De Leuven laid bare our request. Talma took up a kind of antique stiletto, at the end of which was a pen, and signed an order for two seats for us. It was a member's order. Besides the actors' order which were received on days when they were acting, members had the right to give two free tickets every day. Then Adolphe explained who I was. In those days I was just the son of General Alexandre Dumas: but that was something. Besides, Talma remembered having met my father at Saint-Georges's. He held out his hand to me, and I longed to kiss it. Full of theatrical ambitions as I was, Talma was like a god to me--an unknown god, it is true, as unknown as Jupiter was to Semele; but a god who appeared to me in the morning, and who would reveal himself to me at night. Our hands clasped. Oh, Talma! if only you had been twenty years younger or I twenty years older! But at that time the whole honour was mine. Talma! I knew the past: you could not guess the future. If anyone had told you, Talma, that the hand you had just held was to write sixty to eighty dramas, in each of which you--who were looking out for rôles all your life--would have found one which you would have acted to perfection, you would not have allowed the poor youth to go away thus, blushing at having seen you, proud at having shaken hands with you! But how could you see anything in me, Talma, since I had not discovered it myself? CHAPTER IX The theatre ticket--The _Café du Roi_--Auguste Lafarge--Théaulon--Rochefort--Ferdinand Langlé--People who dine and people who don't--Canaris--First sight of Talma--Appreciation of Mars and Rachel--Why Talma has no successor--_Sylla_ and the Censorship--Talma's box--A cab-drive after midnight--The return to Crespy--M. Lefèvre explains that a machine, in order to work well, needs all its wheels--I hand in my resignation as his third clerk I went back to de Leuven's house hugging the order in my pocket. With the possibility of procuring another by the means of it, I would not have parted with it for five hundred francs! I was filled with pride at the thought of going to the Théâtre-Français, with an order signed "_Talma_." We lunched. De Leuven raised great difficulties about going to the play: he had an engagement with Scribe, a meeting with Théaulon, an appointment with I don't know how many other celebrities besides, that night. His father shrugged his shoulders, and de Leuven raised no more objections. It was arranged that we were to go to the Français together; but, as I wanted to see the Musée, the Jardin des Plantes and the Luxembourg, he arranged to meet me at the _Café du Roi_ at seven o'clock. The _Café du Roi_ formed the corner of the rue de Richelieu and the rue Saint-Honoré. We shall have more to say about it later.