"What weather!" he said; "I am as drenched as College wine!"
A spectator hissed; no doubt some schoolmaster. The saying, though, was not mine; I had heard it said to Soulié a few days before, and had utilised it because I thought it so funny.
It was a fresh proof to me of the truth of the saying that what suits one person to perfection jars on another. I have hunted in all the newspapers for an account of the performance and cannot find any trace of it except in the Annuaire historique by Lesur and the Gazette de France. My readers will allow me to lay before them the twofold appreciation offered by criticism on the work: it is short and sincere. Here is Lesur's—
THÉÂTRE-FRANÇAIS
"Performance for the benefit of Mademoiselle Dupuis ..."
[In the first place, Lesur is wrong: he should have said Mademoiselle Dupont.]
"Le Mari de la veuve, a Comedy in one Act, in prose by M....
"No theatrical performance on a Benefit day ever offered a more melancholy aspect and a more scanty assembly. The cholera had invaded Paris; the town was given over to terror, riot ran rife through the street, drums beat at the hour for the opening of the box office. There were very few spectators that night bold enough to breathe the smell of camphor and lime in the solitudes of the Théâtre-Français in order to judge the merits of the new play. Under these circumstances, the absent hardly lost much.
"A few pleasant incidents and witty sayings, and the talent of Mademoiselle Mars, might be able to support this slight work for a dozen or so of performances.
"The author, who, doubtless, is not blind as to the unimportant nature of the play, maintains his anonymity."
That is one! Now let us pass on to the Gazette de France.
"A short Comedy has recently been performed: Le Mari de la veuve, by M. Alexandre Dumas, which, although the dialogue is written with plenty of go and naturalness, offers very little in the way of common sense as to plot and truth of characterisation; but the play is so agreeably acted by Monrose, Menjaud, Mademoiselle Mars and Mademoiselle Dupont, that it ought to cause great amusement and much laughter among those who are inclined to make fun of the quibblers and silent indifference of the smaller newspapers against the Théâtre-Français, and to go oftener to this theatre than to Atar-Gull or to Madame Gibou."
The play has now been performed over three hundred times since its first appearance.
[CHAPTER II]
My régime against the cholera—I am attacked by the epidemic—I invent etherisation—Harel comes to suggest to me La Tour de Nesle—Verteuil's manuscript—Janin and the tirade of the grandes dames—First idea of the prison scene—My terms with Harel—Advantages offered by me to M. Gaillardet—The spectator in the Odéon—Known and unknown authors—My first letter to M. Gaillardet