For a year Amélie Delaunay did everything for her mother: she was servant, nurse, comforter; then, at the end of a year, the mother died, and all those nights of watching and weeping, all her careful tendings, were lost, except in the sight of God. When her mother died the young girl was left alone in the world. She could never afterwards remember what she did during the two years after her mother's death: memory was drowned in grief! The company moved on from Lorient to Strassbourg, from Strassbourg to Bayonne, always travelling in the same wicker carriage with the same horses, which belonged to the company. However, one great event came about: Amélie Delaunay married a poor boy of fifteen, out of loneliness. She had no love for him: he was one of her fellow-actors, who played the rôle of _les Martins;_ his name was Allan-Dorval. He died at St. Petersburg. Where he lived nobody ever knew. This marriage had no other influence on the actress's life beyond giving her the name by which she became known; her other name, that of Marie, was given her by us. Antony was her godfather and Adèle d'Hervey her godmother. Their journeyings were continued and, as they were _en route_ for Bayonne, they came close to Paris. I do not know in what village, upon what road, at what inn, Potier, the great actor whom Talma admired, met Madame Allan-Dorval, in what theatre he saw her play or what part she was taking, when she uttered one of those heartfelt phrases, one of those outbursts of fraternal affection by which great artistes recognise each other's talents. I know nothing of all this, for poor Marie forgot it herself; but, in a trice he described to her Paris--that is to say, splendour, fame, suffering! The young wife came to Paris with a letter of introduction from Potier to M. de Saint-Romain, manager of the Porte-Saint-Martin. M. de Saint-Romain engaged Madame Allan-Dorval on this recommendation, and from that day her name became part of the recollections of Parisians, her life became interwoven with the literary life of Paris. This was in 1818. What had this poor talented young woman played ere Potier's encouragement had made a path for her genius? She had acted in the _Cabane du Montagnard,_ the _Catacombes_, the _Pandoursy_ and, finally, in the _Vampire_, at which my neighbour had hooted so shamelessly. Poor Marie! only she herself could relate the sufferings of those early days. There was, I remember, one special costume on which she had to sew some lace trimming every evening before the performance, and it had to be unsewn every evening after the play.--O Frétillon! Frétillon! thy cotillion never saw half what that dress did!