when I found myself in as embarrassing a situation as any poor girl who has just given birth to a child outside the pale of legitimate matrimony. What was I to do with this bastard child of my creation, born outside the gates of the Institute and the Academy? Was I to stifle her as I had smothered her elders? That would have been hard lines indeed! Besides, this little girl was strong, and quite capable of living; it seemed good, therefore, to acknowledge her; but first it was necessary to find a theatre to receive her, actors to clothe her and a public to adopt her! Oh! if only Talma were living! But Talma was dead and I did not know anyone at the Théâtre-Français. Perhaps it might be possible for me to manage it through M. Arnault. But he would ask to see the work on behalf of which his services were requested, and he would not have read ten lines before he would fling it as far from him as poor M. Drake had the rattlesnake that bit him at Rouen. I went to look for Oudard. I told him that my play was completed and I boldly asked him for a letter of introduction to the Théâtre-Français. Oudard refused under pretence that he did not know anyone there. I had the courage to tell him that his introduction as head of the Secretariat of the Duc d'Orléans would be all-powerful. He replied, after the manner of Madame Méchin, when she did not incline to promote any particular end-- "I will never lend my _influence_ in that direction." I had several times noticed a man with thick eyebrows and a long nose, in the Secretarial Department, who took his tobacco Swiss-fashion. This man periodically brought the ninety theatre tickets to all parts of the house that M. Oudard had the prerogative of giving away every month, at the rate of three per day. I did not know who this man was, but I asked. I was told that he was the prompter. I lay in wait for this prompter, took him by surprise in the corridor and begged him to tell me what steps were necessary to obtain the honour of a reading before the Committee of the Théâtre-Français. He told me I must first deposit my play with the Examiner; but he warned me that so many other works were already deposited there that I must expect to wait at least a year. As though it were possible for me to wait a year! "But," I asked, "is there no short cut through all these formalities?" "Oh dear me, yes!" he replied, "if you know Baron Taylor." I thanked him. "There is nothing to thank me for," he said. And he was right; there wasn't anything to thank him for, for I did not know Baron Taylor in the slightest. "Do you know Baron Taylor?" I asked Lassagne. "No," he answered; "but Charles Nodier is his intimate friend." "What of that?" "Well, did you not tell me that you once talked with Charles Nodier a whole evening at a representation of the _Vampire?_" "Certainly." "Write to Charles Nodier." "Bah! he will have forgotten all about me." "He never forgets anything; write to him."