And yet, although wounded by these rebuffs and completely maimed by his falls, M. Lemercier sat quietly on in his arm-chair in the Palais Mazarin--as did his colleagues, M. Droz, M. Briffaut, and M. Lebrun, one trying to make people forget that he had written a little volume on _Bonheur_, another that he had perpetrated a tragedy called _Minus II._, and the third, that he had missed fire in his _le Cid d'Andalousie_ and mangled Schiller's _Maria Stuart_--he need not have troubled to say anything, the world would have let him sleep as quietly in his tomb as the spectators had fain have slept at the performance of his pieces, if hissing had never been invented. But nothing of the kind happened! When M. Lemercier perceived the literary movement of 1829 he cried out at the sacrilege, want of good taste and scandal of the thing; he signed petitions to the king to have the representation of _Henri III._ and of _Marion Delorme_ stopped; he barred the entrance to the Academy when Lamartine and Victor Hugo endeavoured to gain an entrance; he set the Archbishop of Paris against the one and produced a M. Flourens to checkmate the other; he recovered the use of his legs sufficiently to run about collecting votes against them, and the use of his right hand to turn the lock against them. Thank Heaven I had very little to do with this wicked little cur, neither have I had any personal quarrel with him, as I have never had any dealings with the Academy; but since someone must rise up and speak for justice I claim the privilege of being the first to set the example. When M. Flourens was nominated in place of Hugo, I was passing through the green-room of the Théâtre-Français. I forget what the new play was, but M. Lemercier was holding forth there against the author of _Notre-Dame de Paris_ and of _Marion Delorme_ and the _Orientales_, just as he had opposed him all day long, silently, in the Academy. I listened to his diatribe for a few minutes, then, shaking my head, I said to him-- "Monsieur Lemercier, you have refused your vote to Victor Hugo; but there is one thing you will some day be compelled to yield him, and that is your own place. Take care lest, instead of the ill-natured things you are saying against him here, he be not obliged to say a kind word for you some day to the Academy." And it happened just as I had predicted. It was no easy matter to praise Lemercier, but Hugo accomplished the matter by describing the period instead of speaking of the man, by referring to the emperor rather than to the poet. "Have you read my speech?" Hugo asked me the day after he had made it. "Yes." "Well, what do you think of it?" "I think you read as though you had just succeeded Bonaparte as a member of the Institute, instead of M. Lemercier as a member of the Academy." "The deuce! I would much rather have seen you there than myself. How would you have got out of it?" "As Racan did, by saying my big white rabbit had eaten my speech."