My mother had been quite as lonely without me as I had been without her, so, in response to my letter, she shut up the tobacco-shop, sold a portion of our shabby furniture, and wrote telling me she was coming to Paris, bringing with her her bedstead, a chest of drawers, a table, two arm-chairs, four chairs and a hundred louis in hard cash. A hundred louis! Why, it was exactly double my year's income and we should now have 2400 francs a year for the next two years, so for that time we should feel quite safe. It was all the more important to be settled since, on 29 July 1824, whilst the Duc de Montpensier came into the world at the Palais-Royal, a Duc de Chartres was born to me at No. 1 place des Italiens. This, together with the smallness of my little yellow chamber, where there was no room for my mother, was one of the reasons that obliged me to look out for fresh lodgings. To find a new home was a serious consideration; lodgings were very dear close to the Palais-Royal, and if I were too far away from the Palais-Royal my four journeys a day, to and fro, meant a serious wear and tear in shoe-leather. Any expense comes heavy on a man who only earns four francs five sous per day. I had, indeed, two or three plays in hand with de Leuven, but I was compelled to admit to myself that probably de Leuven, who had not managed to succeed with Soulié--whom we acknowledged to be the best of us all--would not have more chance with me. His _Bon Vieillard_ had been declined at the Gymnase; his _Pauvre Fille_ had been rejected by the Vaudeville, and his _Château de Kenilworth_ had not even been read--Mademoiselle Lévêque had politely sent word that she had not "time at the moment" to pay attention to a new part, and the Porte-Saint-Martin had received a melodrama upon the same subject.