was the merriest of all the band, its Molière, says Houssaye elsewhere, ever sparkling with wit, an inexhaustible _raconteur_ of inimitable dramatic power. He was a poet, too, a great student of German philosophy, and was at the time working upon "Suzanne," the first work which made his name heard in the world of literature. It was a jolly life in the Impasse, though money was plentiful but rarely, and fortune had still to be wooed. They rose early in the morning, even after a bacchic evening, and when Théo joined them all four would set to their work, while the Pompadour _salon_ was hardly yet awake in the morning sun, each singing the air which the new day found lingering in his head. Théo always painted or drew before he began to write, but his serious task was the composition of "Mademoiselle de Maupin," that masterpiece which was completed, sold for a beggarly £60, and published in the joyous days of Doyenné. Rogier was illustrating Hoffmann's "Tales" and Houssaye writing "La Pécheresse." "L'un écrivait au coin du feu, l'autre rimait dans un hamac; Théo, tout en caressant les chats, calligraphiait d'admirables chapitres, couché sur le ventre; Gérard, toujours insaisissable, allait et venait avec la vague inquiétude des chercheurs qui ne trouvent pas."[23] Gérard, his part in the foundation of _la Bohème galante_ performed, felt under no compulsion to confine himself to the nest. His companions, indeed, saw little of his amiable countenance, for he wandered ceaselessly, often only returning when the night sky grew pale, to leave before it was fairly blue. He had a task, nevertheless, and that task was connected with his great romance. It is a story as pathetic as Charles Lamb's second love affair, and the woman who won his heart was also an actress. In the days of the _cénacle_ Gérard had fallen desperately in love with Jenny Colon, of the Opéra Comique, an actress of not more than ordinary talent. It was a passion that went to the very roots of his being, an infatuation enriched by all his romantic mysticism. She was the goddess who ruled his dreams by night and day, and it was for her in anticipation that Gérard purchased his wonderful Renaissance bed with its salamanders and carved pillars. No room that Gérard ever possessed was large enough to hold this bed, which was always lodged with his friends, first in the Impasse, and then in other parts of Paris. They respected his frenzy, for the bed never had an occupant, and they kept it sacred till its deluded owner was obliged by straitened circumstances to part with it. Gérard's bed was the epitome of his life--a search for a phantom that his brain itself had fashioned. His Jenny Colon was a phantom, but the real Jenny, though her vulgar heart was unmoved by a shy poet's awkward homage, was not unwilling to accept his services. Commenting himself, in "La Bohème Galante," on Arsène Houssaye's stanza: