Let us return to my contemporaries, and add to the list of famous names that led me to these reflections.
Among musical composers, Rossini, Meyerbeer, Auber, Donizetti, Bellini, Liszt, Thalberg. Among dramatic artists, Talma, Lafont, Mars, Duchesnois, Georges, Leverd, Frédérick (Lemaître), Dorval, Potier, Monrose père, Déjazet, Smithson, Lablache, Macready, Karatikin, Miss Faucit, Schroeder-Devrient, la Malibran, la Hungher.
I have had the honour to know several kings and princes,—they will have their place,—but my kings in the realms of art come before all, my princes in imagination have first place. To each sovereign his due honour.
When I came out of my office, or rather from the bookshop where I had bought Jean Sbogar, I made haste to the place des Italiens. My waggon load of furniture was waiting at the door; it took but an hour to settle my household arrangements, and at the end of that time all was finished.
Of a poet's usual equipment I now had the attic; of the possessions of the happy man, I now had a loft under the tiles. Better than all these things, I was only twenty! I cleared the distance between the place des Italiens and the rue Pigale in no time. I was longing to tell Adolphe that I was installed at the Duc d'Orléans'; that I possessed a desk, paper, pens, ink, sealing-wax, in the Palais-Royal; four chairs, a table, a bed and a room papered yellow in the place des Italiens.
Adolphe very sincerely shared my delight. M. de Leuven, chewing his tooth-pick, gently ridiculed my enthusiasm. Madame de Leuven, the most perfect of women, rejoiced in the joy my mother would feel.
I was invited to fix a regular day on which I should dine at M. de Leuven's. On that day my place should always be laid: it should be an institution in perpetuity. In perpetuity! What a great word!—one so often uttered in life, but one which really exists only in death!
"You are condemned to perpetual imprisonment, monseigneur," said my dear and good friend Nogent Saint-Laurent to Prince Louis-Bonaparte.
"How long does perpetuity last in France, Monsieur Saint-Laurent?" asked the prince.
His perpetuity, as a matter of fact, lasted at Ham for five years—two years less than the perpetuity of M. de Peyronnet and M. de Polignac.