M. Buloz, first a compositor, then a foreman in a printing house, was, in 1830, a man between thirty-four or five years of age, of pale complexion, with a thin beard, eyes that did not match properly, features of no particular character and yellowish, sparsely grown hair; as regards temperament, he was taciturn and almost gloomy, disinclined to speak, because of an increasing deafness, cross-grained on his good days, brutal on his bad ones, and, at all times, doggedly obstinate. I knew him through Bixio and Bocage. Both were intimate with him at that time.[1] M. Buloz has since been to them, as he has been to everybody, faithless in friendship when not downright ungrateful for service done him. I do not know how he gets on with Bixio now; but I believe he is very horrid to Bocage. We were not rich in those days; we had our meals in a little restaurant in the rue de Tournon, adjoining the _hôtel de l'Empereur Joseph II.,_ where, I can assure you, they served very bad dinners at six sous the plateful. M. Ribing de Leuven had a newspaper, which sold very badly, a _journal de luxe,_ and wealthy people took up the fad and ruined themselves over it; it was called _Le Journal des Voyages._ Adolphe and I persuaded M. de Leuven to sell this paper to Buloz. Buloz, Bocage, Bonnaire and, I believe, even Bixio, collected some funds and became proprietors of the above-mentioned paper, which took the title of _La Revue des Deux Mondes._ This occurred in 1830 or 1831. We all set to work with our best efforts on this newspaper, which we looked upon as a child belonging to all of us and loved with a paternal affection. The first milk I gave it to feed on was a _Voyage en Vendée,_ which is partly to be found in these Memoirs. Then, this is what happened to me: I have told how profoundly ignorant I was in history and of my great desire to study it. I heard a great deal of talk about the Duc de Bourgoyne and I read the _Histoire des ducs de Bourgoyne,_ by Barante. For the first time, a French historian let himself have free play in picturesque writing of history and in simplicity in the telling of legends. The work begun by the romances of Sir Walter Scott had by now matured in my mind. I did not yet feel strong enough to write a long novel; but there was then a kind of literature being produced which kept a middle course between the novel and the drama, which had some of the influence of the one and much of the arresting qualities of the other, wherein dialogue alternated with narrative; this type of literature was termed "_Scènes historiques."_