"Then the day came for M. Janin to read us his work. I said nothing, for, as far as I can, I exercise charity, even towards my enemies!... Let it be known only that, by common accord, the work was judged null and void. Janin withdrew and gave up the task (I will give the written proof), and M. Harel returned purely and simply to my drama. Now, since the day upon which I read my play, I had conceived new ideas and improvements, due as much to discussion and to the criticisms of the manager as to my own reflections. But, in order to enlighten the public as to the true mysteries of the birth of _La Tour de Nesle,_ and, as it were, to initiate it into the phases and developments of the work by which this drama was conceived, abnormal in its success and by reason of the quarrels which it raised, I am about to establish succinctly what the drama was, _as a whole,_ and in comparison with the drama performed, which I read to M. Harel, and which was returned to me at the epoch of which I am speaking. It will be easy to all to understand me at once (who has not seen _La Tour de Nesle_?), and to _verify_ me afterwards, M. Dumas having the original MS. in his possession, and able to show it to whomsoever desires to see it; also, people may be confident that I shall say _less_ rather than _more._ I quote from memory and my adversary has the book!" Here, M. Gaillardet gave the résumé of his first MS.; then he continued thus-- "The reader has already gathered at what points the _two_ dramas coincide. Are not these points, in the small portion I have quoted, and quoted faithfully (for if I were the man to make up an audacious lie, my adversary would hold in his hands the means of exposing me!)--are not _those points already_ the fundamental basis of the _acted_ drama? Are they not the bones and marrow, the substance and framework?... Indeed I I venture to say that had I done _only that_ in the play, I should have done more than half the drama, consequently ten, twenty times more than M. Dumas allows me, since he allows me _nothing. Very well!_ he has dared to write and to print it in all his letters! But, after what we know of him, of what can we and should we be surprised?