scene of the second act was about to begin. The stage setting
represented an attic in the private asylum where the conspirator was
confined in 1812. Durville, who filled the part of General Malet, had
just made his entrance. He was rehearsing in costume: a long blue
frock-coat, with a collar reaching above his ears, and riding-breeches
of chamois leather. He had even gone so far as to make up his face for
the part, the clean-shaven soldierly face of the general of the Empire,
ornamented with the "hare's-foot" whiskers which were handed down by the
victors of Austerlitz to their sons, the bourgeois of July. Standing
erect, his right elbow resting in his left hand, his brow supported by
his right hand, his deep voice and his tight-fitting breeches expressed
his pride.

"Alone, and without funds, from the depths of a prison, to attack this
colossus, who commands a million soldiers, and who causes all the
peoples and kings of Europe to tremble. Well, this colossus shall fall
crashing to the ground."

From the back of the stage old Maury, who was playing the conspirator
Jacquemont, delivered his reply:

"He may crush us in his downfall."

Suddenly cries at once plaintive and angry arose from the orchestra.

The author was exploding. He was a man of seventy, brimming over with
youth.

"What do I see there at the back of the stage? It's not an actor, it's a
fire-place. We shall have to send for the bricklayers, the
marble-workers, to move it. Maury, do get a move on, confound you!"

Maury shifted his position.

"He may crush us in his downfall. I realize that it will not be your
fault, General. Your proclamation is excellent. You promise them a
constitution, liberty, equality. It is Machiavellian."

Durville replied:

"And in the best sense. An incorrigible breed, they are making ready to
violate the oaths that they have not yet taken, and, because they lie,
they believe themselves Machiavellis. What will you do with absolute
power, you simpletons?"

The strident voice of the author ground out:

"You are right off the track, Dauville."

"I?" asked the astonished Durville.

"Yes, you, Dauville, you do not understand a word of what you are
saying."

In order to humiliate them, "to take them down a peg," this man who, in
the whole course of his life, had never forgotten the name of a
dairy-woman or a hall-porter, disdained to remember the names of the
most illustrious actors.

"Dauville, my friend, just do