There were three actors whom Nodier adored—Talma, Potier and Debureau. When I made Nodier's acquaintance, Talma had been dead three years; and Potier had retired two years before; so there only remained to him the irresistible attraction of Debureau. He it was who first extolled the famous Pierrot; in this respect, Janin came after Nodier and was merely his imitator. Nodier saw the Bœuf enragé nearly a hundred times. At the first representation of the piece he waited for the ox until the end, and not seeing it, he went out and spoke about it to the boxkeeper.
"Madame," he asked, "will you please inform me why this pantomime that I have just seen is called the Bœuf enragé?"
"Monsieur," replied the boxkeeper, "because that is its title."
"Ah!" exclaimed Nodier; and he withdrew satisfied with the explanation.
The six days of the week were spent in exactly the same way: then came Sunday. Every Sunday Nodier went out at nine o'clock in the morning to breakfast with Guilbert de Pixérécourt, for whom at that time he had a profound admiration and the friendliest feelings. He called him the Corneille of the boulevards. Here he met the scientific gatherings of Crozet or of Techener.
We have mentioned that one of these bibliomaniacs was called the Marquis de Chalabre. He died leaving a very valuable library, which he bequeathed to Mademoiselle Mars. Mademoiselle Mars read very little or, to be truthful, she did not read at all. She commissioned Merlin to classify the books left her and to arrange for their sale. Merlin was the most honest man on the face of the earth; and he set about this commission with his usual conscientiousness, and he turned and re-turned the leaves of each volume so carefully that one day he went to Mademoiselle Mars with thirty or forty one-thousand franc notes in his hand, which he laid on a table.
"What is that, Merlin?" asked Mademoiselle Mars.
"I do not know, madame," he replied.
"What do you mean? Why, those are bank-notes!"
"Certainly."