Our cup of humiliation was full to the brim: we were refused everywhere. But Adolphe had several plays on the way with Théaulon, with Soulié and with Rousseau. He was going to try to get them played, and when played, he would use the influence gained by his success to demand the acceptance of one of our efforts. This was but poor comfort and uncertain expectancy. I was greatly cast down. In the meantime an event had taken place which would have filled me with high spirits under any other circumstances. M. Deviolaine was appointed keeper of the forests of the Duc d'Orléans; he left Villers-Cotterets and went to Paris to take over the management of the forestry department. Two ways of helping me lay open to him: he could take me into his office, or he could give me open air work. Unluckily, since my affair with Madame Lebègue, the family had given me the cold shoulder. This did not discourage my mother, who saw an opening for me in one or other of these two careers, from approaching M. Deviolaine. It will be remembered that M. Deviolaine, although he was not an old soldier, could never disguise the truth. He replied to my mother-- "Why, certainly, if your rascal of an Alexandre were not an idle lad, I could find a berth for him; but I confess I have no confidence in him. Besides, after the goings on there have been, not necessarily his, but in which at all events he has not denied a share, everybody here would make a dead set against me." Still my mother urged her case. She saw her last hope fading. "Very well, then," said M. Deviolaine; "give me some time to think over things, and later we will see what can be done." I awaited my mother's return with the same impatience with which I had awaited Adolphe's letters. The result was not more satisfactory. Two days before, we had received a letter from my brother-in-law, who was a receiver at Dreux: he invited me to spend a month or two with him. We had become so poor, alas! that the economy my absence would produce would go a long way towards compensating my mother for her loss at my departure. It was, moreover, my first absence: my mother and I had never been parted except during that wonderful visit to Béthisy, when the Abbé Fortier had given me my first lessons in hunting. There was also another person in the town from whom it was a cruel wrench to tear myself. It can be guessed to whom I refer.