My success in _Froufrou_ was so marked that it filled the void left by Coquelin, who, after having signed, with the consent of Perrin, with Messrs. Mayer and Hollingshead, declared that he could not keep his engagements. It was a nasty _coup de Jarnac_ by which Perrin hoped to injure my London performances. He had previously sent Got to me to ask officially if I would not come back to the Comédie. He said I should be permitted to make my American tour, and that everything would be arranged on my return. But he should not have sent Got. He should have sent Worms or _le petit père Franchise_—Delaunay. The one might have persuaded me by his affectionate reasoning and the other by the falsity of arguments presented with such grace that it would have been difficult to refuse. Got declared that I should be only too happy to come back to the Comédie on my return to America, “For you know,” he added, “you know, my little one, that you will die in that country. And if you come back you will perhaps be only too glad to return to the Comédie Française, for you will be in a bad state of health, and it will take some time before you are right again. Believe me, sign, and it is not we who will benefit by it, but you!” “I thank you,” I answered, “but I prefer to choose my hospital myself on my return. And now you can go and leave me in peace.” I fancy I said, “Get out!” That evening he was present at a performance of _Froufrou_; he came to my dressing-room and said: “You had better sign, believe me! And come back to commence with _Froufrou_! I promise you a happy return!” I refused, and finished my performances in London without Coquelin. The average of the receipts was nine thousand francs, and I left London with regret—I who had left it with so much pleasure the first time. But London is a city apart; its charm unveils little by little. The first impression for a Frenchman or woman is that of keen suffering, of mortal _ennui_. Those tall houses with sash windows without curtains; those ugly monuments, all in mourning with the dust and grime and black and greasy dirt; those flower-sellers at the corners of all the streets, with faces sad as the rain and bedraggled feathers in their hats and lamentable clothing; the black mud of the streets; the low sky; the funereal mirth of drunken women hanging on to men just as drunken; the wild dancing of dishevelled children round the street organs, as numerous as the omnibuses—all that caused twenty-five years ago an indefinite suffering to a Parisian. But little by little one finds that the profusion of the squares is restful to the eyes; that the beauty of the aristocratic ladies effaces the image of the flower-sellers....