3-086-127 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Mr. Paul Potter's play, "The Conquerors," at the St. James's Theatre, 1898. 'Hugo Baron of Grandpré, Mr. Fred Terry; Rossignol, Mr. Arthur Royston; General von Brandenberg, Mr. W. H. Vernon; Abbé Dagobert, Mr. H. H. Vincent; Major von Wolfshagen, Mr. J. D. Beveridge; Yvonne de Grandpré, Miss Julia Neilson; Eric von Rodeck, Mr. George Alexander; Poulette, Miss M. A. Victor; Jean Baudin, Mr. H. B. Irving; Jeanne Marie, Miss C. Collier; Captain Körner, Mr. H. V. Esmond; Babiole, Miss Fay Davis...a party of Uhlans quartered in the ancestral home of the Baron of Grandpré, Dinan, celebrated the victory at Sedan on the previous day by a drinking bout, to which they invited a troup of dancing-girls, and at which Sub-Lieutenant Eric von Rodeck declared that all the women of Franco belonged to the conquerors. Mdlle. Yvonne de Grandpré, the mistress of the house, gave him the lie by dashing a glass of wine in his face...It is only a vulgar and lurid melodrama, starting from an unusually sordid premise, and leading through a maze of unnecessary and sometimes disgusting details to an elevated but wholly incredible conclusion...Mr. Alexander has committed a mistake in point of good taste in introducing an English audience to such a vulgar story.' From "Illustrated London News", 1898.