I was just on the point of replying that what my parents chose to do did not concern him, but I held my peace, signed the engagement, and hurried home feeling very joyful. Montigny kept his word at first. He let me understudy Victoria Lafontaine, a young _artiste_ very much in vogue just then, who had the most delightful talent. I played in “La Maison sans Enfants,” and I took her rôle at a moment’s notice in “Le Démon du Jeu,” a piece which had great success. I was fairly good in both pieces, but Montigny, in spite of my entreaties, never came to see me in them, and the spiteful stage manager played me various tricks. I used to feel a sullen anger stirring within me and I struggled with myself as much as possible to keep my nerves calm. One evening, on leaving the theater, a notice was handed to me requesting me to be present at the reading of a play the following day. Montigny had promised me a good rôle, and I fell asleep that night lulled by fairies who carried me off into the land of glory and success. On arriving at the theater I found Blanche Pierson and Céline Montalant already there. Two of the prettiest creatures that God has been pleased to create, the one as fair as the rising sun, and the other as dark as a starry night, for she was brilliant looking in spite of her black hair. There were other women there, too, very, very pretty ones. The play to be read was entitled, “Un Mari qui Lance sa Femme,” and it was by Raymond Deslandes. I listened to it without any great pleasure and I thought it stupid. I waited anxiously to see what rôle was to be given to me, and I discovered this only too soon. It was a certain _Princess Dimchinka_, a frivolous, foolish, laughing individual, who was always eating or dancing. I did not like this rôle at all. I was very inexperienced on the stage and my timidity made me rather awkward. Then, too, I had not worked for three years with such persistency and conviction to create now the rôle of an idiotic woman in an imbecile play. I was in despair, and the wildest ideas came into my head. I wanted to give up the stage and go into business. I spoke of this to our old family friend, Meydieu, who was so unbearable. He approved of my idea, and wanted me to take a shop, a confectioner’s, on the Boulevard des Italiens. This became a fixed idea with the worthy man. He loved sweets himself, and he knew lots of recipes for kinds that were not generally known, and which he wanted to introduce. I remember one kind that he wanted to call “_bonbon nègre_.” It was a mixture of chocolate and essence of coffee to be rolled into grilled licorice root. It was like black _praline_ and was extremely good. I was very persistent in this idea at first, and went with Meydieu to look at a shop, but when he showed me the little flat over it where I should have to live, it upset me so much that I gave up forever the idea of business.