How did Planche feel about France?
Like most theatrical people of his time, he looked to the Parisian stage as a source of ideas. Unlike the majority of them, and like his friends CJ Mathews and Eliza Vestris, he particularly admired much in French acting, especially comic acting. Beyond this, he was both interested in and respectful of French works, and at the same time concerned about French political struggles. In his lifetime, he saw the career of Napoleon Bonaparte, the return and ineffectual rule of the Bourbons, the rise and fall of Napoleon III, and various other social experiments. Although not as suspicious of the French as many of his fellow Britons, he was leery of their changes and occasional lapses into violence.
