It will be seen the times were not at all encouraging for literature. But there was through that highly strung period such a vital turgescence that enough force remained in the youth of the day, who had just been making a political disturbance on the boulevard Saint-Denis or the place Vendôme, to create a literary disturbance at the Théâtre Porte-Saint-Martin or the Odéon. I think I have said that _Mirabeau_ had been played, and had passed like a shadow without even being able, when dying, to bequeathe the name of its author to the public: the company of the Odéon, therefore, was entirely at the disposal of _Charles VII._ Whether Harel had returned to my opinion, that the play would not make money, or whether he had a fit of niggardliness, a rare happening, I must confess, when Mademoiselle Georges was taking part in a play, he would not risk any expense, not even to the extent of the stag that kills Raymond in the first act, not even for the armour which clothes Charles VII. in the fourth. The result was that I was obliged to go to Raincy myself to kill a stag, and to get it stuffed at my own expense; then I had to go and borrow a complete set of armour from the Artillery Museum, which they obligingly lent me in remembrance of the service that I had rendered their establishment on 29 July 1830, by saving a portion of the armour of Francis I. However, the rehearsals proceeded with such energy that, on 5 September, the opening day of the shooting season having arrived, I had no hesitation about leaving _Charles VII._ to the strength of the impetus that I had given it, and, as M. Étienne would say, I went to woo Diana at the expense of the Muses. True, our Muses, if the illustrious Academician is to be believed, were but sorry ones!