Here was a dilemma! I must yield and take half I thought myself entitled to and permit the General to play for the manager, or submit to legal extortion, or forego my exhibitions. I offered the manager six per cent of my receipts and he laughed at me. I talked with the hospital directors and they told me that as the manager favored them, they felt bound to stand by him. I announced in the public journals that the General could not appear in Bordeaux on account of the cupidity and extortionate demands of the theatre manager and the hospital directors. The people talked and the papers denounced; but manager and directors remained as firm as rocks in their positions. Tom Thumb was to arrive in two days and I was in a decided scrape. The mayor interceded for me, but to no avail; the manager had determined to enforce an almost obsolete law unless I would permit the General to play in his theatre every night. My Yankee “dander” was up and I declared that I would exhibit the General gratis rather than submit to the demand. Whereupon, the manager only laughed at me the more to think how snugly he had got me. Now it happened that, once upon a time, Bordeaux, like most cities, was a little village, and the little village of Vincennes lay one mile east of it. Bordeaux had grown and stretched itself and thickly settled far beyond Vincennes, bringing the latter nearly in the centre of Bordeaux; yet, strange to say, Vincennes maintained its own identity, and had its own Mayor and municipal rights quite independent of Bordeaux. I could scarcely believe my informant who told me this, but I speedily sought out the Mayor of Vincennes, found such a personage, and cautiously inquired if there was a theatre or a hospital within his limits? He assured me there was not. I told him my story, and asked: “If I open an exhibition within your limits will there be any percentages to pay from my receipts?” “Not a sou,” replied the Mayor. “Will you give me a writing to that effect?” “With the greatest pleasure,” replied the Mayor, and he did so at once. I put this precious paper in my pocket, and in a few moments I hired the largest dancing saloon in the place, a room capable of holding over 2,000 people. I then announced, especially to the delighted citizens of Bordeaux, that the General would open his exhibitions in Vincennes, which he soon did to an overflowing house. For thirteen days we exhibited to houses averaging more than 3,000 francs per day, and for ten days more at largely increased receipts, not one sou of which went for taxes or percentages. The manager and directors, theatre and hospital, got nothing, instead of the fair allowance I would willingly have given them. Oh, yes! they got something,--that is, a lesson,--not to attempt to offset French Shylockism against Yankee shrewdness.