"I can, then, say openly, that I made Jacotot's fortune, for he is rich and has retired; Jacotot has a town-house in Aix and a country-house on the lake of Bourget. Yet, like the master of the posting-inn at Martigny, Jacotot holds me in execration, he loathes me and curses me! The reason for such ingratitude? I wounded his amour propre; again because of putting him in my book; the number of enemies my dramatic talent has made me is incalculable! Any man who is not, like myself, overcome with a passion for the picturesque, any writer who does not feel compelled to paint when he writes, who had occasion to bring Jacotot upon the scenes for the first time, would have said simply, 'Jacotot comes on.' He would not have thought it necessary to state whether Jacotot was beautiful or ugly, well dressed or ill, young or old. But to me 'Jacotot enters' seemed insufficient, and I had the misfortune to say, 'Jacotot entered; he was nothing but a coffee-house waiter.' This was the first wounding epithet for Jacotot who, it is true, was a coffee-house waiter, but who, no doubt, desired to be taken for a solicitor's clerk. I went on: 'He stopped in front of us, a stereotyped smile on his fat, stupid face, which must have been seen to have been appreciated.'"
That was what really embroiled me with Jacotot, the physical portrait I drew of him; all the good I was able to say of him, which has immortalised him, has not effaced from his memory the unhappy epithet I applied to his face.
In the year of grace 1854, nearly a quarter of a century after the publication of the unlucky Impressions de Voyage which fell foul of many susceptibilities, there was a traveller on the road to Aix who had a desire to know Jacotot: he went to the café and did as I had done. He called Jacotot: the maître du café came to him.
"Monsieur," he said, "the person for whom you are inquiring has made his fortune and retired."
"Ah! diable!" said the traveller. "I wanted to see him."
"Oh! you can see him."
"Where?"
"At his home."
"Oh! but to disturb him, solely and simply to say that I have a desire to see him is perhaps really a little too inquisitive."
"Eh! stay though, you can see him without disturbing him."