“_Kean_ was being prepared at the Odéon. Chilly wanted the part of Anne Damby to be given to Jane Essler, and Dumas had already promised it to Antonine. Duquesnel advised me to go and see Dumas, and not to leave the house without a written authority to at least rehearse the part. I well remember going to see Dumas. The door was opened by his daughter, and I found Dumas in his shirt-sleeves, with a woman leaning on his shoulder--Oceana I believe she was. I timidly explained the object of my visit. He listened, looked at me, and said-- “‘You would do very nicely, but I have promised the part to Jane Essler.’ “I persisted in my request, and he confessed that he had also undertaken to give the _rôle_ to Antonine. “Then, I said, ‘As you have promised it to two you may just as well promise it to three.’ “Fortunately I had learnt the part, and I began to recite it to him, inwardly repeating Duquesnel’s words: ‘Don’t leave him before you get a letter.’ Then I urged him again to let me rehearse the part, if only for a week. “Finally Dumas had enough of it, and gave me a letter for Chilly, to this effect: ‘Jane Essler is to play Anne Damby, but you can let the bearer rehearse for a few days.’ [Illustration] “When the others saw me rehearsing for the part, there was a sensation. The end of it was that I kept the part and played it with very, very great success. A well-known incident happened at the _première_. Dumas came into his box accompanied by Oceana, and for three-quarters of an hour the students shouted ‘A la porte!’ to such purpose that Dumas was obliged to take the woman out, put her in a cab, and return to his box, wildly cheered by the students. Their hostility was solely against the woman who had forced this great man to make such a scandalous exhibition of himself. “Next came _Le Bâtard_ by Alphonse Touroude, and _L’Autre_ by George Sand (September 1869), neither of which has any interesting souvenirs connected with it.”