Nicolas, however, waited for the czarovitch's reply, and not until 25 December did he issue a manifesto accepting the throne that had devolved upon him by his elder brother's renunciation. He then fixed the following day, the 26th, for the taking of the oath of allegiance to himself and to his eldest son, the Grand-Duke Alexander. And that is the strange story of these two brothers and the refusal of one of the most splendid crowns the world has to offer, and how Constantine remained simply the Czarovitch and Nicolas became the Emperor of All the Russias. BOOK II CHAPTER I Rousseau and Romieu--Conversation with the porter--The eight hours' candle--The _Deux Magots_--At what hour one should wind up one's watch--M. le sous-préfet enjoys a joke--Henry Monnier--A paragraph of information--On suppers--On cigars While these great events were happening in high political spheres, our humble fortunes were on the wane. The hundred louis that my mother had brought with her had come to an end; we were aghast to find we had spent nearly 4000 francs within a year and a half--nearly 11 1800 francs, that is to say, more than we ought to have done, t; It was therefore imperative that I should fulfil my promises and add to my salary by working out of my office hours. De Leuven and I had stuck valiantly and persistently at collaborating together, but nothing had come of it--a result that made us bitterly inveigh aloud against the injustice of managers, and the want of taste of directorates, although, under my breath, I was more just in my criticism of our efforts, and frankly admitted to myself that were I a manager I would not have accepted my own work. So we made up our minds to make certain sacrifices, and ask Rousseau to join us, in order that he might add those indescribable finishing touches to our works which would make all the difference in the world. These sacrifices consisted in our procuring several bottles of good old Bordeaux, some flasks of rum and some loaf-sugar. Rousseau belonged to the famous school of Favart, Radet, Collé, Désaugiers, Armand Gouffé and Company, who never worked save to the sound of the popping of corks, with the vision of seething fumes of punch-bowls before their eyes. Rousseau had a reputation which, later, he was most unwillingly obliged to share with his illustrious collaborator Romieu. At a certain period I should not have dared to speak thus of the famous prefect of the Dordogne, for fear of injuring his political career. It will be remembered what distress was caused by the news (which happily proved to be false) of his having been devoured by bugs, and how his partisans hastened to fling back the ill-natured jest into the face of the wretched papers that had spread the report. It is, alas! so difficult for an intellectual man to be forgiven his wit, and for a funny man to pass for a serious one, that Romieu had scarcely begun to recover from