Although Soulié had been less fortunate than we had been, in not yet having had anything of his acted, I had divined what strength of imagination lay in his work, and I had decided to attempt a work of some importance in collaboration with him. At heart, I really agreed with M. Oudard's estimate of my first two productions, and I had shown it by not wishing my name to appear in connection with either of them, while, by some instinct that did not lead me far astray, I had signed the _Ode sur la mort du général Foy_, the _Nouvelles contemporaines_ and _Pâtre romain._ But I quite decided not to sign my name to any theatrical work until I could do something that would make a great sensation. Soulié had moved; he lodged near La Gare. By some means or other, he had become head of a saw-mill, in which upwards of a hundred workpeople were employed. In comparison with us, Soulié was wealthy. He had a small allowance from his father, plus his salary as manager of this industrial establishment; so he could jingle a little gold in his pockets, which was quite out of the question in our case. Soulié had a real passion for gold, and he liked to look at it and to handle it. Towards the close of his life, he was earning between forty and fifty thousand francs per annum; and, when he had contracts to pay by the end of the month, he would often keep the two or three thousand francs thus hypothecated, in his drawer, from the 15th to the 20th. Then, in order to procure the joy which the sight of gold gave him, he would change his five-francs piece or his bank-notes for napoleons, asking that the newest and most glittering coins should be sent him, even at the expense of four or five sous per napoleon,--for Soulié had not the good fortune to live in the happy period of the depreciation of gold,--then, when the end of the month came, it cost him such anguish to part from his gold, that, although the sum owing lay there in his drawer, he seldom settled his account when it was due, preferring to pay twenty, thirty, fifty or a hundred francs extra, in order to feast his eyes upon the rich metal for a few days longer. And yet nobody could be more generous or liberal-handed or lavish than Soulié. He loved gold; but do not misunderstand us, it was not after the fashion of a miser that he loved it, but as the representative of luxury, as the surest means to procure all the pleasures of life: he loved gold for the power it bestows. So he had a very special predilection for the romance of _Monte-Cristo._ I hope I may be forgiven if I dwell at too great length on Soulié; he was one of the most interesting personalities I ever met, and I say of him, as Michelet once said of me, "he was one of the forces of nature." I could picture Soulié poaching in the forests of America, a pirate in the Indian Seas or in the Arctic Ocean, an explorer along the shores of Lake Tchad or Senegal, far better than as a romance-writer or a dramatist.