On 29 January--a week before this happened--the Correctional Police sentenced M. de Jouy to a month's imprisonment, a fine of a hundred and fifty francs and the costs of the trial, for an article in the _Biographie des contemporains_ which had been recognised as his. This article was the biography of the brothers Faucher. The sentence created a tremendous sensation. M. de Jouy was then at the height of his fame: the _Ermite de la Chaussée-d'Antin_ had made him popular, the hundred representations of _Sylla_ had made him famous. I knew M. de Jouy well: he was a remarkably loyal man, with a delightful mind and an easy pen. I believe he had been a sailor, serving in India, where he knew Tippo-Sahib, upon whom he founded a tragedy, commissioned, or very nearly so, by Napoleon, which was acted on 27 January 1813. The work was indifferent and did not meet with much success. On the return of the Bourbons, the Court was half-heartedly willing to encourage men of letters, M. de Jouy in particular, who held one of the highest positions among them. It was the more easily managed since M. de Jouy was an old Royalist, and I believe a soldier of Condi's army; it was not a case of making a convert but retaining an old partisan. His articles in the _Gazette_, signed "l'Ermite de la Chaussée-d'Antin," had an enormous success. I heard it said at the time that M. de Jouy was called up before M. de Vitrolles and asked to mention what it was he wanted. What he wanted was the due recognition of his services, namely, the Cross of Saint-Louis,--for, as a rule, straightforward men only desire things they are entitled to;--desiring the Cross, and having deserved it, he asked for it. But they wished to force conditions upon him: they desired that he should not merely be satisfied with refraining from pointing fun at the absurdities of the Restoration; they wanted him to emphasise the glories of the Empire. They wanted him to do a base action before he, a loyal soldier, a clean-handed man, a poet of considerable repute among his _confrères_, could obtain the Cross. What happened? The noted poet, the loyal soldier, the honest man, said that the Cross should go to Hades first, and he showed the person who came to propose these conditions to the door. It was the right way to treat the minister, but it was unlucky for the Cross, which would not have honoured M. de Jouy, but which M. de Jouy would have honoured! And behold M. de Jouy in the Opposition, behold M. de Jouy writing articles in the _Biographie_ which cost him a month's imprisonment, and which increased his popularity twofold. What fools Governments are to refuse a man the Cross he asks, and to grant him the persecution he does not desire, the persecution which will be far more benefit to him, in honour and in worldly goods, than the bit of ribbon which nobody would have noticed! Moreover, M. de Jouy did not write anything so very reprehensible. No; on the contrary, M. de Jouy