I was at the theatre, full of delight at this unexpected escape of my play, which was now to be produced the following Saturday, when one of M. Deviolaine's servants came hurriedly to me, looking very scared, to tell me that my mother had fallen ill as she was going down the stairs after visiting M. Deviolaine, and that they could not bring her back to consciousness. M. Deviolaine lived on the fourth floor of the house of one Chaulin, a stationer, at the corner of the rue Saint-Honoré and the rue de Richelieu. I rushed away from the theatre, sending the property-lad to tell M. Florence, the doctor belonging to the theatre, that my mother needed his assistance. In a few seconds I was with my mother: she was seated in a large arm-chair; her eyes were open and she had regained consciousness, but she could hardly speak. The whole of one side of her body was quite paralysed. She had been to call on Madame Deviolaine; as usual, I had been the subject of conversation; as usual, they had been telling her I was a wilful blockhead, unworthy the clemency the House of Orléans had shown me; that my play would be a failure and would not even produce enough to pay back M. Laffitte his thousand crowns, and that then I should find myself out of a berth and with no future before me. My poor mother had wept copiously, going away in great distress of mind, and as she was about to step downstairs she was seized with faintness, absolutely lost all power and fell down in a heap, her legs on the stairs and her body on the landing. A lodger found her in this position as he came upstairs; he rang M. Deviolaine's door-bell, and they carried her in and put her in a chair. My poor mother had somewhat regained consciousness by the time I reached her. I felt her pulse, and held up her arm, which fell inert; I pinched her to find the extent of her insensibility, and I came to the conclusion that she had just had a stroke of apoplexy, serious enough at any rate to cause paralysis of her left side. I sent for some mustard and put her feet in hot water till the doctor came. Then, as he was a long while in coming, I sent, to an instrument maker, who lived nearly opposite, for a lancet, and decided to bleed her myself in the foot if Florence did not come. But he came, and performed this operation himself; a slight improvement at once manifested itself, and, her tongue feeling freer, she was able to pronounce a few words. Meanwhile my sister had hastened there; fortunately, she was in Paris, having come up to see the first performance of my play. Fortunately, too, there was an empty room in the house--on the third floor, I think--and we took it for a quarter. Madame Deviolaine sent a bed down to it for my mother; we carried mattresses for ourselves from the rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis; we put the mattresses on the floor of my mother's room; and both my sister and I were determined not to leave her alone for a single moment.