I was seven or eight days hesitating before the enormous task which I had to accomplish; then, during that halting time, my courage returned to me and I bravely set to work, forgetting everything for the sake of the study of history. It was during this period that I wrote _Térésa_ and the piece of which I am about to speak. Horace Vernet had sent a large picture from Rome depicting _Édith aux longs cheveux cherchant le corps d'Harold sur le champ de bataille d'Hastings._ It was a picture belonging to the category that Vernet laughingly styled his grand manner. It was singularly fascinating to me on account of the heroine's name, not because of the subject. I was seized with the whim to write a drama with the title _Édith aux longs cheveux._ One could only write in verse a drama with so poetical a title. _Charles VII._ had somewhat familiarised me with what is still called at the Academy the language of the gods. How was all this which I saw but imperfectly, and which it was an absolute necessity I should study, to remain in my poor brain without its bursting? And be careful to notice that I was as yet only brooding over the earliest races. How was I to disentangle the surroundings of Charlemagne and his son and to represent the interests and types of the Frankish race? How was I to pick out the Eudes and Roberts, the National Kings who sprang up and reigned over the conquered land which was to produce its Camilles and Pélages? It was staggering to know nothing at thirty of what other men knew when they were twelve. I had studied the theatre; I knew enough about it to be satisfied on that head. I must, then, study history as I had studied the theatre, and I believed that history was a barrier put in my path. Who was there to tell me that there would be a fresh course of study to make, longer, drier and more arduous than the preceding one? The study of the theatre had taken me five or six years. How much time was the study of history going to take me? Alas! I should have to study it for the rest of my life! If I had studied at the age of other people, I should have had nothing else to do but produce! I had as yet only the title to my drama. It need hardly be said that all I knew about the battle of Hastings was that which I had read in Sir Walter Scott's _Ivanhoe._ So I purposed to compose something after the style of Shakespeare's _Cymbeline_ and not a historical drama. Accordingly, I read by chance a romance by Auguste Lafontaine--I would indeed like to tell you which but I have forgotten--all I remember is that the heroine's name was Jacobine. However, if you wish to remove all doubts about the matter, my friend Madame Cardinal, rue des Canettes, will tell you. She knows her Auguste Lafontaine by heart. Anyhow, Jacobine is made to take a narcotic and is put to sleep so that she may pass for dead, and, thanks to this supposed death, which releases her from the trammels of the earth, she can marry her lover. It is a little like