A man is arrested, sentenced, and laid in the depths of a dungeon, without resource or hope; a man who will be lost if his enemy has the courage not to come and mock at his abasement, but to have him poisoned, strangled, or stabbed in his corner; the man will be saved if his enemy yields to the desire to come and insult him for the last time; for, with speech, the sole weapon left him, he would frighten his enemy so that the latter would loosen the chains on his arms a little, and the iron collar round his neck, and open to him the door which he had hitherto so carefully closed upon him, and lead forth in triumph the man who expected that, if he ever left his living tomb at all, it would only be to mount the scaffold. The struggle between Margaret of Burgundy and Buridan gave me the idea for this situation. It will be well understood that I did not let such a scene slip. It is the one that has since been named _la scène de la prison._ That settled, I did not trouble any further over the rest. I wrote to Harel that I was his man for _La Tour de Nesle,_ and begged him to come and arrange the terms under which this new drama should be done. I must explain to the public what I mean by settling the terms. I wished--since Janin loyally, more than loyally, generously, withdrew from the collaboration--that M. Gaillardet, who had temporarily given up his share to Janin, should take that share to himself again. At that period, unless under private treaty, author's rights at the theatre Porte-Saint-Martin, for which M. Gaillardet's drama was intended, were 48 francs for author's share and 24 francs' worth of tickets per night. Consequently, 24 francs for author's rights and 12 francs' worth of tickets were conceded to Janin. Janin, as we have said, gave up his share; I wanted this share to be returned to M. Gaillardet, and my rights to be settled independently, as if I had been a complete stranger to the work. I laid down also, as a condition, _sine quâ non,_ that my name should be left. It was agreed in the contract with Janin that his name should be given. Harel raised no difficulties over granting me my separate treaty, which was the same as in _Christine_: 10 francs per hundred of the takings, and 36 to 40 francs' worth of tickets, I believe. Nothing could be objected to, as the rights were proportional--if it paid, I gained; if it did not, I only made a light demand on the receipts. Now, take careful notice, that, at this time of cholera, two or three hundred francs were quite large takings. The Odéon once played before one spectator who refused to have his money returned, and insisted that they should go through the performance for him and then hissed it. But, by hissing, the wretched man raised a weapon against himself; the manager sent for a police officer, who, with the excuse that the hisser disturbed the performance, put him outside the doors. Harel, I say, made no difficulty of any kind over my