Jean bowed and made to leave the room; but suddenly the Abbé Bordier beckoned him to stop and asked abruptly: "You understand the rules of verse?" "Latin verse?" queried Jean. "No, no! French verse. Now, would you rhyme _trône_ with _couronne_? The rhyme is not, it must be allowed, quite satisfactory to the ear, yet the usage of the great writers authorizes it." So saying, the old fellow laid hold of a bulky manuscript book. "Listen," he cried, "listen. It is St. Fabricius addressing the Proconsul Flavius: _Achève, fais dresser l'appareil souhaité De ma mort, ou plutôt de ma félicité. Le Roi des Rois, du haut de son céleste trône, Déjà me tend la palme et tresse ma couronne._ "Do you think it would be better if he said: _Achève, fais dresser l'appareil souhaité De ma mort, ou plutôt de ma félicité. Je vois le Roi des Rois me tendre la couronne, Quel n'en est le prix quand c'est Dieu qui la donne!_ "Doubtless these latter lines are more correct than the others, but they are less vigorous, and a poet should never sacrifice meaning to metre. _Le Roi des Rois, du haut de son céleste trône, Déjà me tend la palme et tresse ma couronne."_ This time, as he declaimed the verses, he went through the corresponding gestures of tendering a gift and plaiting a garland. "It is better so," he added, "better so!" Jean, in some surprise, said yes, it was certainly better. "Certainly better, yes," cried the old poet, smiling with the happy innocence of a little child. Then he confided in Jean that it was a very difficult thing indeed to write poetry. You must get the cæsura in the right place, bring in the rhyme naturally, make your rhythm run in divers cadences, now strong, now sweet, sometimes onomatopoetic, use only words either elevated in themselves or dignified by the circumstances. He read one passage of his Tragedy because he had his doubts about the number of feet in the line, another because he thought it contained some bold strokes happily conceived, then a third to elucidate the two first, eventually the whole five acts from start to finish. He acted the words as he read, modulating his voice to suit the various characters, stamping and storming, and to adjust his black skullcap--it _would_ tumble off at the pathetic parts--dealing himself a succession of sounding slaps on the crown of his head. This sacred drama, in which no woman appeared, was to be played by the pupils of the Institution at a forthcoming function. The previous year he had staged his first tragedy, _le Baptême de Clovis_, in the same approved style. A regular, Monsieur Schuver, had arranged garlands of paper roses to represent the battlefield of Tolbiac and the basilica at Rheims. To give a wild, barbaric look to the boys who represented Clovis' henchmen, the sister superintendent of the wardrobe had tacked up their white trousers to the knee. But the Abbé Bordier hoped greater things still for his new piece.