Let us revert to Colonel Morisel, one of the most interesting characters of the time. They could not get up the same kind of trial against the author of the _Messéniennes_, of the _Vêpres siciliennes_, of the _Comédiens_ and of _Paria_, as they did against M. de Jouy and Magallon; they could not imprison him in Sainte-Pélagie or send him to Poissy, bound hand to hand and side by side with a filthy convict; but they could reduce him to poverty, and that is what they did. On 15 April we read in the Liberal papers: "We hear that M. Ancelot, author of _Louis IX._ and of _Maire du Palais_, has just received letters patent of nobility, and that M. Casimir Delavigne, author of _Vêpres siciliennes_, of _Paria_ and of the _Messéniennes_, has just lost his post in the Library of the Minister of Justice." It was quite true: M. Ancelot had been made a baron, and M. Casimir Delavigne was turned out into the street! It was at this juncture that, on the recommendation of Vatout, who had just published the _Histoire de la Fille d'un Roi_, the Duc d'Orléans appointed Casimir Delavigne to the post of assistant librarian at the Palais-Royal, where, six years later, I became his colleague. Vatout was an excellent fellow, a trifle conceited; but even his vanity was useful as a spur which, put in motion by the example of others, goaded him to do the work he would otherwise not have attempted. One of his conceits was to pretend he was a natural son of a prince of the House of Orléans--a very innocent conceit, as it did not harm anyone, and nobody considered it a crime; for he used the influence he acquired by his post at the Palais-Royal in rendering help to his friends, and sometimes even to his enemies.... Just at this moment the information I have been seeking concerning the last act of the Censorship has been brought me. Ah! my dear Victor Hugo, you who are busy trying to wrest from the jury, before whom you are defending your son, the entire abolition of the death penalty; make an exception in favour of the censor, and stipulate that he shall be executed twice over at the next Revolution, since once is not nearly enough. I wish here to swear on my honour that what I am about to state is actual truth. CHAPTER VII The house in the rue Chaillot--Four poets and a doctor--Corneille and the Censorship--Things M. Faucher does not know--Things the President of the Republic ought to know In the year III of the Second French Republic, on the evening of 2 June, M. Louis Bonaparte being president, M. Léon Faucher minister, M. Guizard director of the Fine Arts, the following incident occurred, in a salon decorated with Persian draperies, on the ground floor of a house in the rue de Chaillot.