"GENTLEMEN,--I cannot do anything in the matter you desire; I only occupy one seat in the theatre, like every other Frenchman." Now, I shall be asked how it was that M. Arnault reconciled this demand directed against me with his friendliness towards me? How could he receive me intimately at his house and table every Sunday, while he was doing his best to have me driven away from the theatre? Oh! be quite easy on that score! M. Arnault had a more logical mind than that. On the Sunday following the production of _Henri III._--namely, the very next day--I found Madame Arnault quite alone in the house, and she said to me, in course of conversation-- "Dumas, when you intend dining with us, tell us beforehand; for otherwise you will run the risk of dining _tête-à-tête_ with me, as to-day, which is not very entertaining for you." I took the hint, and I never returned there again. The success of _Henri III._, therefore, it will be seen, brought in its train all the advantages and all the drawbacks of great successes. I was the fashionable author for the rest of the winter of 1829; I received invitations innumerable, and M. Sosthène de la Rochefoucauld, Minister of the King's Household, wrote me a letter, giving me free entry to all the royal theatres, being shrewd enough to see that, if he did not give me the privilege, I was just the sort of man to take it. Devéria made a lithograph of me; David d'Angers, a medallion. It will be seen that nothing was wanting to complete my triumph, not even the ridiculous side which always accompanies a rising reputation. Then a crowd of anecdotes were related about me, each more absurd than the last. It was said that, after the representation of _Henri III._, when the lights in the house had all been put out, a sabbatical dance took place _round_ the bust of Racine (it is set against the wall!), by the light of the dying fires in the green-room, similar to Boulanger's magnificent dance; that the spectral dancers were heard to utter the sacrilegious refrain, "Racine is fallen!" and that even shouts for blood were raised by a young fanatic of the name of Amaury Duval, who demanded the heads of the Academicians--a parricidal cry, since this unfortunate creature was the son of M. Amaury Duval of the Institut, and nephew of M. Alexandre Duval of the Académie française. Further, a rabid Romantic, to whom God had sent one of the seven plagues of Egypt in punishment for his sins, was accused--and this story might well be true--of saying in a burst of frenzied scratching, "Racine was a regular scoundrel!" This fanatic was called Gentil. Stories like these, told by the fireside, were enough, it may well be imagined, to make the hair of all respectable people stand on end, and the _Constitutionnel_, which has always been the literary and political representative of respectable people, was particularly shocked.