I find Adolphe again--The pastoral drama--First steps--The Duc de Bellune--General Sébastiani--His secretaries and his snuff-boxes--The fourth floor, small door to the left--The general who painted battles CHAPTER VI _Régulus_--Talma and the play--General Foy--The letter of recommendation and the interview--The Duc de Bellune's reply--I obtain a place as temporary clerk with M. le Duc d'Orléans--Journey to Villers-Cotterets to tell my mother the good news--No. 9--I gain a prize in a lottery CHAPTER VII I find lodgings--Hiraux's son--Journals and journalists in 1823--By being saved the expense of a dinner I am enabled to go to the play at the Porte-Saint-Martin--My entry into the pit--Sensation caused by my hair--I am turned out--How I am obliged to pay for three places in order to have one--A polite gentleman who reads Elzevirs CHAPTER VIII My neighbour--His portrait--The _Pastissier françois_--A course in bibliomania--Madame Méchin and the governor of Soissons--Cannons and Elzevirs CHAPTER IX Prologue of the _Vampire_--The style offends my neighbour's ear-- First act--Idealogy--The rotifer--What the animal is--Its conformation, its life, its death and its resurrection CHAPTER X Second act of the _Vampire_--Analysis--My neighbour again objects--He has seen a vampire--Where and how--A statement which records the existence of vampires--Nero--Why he established the race of hired applauders--My neighbour leaves the orchestra CHAPTER XI A parenthesis_--Hariadan Barberousse_ at Villers-Cotterets--I play the rôle of Don Ramire as an amateur--My costume--The third act of the _Vampire_--My friend the bibliomaniac whistles at the most critical moment--He is expelled from the theatre--Madame Allan-Dorval--Her family and her childhood--Philippe--His death and his funeral BOOK IV CHAPTER I My beginning at the office--Ernest Basset--Lassagne--M. Oudard--I see M. Deviolaine--M. le Chevalier de Broval--His portrait--Folded letters and oblong letters--How I acquire a splendid reputation for sealing letters--I learn who was my neighbour the bibliomaniac and whistler CHAPTER II Illustrious contemporaries--The sentence written on my foundation stone--My reply--I settle down in the place des Italiens-- M. de Leuven's table--M. Louis-Bonaparte's witty saying--Lassagne gives me my first lesson in literature and history CHAPTER III