They had taken for their hero the mad Emperor, whom, six years later, I tried in my turn to put on to the stage--Caligula. There was scarcely any plot in the play; its principal merit was that which was attached to its subtitle: _Les Romains chez eux._ Indeed, this was the first time people had seen the toga worn, and buskins on the feet, and the speech, actions, and eating as had been the case in real life. The subject was the death of Caligula and the succession of Claudius to the throne. Unfortunately for the longevity of the play, it contained a scene which seemed to imply a disrespectful allusion to the leader of the Government. It was the third scene of the last act. One soldier represented Claudius as being perfectly suitable for the Romans, because he was _big, fat_ and _stupid._ It is impossible to describe the effect which this _big, fat_ and _stupid_ produced; there was at that period a terrible reaction against Louis-Philippe. The insurrection of the month of June still brooded upon all spirits. They applied these three epithets to the head of the Government, doing him the justice which he was at any rate to deserve sixteen or seventeen years later. I had not been present at the first performance. I succeeded, after great difficulty, in getting a seat at the second. Take careful note that I am speaking of the Odéon. All Paris would have come to Harel's theatre, for I think he still had the Odéon then, if the play had not been stopped at the third performance. And the most curious thing was that nobody, neither manager nor authors, counted much on the work, which was readily to be seen by the way in which it was mounted. Apart from Lockroy and Provost, the whole play was distributed amongst what is called in theatrical parlance _la troupe de fer-blanc_ ("a fit-up crowd"). Arsène played Chéréas and Moëssard, Claude. Seventeen days later the Porte-Saint-Martin played a piece which was to cause a scandal of another order. It was called: _Dix ans de la vie d'une femme, ou les mauvais conseils._ The leading part was played by Dorval. The play of _Dix ans de la vie d'une femme_--the first manuscript at least--was by a young man of thirty or so, named Ferrier. Harel, while reading it, had seen in it a sequel to _Joueur_ and had coupled Ferrier with Scribe. The result of this alliance was a play fit to make people's hair stand on end, a drama which Mecier or Rétif de la Bretonne would hardly have put their names to!