Louis XIII., that inveterate hunter after _la pie-grièche_, escaping from the guardianship of his mother by a crime, proclaiming his coming of age to the firing of pistols which killed the favourite of Marie de Médicis, resolving upon that infamous deed whilst playing at chess with his favourite, de Luynes, who was hardly two years older than himself; a monarch timid in council and brave in warfare, a true Valois astray among the Bourbons, lean, melancholy and sickly-looking, with a profile half like that of Henri IV. and half like Louis XIV., without the goodness of the one and the dignity of the other; this Louis XIII. held out to me the promise of a curious royal figure to take as a model, I who had already given birth to _Henri III._ and was later to bring _Charles IX._ to the light of day. But, as I have said, I had renounced it. De Vigny, who did not know Paul Lacroix, or hardly knew him, had not the same reason for abstaining, and he had written a five-act drama in prose on this subject, which had been received at the Odéon. Here was yet another battle to fight. De Vigny, at that time, as I believe he still does, belonged to the Royalist party. He had therefore two things to fight--the enemies which his opinions brought him, and those who were envious of his talent,--a talent cold, sober, charming, more dreamy than virile, more intellectual than passionate, more nervous than strong. The piece was excellently well put on: Mademoiselle Georges took the part of the Maréchale d'Ancre; Frédérick, that of Concini; Ligier, Borgia; and Noblet, Isabelle. The difference between de Vigny's way of treating drama and mine shows itself in the very names of the characters. One looked in vain for Louis XIII. I should have made him my principal personage. Perhaps, though, the absence of Louis XIII. in de Vigny's drama was more from political opinion than literary device. The author being, as I say, a Royalist, may have preferred to leave his royalty behind the wings than to show it in public with a pale and bloodstained face. The _Maréchale d'Ancre_ is more of a novel than a play; the plot, so to speak, is too complicated in its corners and too simple in its middle spaces. The Maréchale falls without a struggle, without catastrophe, without clinging to anything: she slips and falls to the ground; she is seized; she dies. As to Concini, as the author was much embarrassed to know what to do with him, he makes him spend ten hours at a Jew's, waiting for a young girl whom he has only seen once; and, just when he learns that Borgia is with his wife, and jealousy lends him wings to fly to the Louvre, he loses himself on a staircase. During the whole of the fourth act, whilst his wife is being taken to the Bastille, and they are trying her and condemning her, he is groping about to find the bannisters and seeking the door; when he comes out of Isabelle's room at the end of the third act, he does not re-appear again