest models in decorative,
household and industrial arts. If entertainments come to be added to these
programmes who knows whether they will not bring a revival of the "Theatre
Ambulant" which existed three centuries ago and was so famous in the time
of Moliere.
The debut of Jean-Jean Lavalliere, son of Eve Lavalliere, was awaited
with much curiosity on the stage. The name of Eve Lavalliere is, perhaps,
little known in England, but she was not long since Paris' cherished idol,
the essence of the true Parisienne. She suddenly disappeared from the stage
at the height of her success to vow herself to religion in a small mountain
village in the Vosges.
- I always remember one of Eve Lavalliere's last appearances. It was in
London at His Majesty's Theatre, at the beginning of the War. A charity
matinee had been organised in favour of the French Red Cross and a number
of leading artists had come over from Paris to give their support. A few
names come to my mind, de Feraudy, de Max, Albert Lambert, Marguerite
Carre, but among them Eve Lavalliere. After first-rate scenes of all kinds, acts
from operas, and various sketches, she appeared, her lithe, white figure all
grace and soft, ineffable charm, standing out against the background of heavy
curtains a few yards from the footlights. I have never forgotten the little poem
she recited with unequalled simplicity and pathos, "c'etait un enfant de Sept
ans" nor the thunderous applause which followed her appearance. Jean-Jean
Lavalliere has inherited her large sentimental eyes. As a gamin de Paris in the
Palace Revue he had aroused all sympathies and shown promise of real talent.
A strange destiny has been his. Till to-day he had shared his mother's
seclusion and only suddenly allowed himself to be drawn by the call of his
vocation.
Of Maurice Rostand's Napoleon Fourth the less said the better. The son
of the noted author of Cyrano de Bergerac, in spite of his sincerity as a poet it
is beneath him to violate history. His new poetical work, Morbidezza of
another kirid also grates on one's sense of proportion.
After many adventures and changes the Company of Young Authors has
arrived at the Studio* of the Champs-Elysees with Prout by Leon Regis, a
pseudo-Pirandellian play, diverting in its way, tending to prove that in life,
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