The great day arrived at last. We had arranged that the names of only two of the authors should appear in the matter. I generously yielded the post of honour to de Leuven, for I did not wish my name to be known until I had done some really important work. All depends in this world on a good beginning, and to make myself known by _la Chasse et l'Amour_, remarkable though that work was, did not seem to my ambitious pride a sufficiently worthy début. For, although my hopes had been dwindling during the past two years, my pride was still to the fore. It was therefore decided that I should not appear either in the matter of the reading or on the play-bills, but that my name, Dumas, should be published when the play was printed. The great day arrived at last. We breakfasted together at the café du Roi; then, at half-past ten, we separated: Rousseau and Adolphe went to the Gymnase, and I went to my office. Oh! I must confess I passed through a terrible strain from eleven till three o'clock. At three, the door opened, and through the crack I caught a glimpse of two sorrowful faces. Rousseau came in first, followed by de Leuven. _La Chasse et l'Amour_ had been declined unanimously. There hadn't been a single dissentient voice. Poirson seemed astounded that anyone should have dreamed of reading such a piece of work at a theatre that bore the lofty title Théâtre de Madame. He was dreadfully scandalised by the passage which ended with these four lines:-- "A ma seule vue, enfin, Tout le gibier a la fièvre; Car, pour mettre à has un lièvre, Je suis un fameux lapin!" Rousseau pointed out to him that there had not always been, even in prohibited seasons, such a horror of game, since, in the _Héritière_, Scribe had made his colonel say, whilst holding up an old hare that he drew from out his game-bag:-- "Voyez ces favoris épais Sous lesquels se cachent ses lèvres; C'est le Nestor de ces forêts, C'est le patriarche des lièvres! D'avoir pu le tuer vivant, Je me glorifîrai sans cesse, Car, si je tardais d'un instant, Il allait mourir de vieillesse!" But Poirson retorted that there were hares _and_ hares; that the comparison which M. Scribe made of his, to a patriarch and to Nestor, elevated it in the eyes of all cultured people, whilst the horrible play of words we had allowed ourselves by opposing the word _lièvre_ to _lapin_ was in the worst possible taste, and would not even be tolerated by a _théâtre de boulevard._ I innocently asked if the Gymnase was not a boulevard theatre; and now it was Rousseau's turn to pay me out: he was very angry with me, as he looked upon my passage as the cause of our rejection. "You must learn, my dear friend, that there are boulevards _and_ boulevards, just as there are hares _and_ hares."