Philippe was recalled. But Madame Dorval's part was so execrable that no one dreamt of recalling her; she was only engaged at the Porte-Saint-Martin to play the worst parts; the favourite artiste, Mademoiselle Lévesque, took the good ones. Allow me a few words concerning that poor dear creature, whom I then saw for the first time, and who died in my arms twenty-six years later.[1] A large portion of these Memoirs will be devoted to remarks concerning the influence of eminent artistes, great comedians or famous poets; for my pages are intended to deal with the development of art in France during one half of the nineteenth century. Political events will also no doubt have their share of attention, but only their due share. It is time things were relegated to their proper positions, and, as our century is first and foremost one of appreciation, it is desirable that men and things should be appreciated at their proper value. Mademoiselle Mars and Talma, those two great artistic glories of the Empire and the Restoration, will still survive in the thoughts of the twentieth and the twenty-first centuries, when the very names of those political actors whom men call ministers will long have been forgotten, the men who disdainfully flung to these glorious mendicants the grant annually allowed by the Chamber as though it were an alms. Who was minister in England the year Shakespeare wrote _Othello_? Who was gonfalonier in Florence when Dante wrote his _Inferno_? Who was minister to King Hiero when the author of _Prometheus_ came to beg protection from him? Who was archon of Athens when the divine Homer died on one of the Sporades, towards the middle of the tenth century B.C.? To answer such queries one must needs be my neighbour,--my neighbour who knew so many things, who could recognise Elzevirs, who knew where vampires were to be found, who knew the origin of hired applauders and who had been put out of the theatre for whistling at the prose of MM.... for no name was ever printed on the _Vampire_ pamphlet, published by Barba, who ostentatiously put below his name: _Publisher of the Works of Pigault-Lebrun._ Let us return to Madame Allan-Dorval, as she was called at that period. As I advance with these Memoirs there are many men and women, literary or political comedians whom we shall meet with, who made a name for themselves in their day, and I shall do for these personages what I am just about to do for poor Marie Dorval. When she died I undertook to raise a monument over her grave--a literary monument in my writings, a sepulchral monument in stone. The stones were to be paid for by my literary labours, and it pleased me to think of being the architect of both monuments.