"As far as the truth of what I advance is concerned, it will be detected by all impartial readers, first, in the accuracy and faithfulness of its details, if I may so express it; I do not merely relate what is in the actual _Tour de Nesle,_ but things that _are not to be found in that,_ among others, one scene in the fourth act. Buridan comes as a gipsy, and not as a captain, to visit the _wizard_ Orsini. The latter wants to overawe the gipsy, who revealed to him the murders of the tower of Nesle as he had revealed them to Marguerite; and soon the magician falls at the gipsy's feet, seized with the very superstitions he himself instils into the vulgar-minded, to enquire if, perhaps, there be true sorcerers! This scene was bound to disappear directly Orsini was made an inn-keeper. "Finally, as to probability, I might say concerning the _proof_ of my word, that I have the actual words of M. Dumas in the letter in which he says to me: 'Harel has come to ask my _advice_ about a drama by _you_ which he wishes to put on the stage. _Your play ..._ that which I have been happy to have been able to _add_ to it ... etc.' Nobody speaks like this of a work in which he has done _everything._ "Next, a line from M. Harel, which I received before my departure (_after Janin's withdrawal,_) in which he says to me: 'Write to me; take care of your health and, above all, _work_! 'There were then, modifications, changes decided upon, a _work to be done_!... They deny it; I assert it and assert it with proof!... It is for the reader to decide the matter.[9] "So, now, you will perceive that it will matter little to me whether M. Dumas either had or had not my _first_ MS. in his possession. I have proved that he has had my second plan; from another source, he himself confesses to have possessed and partly copied Janin's MS. which was mine _spoilt...._ What more do I need? "I will, therefore, resume my story from where I left off. _Felonies_ were about to succeed one another like file-firing. It was on 8 April when I took my _scenario_ to M. Harel. My father died on the 9th; he had come to Paris on purpose to fetch me away from the contagion which reigned over the city, and his joy in being present at my first play induced him to remain with me! This recollection breaks my heart!... On the 10th, as a messenger of death, I went to console my poor mother. This was the night of the same day on which M. Harel wrote me the note wherein he said, '_Take care of your health_!' Wretched irony, flung at me between a misfortune which had come upon me and an act of robbery which was about to overtake me! 'Go,' he had said to me; 'I have a play before yours: you have three months before you. Take it easy and write to me!'