whom she loves; and, when the
Bluebeard, Valdini, surprises his victim and proceeds to the
immurement, his first wife slips in most conveniently and whisks him
off, leaving Valentine free to marry Lara.

It is curious to notice how, in almost every instance, the first
adapting dramatists transformed Balzac's tragedies into comedies,
softening the stern facts of life and its injustices, and meting out
the juster rewards and punishments which the novelist's realism
forbade.

In Antony Beraud's _Gars_, a play drawn from the _Chouans_ and
performed at the Ambigu-Comique in 1837, the hero and heroine, instead
of dying, are saved by a political amnesty decreed by Napoleon; and
the curtain falls to the cry of _Vive l'Empereur_. More than fifty
years later, in 1894, the same theatre gave a close rendering of the
dramatic portions of the _Chouans_, due to the collaboration of Berton
and Blavet, the tragic ending being preserved, with all the effects
properly belonging to it.

Commonplace, like the _Gars_, were the arrangements of the _Search for
the Absolute_, in 1837, and _Cesar Birotteau_ in 1838. The former was
staged under the bizarre title, _A+Mx=O+X, or the Dream of a Savant_.
The authors, Bayard and Bieville, concealed their identity under an
algebraic X as well; and their piece, which made Balthazar Claes a
Parisian chemist and a candidate to a vacant chair in the College de
France, failed to attract at the Gymnase, in spite of Bouffe's talent
and the redemption of Balthazar.

_Cesar Birotteau_ was performed at the Pantheon Theatre, which was
demolished in 1846. The love-story of Popinot and Cesarine, which is
so briefly sketched in the novel, assumed chief importance in Cormon's
adaptation, and, of course, Cesar does not die.

Scribe borrowed largely from the _Comedie Humaine_. His _Sheriff_
libretto for Halevy's music at the Opera Comique in 1839 was a
transmogrification of _Master Cornelius_. Balzac's Cornelius is Louis
XI's money-lender, who lives with his sister in an old mansion, next
to a house with the King's natural daughter, Marie de Sassenage,
occupies with her husband, the Comte de Sainte-Vallier. The old
money-lender, perceiving that his gold is disappearing, has had four of
his apprentices hanged on suspicion. The like fate now threatens Marie's
lover, Georges d'Estouteville, who in order to see her more safely,
has persuaded Cornelius to let him stay in his dwelling one night.
Marie appeals to the