Next had taken place the representation of my _Napoléon Bonaparte_, a work whose worthlessness I recognised with dread in spite of the fanatical enthusiasm it had excited at its reading. Then came _Antony_, which inspired no fanaticism nor enthusiasm, neither at its reading nor at its rehearsal; which, in my inmost conscience, I believed was destined to close my short series of successes with failure. Were, perchance, M. Fossier, M. Oudard, M. Picard and M. Deviolaine right? Would it have been better for me _to go to my office_, as the author of _la Petite Ville_ and _Deux Philibert_ had advised? It was rather late in the day to make such reflections as these, just after I had sent in my resignation definitely. I did not make them any the less for that, nor did they cheer me any the more on that account. My comfort was that Crosnier did not seem to set any higher value upon _Marion Delorme_ than upon _Antony_, and I was a great admirer of _Marion Delorme._ I might be deceived in my own piece, but assuredly I was not mistaken about that of Hugo; while, on the other hand, Crosnier might be wrong about Hugo's piece, and therefore equally mistaken about mine. Meanwhile, the rehearsals continued their course. That which I had foreseen happened: in proportion as the rehearsals advanced, the two principal parts taken by Madame Dorval and by Bocage assumed entirely different aspects than they did when represented by Mademoiselle Mars and Firmin. The absence of scholastic traditions, the manner of acting drama, a certain sympathy of the actors with their parts, a sympathy which did not exist at the Théâtre Français, all by degrees helped to reinstate poor _Antony_ in my own opinion. It is but fair to say that, when the two great artistes, upon whom the success of the play depended, felt the day of representation drawing nearer, they developed, as if in emulation with one another, qualities they were themselves unconscious they possessed. Dorval brought out a dignity of feeling in the expression of the emotions, of which I should have thought her quite incapable; and Bocage, on whom I had only looked at first as capable of a kind of misanthropic barbarity, had moments of poetic sadness and of dreamy melancholy that I had only seen in Talma in his rôles of the English rendering of Hamlet, and in Soumet's Orestes. The representation was fixed for the first fortnight in April; but, at the same time, a drama was being played at the _Palais de justice_, which, even to my eyes, was far more interesting than my own.