sser l'appareil souhaite
De ma mort, ou plutot de ma felicite.
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 celeste trone,
Deja 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 caesura 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 Bapteme
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 Abbe Bordier hoped greater
things still for his new piece.

Jean applauded and improved upon these ambitious projects. His
suggestions for scenery and costumes were admirable. He would
have the ruthless Flavius seated on a curule chair of ivory,
draped with purple, erected before a portico painted on the bac