"M. Philippe Dupin, to whom I sent both the MSS., and who still has them in his possession, replied to our adversary that we were ready to surrender the said autograph, but that we would only do so in exchange for a copy collated under the inspection of three dramatic authors and certified conformable to them. The young man reflected for a fortnight, then withdrew his demand. This was the third lawsuit he had begun against me, in order to gain for himself 12,000 francs. Since that time I have heard no further mention of the young man, and I do not at the present day know if he be dead or alive. That is how my _Tour de Nesle_ was composed. As for M. Gaillardet's, I am not aware if it is, as he says, his best drama; I still only know it from reading it, and I shall wait until he has it played before deciding if it be better than _George_ and _Struensee._--Faithfully, etc., "ALEX. DUMAS" The days rolled by, and I knew that my future adversary went shooting every morning, and I was kept informed of the progress which he made. Finally, appeared the famous answer. Let me be permitted to reproduce it in full, with the insults it contains. It is probable that M. Gaillardet to-day regrets his insults towards me, as I regret my violence towards him.[8] "TO M. S.--HENRY BERTHOUD "MONSIEUR LE DIRECTEUR,--I published an article in the twenty-first number of _Le Musée des Families_ which you did me the honour to ask from me on the ancient tower of Nesle. In that article, I related cursorily, and under the form of a chat without any sort of pretension, how the idea had come to me to write a drama, the first conception of which no one has contested with me; a drama printed and published over two years ago, and performed to-day for the two hundredth time under my name, by the consent of M. Dumas himself. I did not say a word of M. Dumas; I did not make any allusion to the judicial and literary discussion which arose formerly between him and me. Anyone can be convinced of this by reading my article. I should have a scruple, indeed, against reviving a quarrel long since extinguished, and to which an amicable transaction put an end; a transaction proposed by M. Dumas himself, as I shall tell in due course, by which the public controversy that I had then desired and provoked was settled in its earliest stages. However that may be, to-day M. Dumas returns to the affair; he rekindles the cold and scattered ashes, piling them up with his hands and stirring them to life with his breath, and relights the fire, at the risk of burning his own fingers at it. Since he has thrown down the glove, I pick it up. He has incited me, I reply to him. So much the worse for him if he be wounded in this game, if his reputation chances to be compromised