It was to this event, related in the _Chronicle_ of Maître Alain Chartier, that Yaqoub alludes when he says to Bérengère: "Malheureux?... malheureux, en effet; Car, pour souffrir ainsi, dites-moi, qu'ai-je fait?... Est-ce ma faute, à moi, si votre époux et maître, Poursuivant un vassal, malgré les cris du prêtre, Entra dans une église, et, là, d'un coup mortel, Le frappa? Si le sang jaillit jusqu'à l'autel, Est-ce ma faute? Si sa colère imbécile, Oublia que l'église était un lieu d'asile, Est-ce ma faute? Et si, par l'Université, A venger ce forfait le saint-père excité, Dit que, pour désarmer le céleste colère, Il fallait que le comte armât une galère, Et, portant sur nos bords la désolation, Nous fît esclaves, nous, en expiation, Est-ce ma faute encore? et puis-je pas me plaindre Qu'au fond de mon désert son crime aille m'atteindre?..." This skeleton found, and my drama now having, so to speak, in the characters of Savoisy, Bérengère and Yaqoub, its head, heart and legs, it was necessary to provide arms, muscles, flesh and the rest of its anatomy. Hence the need of history; and history had in reserve Charles VII., Agnes and Dunois; and the whole of the great struggle of France against England was made to turn on the love of an Arab for the wife of the man who had made him captive and transported him from Africa to France. I think I have exposed, with sufficient clearness, what I borrowed as my foundation, from Goethe, Corneille, Racine and Alfred de Musset; I will make them more palpable still by quotations; for, as I have got on the subject of self-criticism, I may as well proceed to the end, rather than remain before my readers, _solus, pauper et nudus_, as Adam in the Earthly Paradise, or as Noah under his vine-tree! "BÉRENGÈRE, YAQOUB.