[Footnote 1: "A couplet written for effect and especially notable for the wealth of its rhymes."--LITTRÉ.] CHAPTER III The success of my first play--My three stories--M. Marie and his orthography--Madame Setier--A bad speculation--The _Pâtre_, by Montvoisin--The _Oreiller_--Madame Desbordes-Valmore--How she became a poetess--Madame Amable Tastu--The _Dernier jour de l'année_--_Zéphire_ _La Chasse et l'Amour_ was played at a special performance on 22 September 1825. It was an immense success. Dubourjal took the principal part; I entirely forget who were the other actors. I should certainly have forgotten the title of the play as well as the names of the actors, if I had not wished to indicate the starting-point of the hundred dramas I shall probably compose, as I shall presently indicate the starting-point of the six hundred volumes I have written. This success inspired Porcher with sufficient confidence to lend me a hundred crowns in addition to what I had already had, and on the strength of my future tickets. Now you shall hear what became of the hundred crowns. Whilst _la Chasse et l'Amour_ was in rehearsal, and whilst I was looking about me for a subject to start work upon with Lassagne, I had written a little book of tales that I wished to publish. It was the period of great successes in small matters; I have previously made the same remark with reference to Soumet's _Pauvre Fille_ and M. Guirand's _Savoyards_, and I repeat it. It was the same with regard to two or three stories just published by Madame de Duras and Madame de Salm, though not with regard to mine. I did not thoroughly understand the nature of these successes, or, more correctly, of the sensation they produced. I did not realise the part played by the social position of illustrious authors, and I did not see why I should not have the same reputation and the same success with respect to my stories that Mesdames de Duras and de Salm (_Ourika_, etc.) had had with theirs. I had written three tales, which formed a small volume, and I offered this little volume to six publishers who refused it at the first glance, and, to give them their due, without the least hesitation. These three tales were called _Laurette_, _Blanche de Beaulieu_ and--but I have totally forgotten the title of the third. But of _Blanche de Beaulieu_ I have since made the _Rose rouge_; and from the third, the title of which I have forgotten, I constructed the _Cocher de Cabriolet._ After encountering refusal after refusal at the publishers, and being convinced that the appearance of my book would produce quite as great a sensation in the literary world as _Ourika_, I made up my mind to print the volume at my own expense.