When M. Melchior Jolyot learned that his son had, in defiance of his paternal prohibition, actually wedded the apothecary's daughter, his grief and rage knew no bounds. The worthy man believed in his recent nobility as firmly as he did in his religion, and his son's _mesalliance_ nearly drove him to despair: this time he actually carried his threat into execution, and made a formal will, by virtue of which he completely disinherited the poet.--Fortunately for Crebillon, his father, before bidding adieu to the world and his nobility, undertook a journey to Paris, curious, even in the midst of his rage, to judge for himself the merits and demerits of the theatrical tomfooleries, as he called them, of his silly boy, who had married the apothecary's daughter, and who, in place of gaining nobility and station in a procureur's office, had written a parcel of trash for actors to spout. We must say, however, that Crebillon could not have retained a better counsel to urge his claims before the paternal tribunal than his wife, the much maligned apothecary's daughter, one of the loveliest and most amiable women in Paris; and we may add, that this nobility of which his father thought so much--the nobility of the robe--which had not been acquired in a Dijonnaise family until after the lapse of three generations, was scarcely equal to the nobility of the pen, which Crebillon had acquired by the exercise of his own talents. The old greffier, then, came to Paris for the purpose of witnessing one of the sad tomfooleries of that unhappy profligate, who in better times had been his son. Fate so willed it that on that night "Atrée" should be performed. The old man was seized with mingled emotions of terror, grief, and admiration. That very evening, being resolved not to rest until he had seen his son, he called a coach on leaving the theatre, and drove straight to the Faubourg Saint Marceau, to the house which had been pointed out to him as the dwelling of Crebillon. No sooner had the doors opened than out rushed seven or eight dogs, who cast themselves upon the old greffier, uttering in every species of canine _patois_ the loudest possible demonstrations of welcome. One word from Madame Crebillon, however, was sufficient to recall this unruly pack to order; yet the dogs, having no doubt instinctively discovered a family likeness, continued to gambol round the limbs of M. Melchior Jolyot, to the latter's no small confusion and alarm. Charlotte, who was alone, waiting supper for her husband, was much surprised at this unexpected visit. At first she imagined that it was some great personage who had come to offer the poet his patronage and protection; but after looking at her visitor two or three times, she suddenly exclaimed: "You are my husband's father, or at least you are one of the Jolyot family." The old greffier, though intending to have maintained his incognito until his son's return, could no longer resist the