_Sylla._ J'ai pesé comme vous ses vices, ses vertus, Et mon œil dans César voit plus d'un Marius! Je sais de quel espoir son jeune orgueil s'énivre; Mais Pompée est vivant, César aussi doit vivre. Parmi tous ces Romains à mon pouvoir soumis, Je n'ai plus de rivaux, j'ai besoin d'ennemis, D'ennemis fibres, fiers, dont la seule presence Atteste mon génie ainsi que ma puissance; L'histoire à Marius pourrait m'associer, César aura vécu pour me justifier!" When I saw Talma come on to the stage I uttered a cry of astonishment. Oh yes I it was indeed the impassive mask of the man I had seen pass in his carriage, his head bent low on his breast, eight days before Ligny, whom I saw return the day following Waterloo. Many have tried since, with the aid of the green uniform, the grey overcoat and the little hat, to reproduce that antique medallion, that bronze, half Greek, half Roman; but not one of them, O Talma I possessed your lightning glance, with the calm and imperturbable countenance upon which neither the loss of a throne nor the death of thirty thousand men could imprint one single line of regret or trace of remorse. Those who have never seen Talma cannot imagine what he was: in him was the combination of three supreme qualities which I have never found elsewhere combined in one man--simplicity, power and poetry; it was impossible to be more magnificent, with the perfect grace of an actor; I mean that magnificence which has in it nothing personal attaching to the man, but which changes according to the characters of the heroes he is called upon to represent. It is impossible, I say, to find any actor so endowed with this type of magnificence as was Talma. Melancholy in _Orestes_, terrible in _Néro_, hideous in _Gloucester_, he could adapt his voice, his looks, his gestures to each character. Mademoiselle Mars was but the perfection of the graceful; Mademoiselle Rachel was but the imperfection of the beautiful; Talma was the ideally great. Actors lament that nothing of theirs survives themselves. O Talma! I was a child when on that solemn evening I saw you for the first time, as you came upon the stage and your gestures began, before that row of senators, your clients; well, of that first scene, not one of your actions is effaced from my memory, not one of your intonations is lost.... O Talma! I can see you still, when these four lines are uttered by Catiline:-- "Sur d'obscurs criminels qu'pargne ta clémence, Je me tais; mais mon zèle eclaire ma prudence; Le nom de Clodius sur la liste est omis, C'est le plus dangereux de tous tes ennemis!"