Scribe was the first author to make plays instead of outline sketches. Plots developed in his clever hands, and so, in three or four years, the Théâtre du Gymnase attained its full growth. It was not modelled on any other company, but created what might well be called M. Scribe's company: it was composed almost exclusively of colonels, young widows, old soldiers and faithful servants. Never had such widows been seen, never such colonels; never had old soldiers spoken thus; never had such devoted servants been met with. But the company of the Gymnase, as M. Scribe created it, became the fashion, and the direct patronage of Madame la Duchesse de Berry contributed not a little towards the fortune made by the manager, and to the author's reputation. The form of verse itself was changed. The old airs of our fathers, who had been satisfied with the gay repetition of _lon, lon, la, larira dondaine,_ and the _gai, gai, larira dondé,_ were abandoned for the more artificially mannered comic opera, pointed epigrams and long-drawn-out, elegantly turned verses. When the situation became touching, eight or ten lines would express the feelings of the character, borrowing charm from the music, and sighing declarations of love, for which prose had ceased to suffice. In short, a charming little bastard sprang into being, of which, to use a village expression, M. Scribe was both father and godfather, and which was neither the old vaudeville, nor comic opera, nor comedy. The models of the new style were the _Somnambule, Michel et Christine_, the _Héritière_, the _Mariage de raison, Philippe_ and _Marraine._ Later, some vaudevilles went a degree farther; for example, the _Chevalier de Saint-Georges, un Duel sous Richelieu,_ the _Vie de bohème._ These bordered on comedy, and could at a pinch be played without lines. Other changes will be pointed out, so far as they affected the arts. Let us briefly state here that we had entered into the age of transition. In 1818, Scribe began by the vaudeville; from 1818 to 1820 Hugo and Lamartine appeared in the literary world, the former with his _Odes et Ballades_, the latter with his _Méditations,_ the first attempts of the new poetry; from 1820 to 1824 Nodier published novels of a kind which introduced a fresh type--namely, the picturesque; from 1824 to 1828 it was the turn of painting to attempt fresh styles; finally, from 1828 to 1835, the revolution spread to the dramatic world, and followed almost immediately on the footsteps of the historical and imaginative novel. Thus the nineteenth century, freed from parental restraint, assumed its true colour and originality. Of course it will be understood that, as I was so closely associated with all the great artists and all the great sculptors of the time, each of them will come into these Memoirs in turn; they will constitute a gigantic gallery wherein every illustrious name shall have its living monument.