Adolphe returned and brought Lafarge back with him. Poor Lafarge! Do you remember the brilliant head clerk, who returned to his native place in an elegant carriage, drawn by a mettlesome steed? Well, he had bought a practice, but there the progress of his rising fortune had stopped. By some inconceivable fatality, although he was young, good-looking, clever, perhaps even because he possessed all these gifts, which are perfectly useless to a lawyer, he had not found a wife to pay for the practice, so he had been obliged to sell it again, and, disgusted with the law, he had taken to literature. De Leuven, who had taken notice of him in Villers-Cotterets, found him out in Paris and returned with him. Some of his ancient splendour still stuck to the poor fellow, but you might seek in vain for any real stability at the base of his fresh plans for the future; those fleeting clouds hardly got beyond the stage of hopes. During his stay in Paris a great change had come over Adolphe's character--a change which was to react on me. At M. Arnault's house, in which he had been a guest, Adolphe had had a closer view of the literary world than he had previously caught glimpses of in the house of Talma. He had there made the acquaintance of Scribe, who was already at the zenith of his fame. He met Mademoiselle Duchesnois there, who at that time was Telleville's mistress, and who recited _Marie Stuart._ There he became acquainted with M. de Jouy, who had finished his _Sylla;_ Lucien Arnault, who had begun his _Régulus_; Pichat, who, while composing his _Brennus_ and thinking out his _Léonidas_ and _William Tell_, was facing a future in which, his first wreath on his head and his first palm in his hand, Death lurked, waiting for him. He had then dropped from these lofty heights in the regions of art to inferior places, where he became acquainted with Soulié, who was publishing poems in the _Mercure_; with Rousseau, that Pylades of Romieu whom Orestes had left one day at the turning of the road which led to his sub-prefecture; with Ferdinand Langlé, the fickle lover of poor little Fleuriet, upon whom, it is said, a notorious poisoner tried the deadly powder with which he was later to kill his friend; with Théaulon, that delightful person and indefatigable worker, who worked only in the hope that some day he would be able to be idle, but who never had time to be idle, who was cradled for a brief time in the arms of Love, but who was never really to rest until he lay on the bosom of Death. This poor Epicurean, who by dint of imagination saw his life in rosy garb, although for him it was clothed in black, wrote these four lines on the door of his study: they express at once his easy carelessness and his gentle philosophy-- Loin du sot, du fat et du traître, Ici ma constance attendra: Et l'amour qui viendra peut-être, Et la mort qui du moins viendra!