It is curious to note that such a sentence was actually written in one of the résumés of that date. The second remark that we ought to have made will explain the comparison that Rabbe had hazarded when he spoke of himself as Hercules and of Brézé as Pirithous. He had so effectually contracted the habit of using grand oratorical metaphor and stilted language, that he could never descend to a more familiar style of speech in his relations with more ordinary people. Thus, he once addressed his hairdresser solemnly in the following terms:-- "Do not disarrange the economy of my hair too much; let the strokes of your comb fall lightly on my head, and take care, as Boileau says, that 'L'ivoire trop hâté ne se brise en vos mains!'" He said to his porter-- "If some friend comes and knocks at my hospitable portal, deal kindly with him.... I shall soon return: I go to breathe the evening air upon the Pont des Arts." He said to his pastry-cook, Grandjean, who lived close by him in the rue des Petits-Augustins-- "Monsieur Grandjean, the vol-au-vent that you did me the honour to send yesterday had a crust of Roman cement, obstinate to the teeth; give a more unctuous turn to your culinary art and people will be grateful to you." While all these things were happening, Rabbe fully imagined that he was writing his novel, _La Sœur grise._ One day, Thiers came in to see him, as was his custom. "Well, Rabbe," he said, "what are you at work upon now?" "Parbleu!" replied Rabbe, "the same as usual, you know! My _Sœur grise._" "It ought to be nearly finished by now." "It is finished." "Oh, indeed!" "Do you doubt me?" "No." "But you do doubt it?" "Of course not." "Stay," he said, picking up an exercise-book full of sheets of paper, "here it is." Thiers took it from him. "But what is this? You have given me blank sheets of paper, my dear fellow!" Rabbe sprang like a tiger upon Thiers, and might, perhaps, in 1825, have demolished the Minister of the First of March, had not Thiers opened the book and showed him the pages as white as the dress worn by M. Planard's shepherdess. Rabbe tore his hair with both hands. "Do you know what has happened to me?" he shouted. "No." "Someone has stolen the MS. of my _Sœur grise!_" "Oh! my God!" exclaimed Thiers, who did not want to vex him; "do you know who is the thief?" "No ... stay, yes, indeed, I think I do ... it is Loëve-Weymars! He shall perish by my own hand; I will send him my two seconds!" Loëve-Weymars was not in Paris. For upwards of a fortnight Rabbe laboured under the delusion that he had written _La Sœur grise_ from cover to cover, and that Loëve-Weymars was jealous of him and had robbed him of his manuscript.