In Antony Beraud's _Gars_, a play drawn from the _Chouans_ and performed at the Ambigu-Comique in 1837, the hero and heroine, instead of dying, are saved by a political amnesty decreed by Napoleon; and the curtain falls to the cry of _Vive l'Empereur_. More than fifty years later, in 1894, the same theatre gave a close rendering of the dramatic portions of the _Chouans_, due to the collaboration of Berton and Blavet, the tragic ending being preserved, with all the effects properly belonging to it. Commonplace, like the _Gars_, were the arrangements of the _Search for the Absolute_, in 1837, and _Cesar Birotteau_ in 1838. The former was staged under the bizarre title, _A+Mx=O+X, or the Dream of a Savant_. The authors, Bayard and Bieville, concealed their identity under an algebraic X as well; and their piece, which made Balthazar Claes a Parisian chemist and a candidate to a vacant chair in the College de France, failed to attract at the Gymnase, in spite of Bouffe's talent and the redemption of Balthazar. _Cesar Birotteau_ was performed at the Pantheon Theatre, which was demolished in 1846. The love-story of Popinot and Cesarine, which is so briefly sketched in the novel, assumed chief importance in Cormon's adaptation, and, of course, Cesar does not die. Scribe borrowed largely from the _Comedie Humaine_. His _Sheriff_ libretto for Halevy's music at the Opera Comique in 1839 was a transmogrification of _Master Cornelius_. Balzac's Cornelius is Louis XI's money-lender, who lives with his sister in an old mansion, next to a house with the King's natural daughter, Marie de Sassenage, occupies with her husband, the Comte de Sainte-Vallier. The old money-lender, perceiving that his gold is disappearing, has had four of his apprentices hanged on suspicion. The like fate now threatens Marie's lover, Georges d'Estouteville, who in order to see her more safely, has persuaded Cornelius to let him stay in his dwelling one night. Marie appeals to the King to spare her lover's life, and Louis, on investigating the matter, discovers that Cornelius is a somnambulist, and has been robbing himself and burying his gold. On being told of this, the old money-lender has no peace of mind, fearing the King will take all his treasure, and ultimately cuts his own throat. In Scribe's parody, for a parody the piece virtually is, the scene is laid in England. John Turnel, the Sheriff of London, is the somnambulist, and he suspects his own daughter and his cook of stealing his money. But, differing from Cornelius, he accepts the situation when the truth is revealed to him under circumstances that make him as ridiculous as the spectre of Tappington in the _Ingoldsby Legends_; and, as a comic opera generally ends happily, he consents to the marriage of his daughter, Camilla, and of Keat, the cook, with their respective swains.