To give him the lie, I went next morning to Marshal Jourdan. I announced myself as Alexandre Dumas. My success was surprising. The marshal no doubt imagined that the news he had received fifteen years ago was not true, and that my father was still alive. But when he saw me, his face changed completely: he remembered perfectly that a General Alexandre Dumas had existed in times gone by, with whom he had come in contact, but he had never heard of the existence of a son. In spite of all I could urge to establish my identity, he dismissed me, after ten minutes' interview, still a disbeliever in my existence. This good marshal was stronger than St. Thomas: he saw and did not believe. It was a sad beginning. I recalled the way in which, advising me not to buy an _Almanach des 25,000 adresses,_ Adolphe had said to me, "Do not put yourself to that expense." Was it possible, perchance, that Adolphe's scepticism might prove correct? These depressing cogitations passed through my mind while I was walking from the faubourg Saint-Germain to the faubourg Saint-Honoré--that is to say, from Marshal Jourdan's to Marshal Sébastiani's. I announced myself, as I had at Marshal Jourdan's; at my name the door opened. I thought, for a moment, that I had inherited Ali Baba's famous "Open, sesame!" The _general_ was in his study. I italicise _general,_ as I was in error previously in calling the famous minister of foreign affairs to Louis-Philippe _marshal_:--Comte Sébastiani was only a general when I paid my visit to him. So the general was in his study: in the four comers of this study, as at the four corners of a map are the four cardinal points or four winds, were four secretaries. These four secretaries were writing at his dictation. They were three less in number than Cæsar's, but two more than Napoleon's. Each of these secretaries had on his desk, besides his pen, his paper and his penknife, a gold snuff-box which he opened and offered to the general, every time the latter had occasion, when walking round the room, to stop in front of the desk. The general would daintily insert the first finger and thumb of a hand whose whiteness and delicacy had been the envy of his grand-cousin Napoleon, take a voluptuous sniff of the Spanish powder and, like _le Malade imaginaire,_ proceed to measure the length and the breadth of the room.. My visit was short. Whatever consideration I might have for the general, I did not feel inclined to become his snuff-box boy. I returned to my hotel in the rue des Vieux-Augustins, somewhat cast down. The first two men I had turned to had blown upon my golden dreams, and tarnished them. Besides, although a whole day had gone by, although I had given my address as accurately as possible, I had not yet received any answer from the Duc de Bellune.