The censors had not made any remarks whatever, they had not found a single word to say against them. It is a wonder that the Committee of Censorship had not proposed to the grand-duke to found a prize for virtue, in favour of four such edifying plays. That same night, the whole town, except MM. les Censeurs knew that the performance of four plays by M. Alexandre Dumas had been sanctioned under the moral signature of Eugène Scribe. I never had such a success. They thought these four works the very perfection of innocence; the grand-duke, the most innocent man in his grand-duchy, was applauded to the echo! Scribe, on that occasion, was about to receive the Cross of the Commander of Saint-Joseph. Fortunately for Scribe, somebody or other revealed the trickery to the grand-duke. Scribe was beside himself with fear. [Footnote 1: See Appendix.] CHAPTER IV A few words on _La Tour de Nesle_ and M. Frédérick Gaillardet--The _Revue des Deux Mondes_--M. Buloz--The _Journal des Voyages_--My first attempt at Roman history--_Isabeau de Bavière_--A witty man of five foot nine inches. Let us leave Italy--to which we shall soon return--and come back to our plays, which, by an innocent subterfuge, as a moral author called it, I had played in the capital of His Imperial Highness the Grand-Duke of Tuscany. Two had already been acted at Paris in the month of April 1832, at which date we have arrived_--Antony_ and _Richard;_ but there were still two to be performed, _La Tour de Nesle_ and _Angèle._ May I be prevented, now I come to speak of the making of the first of these plays, from saying anything which may arouse the dormant susceptibilities of M. Gaillardet! Since 2 June 1832, that is to say for the past twenty-five years, I have composed upwards of forty dramas and eight hundred volumes; it will, therefore, be taken for granted that I have no interest whatever in laying claim to one paternity more or less. But the matter made such a stir at the time, it unravelled itself so ostensibly, that I have scarcely the right to pass it over in silence; but, whilst we are upon the subject, I promise only to cite the facts of which I have proof, and to divest those facts of any sentiment either of hatred or of attack. Since that time, M. Gaillardet has left France for America, Paris for New Orleans. To my great joy, he has, I am told, made a fortune out there; to my still greater joy, my books, so I am assured, have not been detrimental to his good fortune. So much the better! Happy he to whom Providence gives a double share of rest, and, when scarcely a third of life is passed, after a brilliant début, permits him to throw down his pen and to rest on his laurels, French laurels, which are the most to be envied of any, and to repose on a bed of American flowers, brightest of all the flowers that bloom! In the darkness which, though dispersed for a time, gradually returns to envelop him once more in its beloved shade, such a man, like Horace,