Letter to the Countess of T. on a Second French Theater in Paris

in Summer: consequently, two new ones would become very useless. I answer to that that this fact hardly ever happens, and that on the contrary, for new Plays or good Plays, the Public suffocates there, part of which leaves dissatisfied, without a seat, and sometimes crippled. Besides, as it is a business enterprise, it will be good or bad: it is a Vessel that leaves for India, it may be shipwrecked, it may arrive safely: this is the fate of commerce; but the Government risks nothing, and the Public gains by it .... What! one more pleasure! I will therefore have had the happiness, Madame, to have been the first to think of, express, and propose *, and the glory of having had a wise, reasonable, and useful project executed, and one that all sensible people will approve; despite a nest of envious Insects that I hear already croaking, who are, without naming them, the Messieurs French Comedians, (I mean the false cabalistic Comedians without talent:) but whom I mock: is that clear? whom I mock. Farewell and rejoice.

• These ideas came to me a long time ago; I did not entrust them to paper until 1772 and published them in several Literary Societies. M. Cailhava has just brought out his own: this is what determined me to show my own to the Public. Two opinions are better than one, said Sancho.