During these preparations, the boulevards were agog with excitement. The actors and the director, accompanied by Balzac’s friends, wandered daily from the Boulevard Bonne Nouvelle to Tontoni’s and the Café Riche, exciting the curiosity of the _flaneurs_ by their reticence or murmured confidences; and Balzac’s ingress and egress from the theatre were, it is said, watched and waited for by curious crowds. Never in the history of the drama had a first representation been so impatiently awaited; and Balzac, foreseeing the immense sale which the seats would have, bought up the entire house, and then, while endeavoring that the tickets should circulate only among his friends and their acquaintances, sold the better part of it over again at a large advance. “My dear friend,” he wrote to Dablin, “if among your acquaintances there are any who wish to assist at the first representation of ‘Vautrin,’ let me know who they are, as I prefer to let the boxes to those whom I know about, rather than to those who are unknown to me. I particularly wish to have handsome women present. The demand for boxes is greater than the supply. The journalists are to be sacrificed.” To Gozlan he wrote,— “I have sent you a ticket for the stalls. The rehearsals have almost killed me. You will witness a memorable failure. I have been wrong, I think, to summon the public. “Morituri te salutant, Cæsar!” Unfortunately, the interval between the sale of the seats and the first representation was sufficiently great to permit of two thirds of the tickets falling into the hands of those who were unknown or hostile to Balzac; and consequently, when the great day arrived, the critics sharpened their knives, and in place of the indulgent friends and handsome women whom Balzac had expected to welcome his play the theatre was crowded with malevolent faces. The title-rôle was taken by Frédéric Lemaître, and while the first three acts were received without any demonstrations, either of approval or disapprobation, over the fourth there burst a tempest which, since the birth-night of “Hernani,” was unequaled in the annals of the stage; for Lemaître, reappearing in the costume of a Mexican general, seemed—whether by accident or design, it has never been clearly understood—to present an insulting resemblance to Louis Philippe, whose eldest son happened to be in one of the most conspicuous boxes. The entire house, from pit to gallery, re-echoed with hisses and catcalls. Threats and even blows were exchanged, for here and there, in spite of the general indignation, a few still remained faithful to Balzac.