For some reason or other Fourcade delayed sending it to me for five or six days: so great was my impatience that I wrote him a second letter, filled with the keenest reproaches at his negligence and want of friendliness. Fourcade, who would never have believed anyone could accuse a man of being a poor friend because he did not hurry over sending _Hamlet_, sent me a charming letter the gist of which I did not appreciate until I had studied more deeply the question of what was good and what was bad, and was able to place Ducis's work in its due rank. In the meantime I became demented. I asked everybody, "Do you know _Hamlet_? do you know Ducis?" The tragedy arrived from Paris. At the end of three days I knew the part of Hamlet by heart and, worse still, I have such an excellent memory that I have never been able to forget it. So it came to pass that _Hamlet_ was the first dramatic work which produced an impression upon me--a profound impression, composed of inexplicable sensations, aimless longings, mysterious rays of light which only made my darkness more visible. Later, in Paris, I again saw poor Cudot, who had played Hamlet. Alas! the grand talent that had carried me away had not obtained him the smallest foothold, and I believe he has long since given up hope--that daughter of pride so hard to kill in the artist's soul--the hope of making a position on the stage. Now--as if the spirit of poetry, when wakened in me, had sworn never to go to sleep again and used every means to that end, by even succeeding in making Maître Mennesson himself his accomplice--scarcely had I returned from Soissons, when, instead of giving me a deed of sale to copy out or a bond to engross, or sending me out on business, Maître Mennesson gave me a piece of poetry of which he wanted three copies made. This piece of poetry was entitled _Les Bourbons en 1815._ M. Mennesson, as I have said, was a Republican; I found him a Republican in 1830, and when I saw him again in 1848 he was still a Republican. And to do him justice, he had the courage of his opinions through all times and under all regimes; so freely did he express his opinions that his friends were frightened by them and made their observations thereon with bated breath. He only shrugged his shoulders. "What the devil will they do to me?" he would exclaim. "My office is paid for, my clientèle flourishing; I defy them to find a flaw in any of my contracts; and that being the case, one can afford to mock at kings and parsons."