"No; it is only that I can now say aloud what I formerly thought unspoken."
"Well, I see clearly that you mean to have the last word."
"Of course; try and find a word to which I cannot fit an answer. Au revoir!"
"Adieu!"
Two days later, Oudard called me in again; he had discovered a post that would suit me much better than being librarian: namely, to be reader to Madame la Duchesse d'Orléans. I thanked Oudard; but I assured him that I still held to my first idea of being librarian or nothing at all.
We parted rather more coldly than at first. Two days later, I received a third letter; this time, he had found something that would suit me best of all. They would make me chevalier d'honneur to Madame Adélaïde! I persisted obstinately that I wanted to be librarian. Finally, I received a fourth invitation, and I paid a fourth visit. They had decided to grant my request, and I was appointed assistant librarian, at a salary of 1200 francs.
As I had announced beforehand that the question of money was not of any consequence, they had taken advantage of it to suggest to monseigneur to pay me 300 francs less as librarian than they had paid me as a clerk. That didn't matter; but listen, and may Harpagon and Grandet hang themselves for not having invented what the people devised who arranged the affairs of M. le Duc d'Orléans and myself. As they had not paid me any salary for six months, they antedated my nomination by six months. Consequently, as I had a salary of 1500 francs as clerk and 1200 francs as librarian, they saved, by paying me for these six months as a librarian, the sum of 150 francs, which, added to my unpaid up bonuses of 1829, saved them 350 francs; and the 350 francs, added to the 50 francs cut off my bonus of 1828, amounted to a net total of 400 francs more into the princely coffers. It will be admitted, will it not? that the Duc d'Orléans was surrounded by men of large views! Unfortunately, these were the very same men who, later, surrounded the king.
When I was installed at the Library, I became acquainted with Vatout and Casimir Delavigne, who, as Oudard had warned me, did not welcome my advent with much warmth. Casimir Delavigne in particular, who, although he made it up with me afterwards, at first could not forgive me the success I had had with Henri III. Indeed, my success with Henri III. continued throughout the year, and, as there is a proverb to the effect that two successes, on the stage, never come together, the success of Henri III. prevented the success of Marino Faliero, which was awaiting its turn, and in which Mademoiselle Mars was to play Héléna. But Mademoiselle Mars was engaged for three long months in Henri III.; then came her two months' holiday; so Marino Faliero was put off until the coming winter. This did not in the least suit Casimir Delavigne.
I have related how Casimir Delavigne's dramatic affairs were conducted: a family council was called on account of Marino Faliero, and it was decided that the Doge of Venice should migrate to the Porte-Saint-Martin; that Madame Dorval, whose reputation had begun to spread, should replace Mademoiselle Mars and that Ligier should be seduced from the Odéon to play Marino Faliero. This migration made a great sensation. Casimir at the Porte-Saint-Martin! It was Coriolanus among the Volscians; all the papers wailed aloud and made moan over this exile of the national bard, and people began to look on me as a usurper who had risen up to drive out a crowned and anointed king from his legitimate throne. The situation was complicated by an event as novel as it was unexpected. A petition to the king appeared, entreating His Majesty to do for Corneille, Molière and Racine—who stood on their marble pedestals in the foyer unmoved by this agitation—what His Majesty's august predecessor had done for King Ferdinand VII. when he was expelled by the Cortes:—to re-establish them on their thrones. Alas! no one was ever less ambitious to snatch other people's thrones than I.... I was willing enough to take a seat or a comfortable arm-chair, ay, an elevated one, well in view, by all means, but a throne! the word and the position were too classic, and I never aspired thereto. It is inconceivable, is it not? that there could be found seven men of letters sufficiently intolerant, silly and ridiculous to appeal to a king to proscribe a method of art, an invisible, indefinable and intangible conception, and boldly to say to him, "Sire, we are the representatives of Art; we alone know what is beautiful; we alone possess knowledge, taste and genius; true, the public hisses at us as soon as we appear; true, our tragedies do not attract anyone when they are acted; the Comedians play our pieces with marked aversion, it is true, since they do not draw the same profits from them, although expenses are the same; but what does all that matter! It is hard for us to die and to be forgotten; we would rather be hooted at than buried. Sire, issue your commands that our plays, and ours alone, be played;—for we are the sole descendants of Corneille, and Molière and Racine, whilst these new-comers are but the bastards of Shakespeare and Goethe and Schiller!"
How very logical! I was a bastard of Shakespeare, of Goethe and of Schiller, because I had just composed Henri III., a play so pre-eminently French, that, if it were open to any reproach, it would be that I had represented the manners of the end of the sixteenth century too faithfully. And as the thing really sounds incredible, we will place before our readers' own eyes the petition of these gentlemen:—