"I will say nothing of M. Harel, who was the primary culprit in the whole affair, and whose _accomplice_ M. Dumas is. M. Dumas ought to be ashamed to call upon such a witness. "M. Verteuil, _M. Harel's secretary,_ asserts to having gone to M. Dumas's house to fetch the five acts of _La Tour de Nesle_ (excellent!) as he wrote them, to having re-copied his manuscript entirely (better and better!), which had no sort of resemblance with _that_ (which?) of M. Gaillardet, a MS. which was in my possession about three months.... Ah! Monsieur Verteuil, I pull you up here!... _La Tour de Nesle_ was performed on 31 _May._ It was on 29 March (look at the date at the top) when my MS. was received. I left on 10 _April_; M. Dumas was my collaborator on the 11th. He declares he did his work in _a week,_ and you declare that my MS. had _then_ been _about three months_ in your possession?... Oh I Monsieur Verteuil, you are indeed _secretary to M. Harel._ "M. Duvernoy certifies that I wished to sell the drama (I believe him there, indeed!). He asserted to me that M. Dumas had quoted a _false_ price; this is rather more positive. There now only remains M. Janin's attestation. Ah! that, I confess, I scarcely expected. M. Janin writes that nothing can be more accurate than the details given by M. Dumas, which _he thinks_ he remembers and that, on the whole, M. Dumas's reply is _truthful_! and M. Dumas declares that _Janin, accepted by me as a collaborator, had given his rights to him and been sent by M. Harel_! This is too much! M. Janin, then, forgets that _he had no further rights,_ that he _had waived his claim,_ that he _had proclaimed this to me_ in a letter _written_ and _signed_ in his own hand? "This is not all, and, since I must tell it you, reader, be informed that, after the first performance of _La Tour de Nesle,_ it was M. Janin who _bound me_ to protest; it was _at his house_ that I wrote my protest; it was _he_ himself who _wanted_ to dictate it to me and _did do so_! He was furious with MM. Harel and Dumas. This is not all yet; in consequence of the lawsuit which arose between M. Harel and myself before the Tribunal de Commerce, M. Janin _himself_ wrote to M. Darmaing, to support a protest that I made to the _Gazette des Tribunaux_: 'I beg M. Darmaing to insert the enclosed short note, I entreat it _in my own name,_ and that of M. Gaillardet. I do not understand the stubbornness with which they seek to rob this young man of _that which belongs to him,_ etc.' (See _La Gazette des Tribunaux, 1_ July 1832.) What do you say to it, reader? I had promised to relate the petty secrets of this apostasy, but I have not space; and, besides, I reflected that it was not worth the trouble, and so I sign myself--"F. GAILLARDET"