King to spare her lover's life, and Louis, on
investigating the matter, discovers that Cornelius is a somnambulist,
and has been robbing himself and burying his gold. On being told of
this, the old money-lender has no peace of mind, fearing the King will
take all his treasure, and ultimately cuts his own throat. In Scribe's
parody, for a parody the piece virtually is, the scene is laid in
England. John Turnel, the Sheriff of London, is the somnambulist, and
he suspects his own daughter and his cook of stealing his money. But,
differing from Cornelius, he accepts the situation when the truth is
revealed to him under circumstances that make him as ridiculous as the
spectre of Tappington in the _Ingoldsby Legends_; and, as a comic
opera generally ends happily, he consents to the marriage of his
daughter, Camilla, and of Keat, the cook, with their respective
swains.

An English setting was likewise given by Scribe to his play of
_Helene_, suggested by Balzac's _Honorine_, which was staged at the
Gymnase in 1846. Helene is a young orphan who draws and paints for her
living, and has the good fortune to have all her canvases bought at
advantageous prices by a rich dealer named Crosby. But suddenly she
learns that the dealer is acting in behalf of a certain Lord
Clavering, and, fearing some underhand designs, she refuses to keep
the money that has been paid her. Smitten by her disinterestedness as
well as by her beauty, Lord Clavering would gladly marry her, but is
bound by his word plighted to Lord Dunbar's daughter. However, the
latter elopes with another nobleman, and Clavering marries Helene.
This pretty theme, developed by the actress Rose Cheri, made a huge
hit.

Nearly as great was the actress's success at the same theatre in 1849,
when she played the principal role in Clairville's _Madame Marneffe_ a
version of _Cousin Bette_, but very much modified, since Bette is
eliminated altogether, and Valerie Marneffe, instead of being a
depraved creature, is merely a clever woman of the world, who avenges
her father's ruin on the Baron Hulot and Crevel, they being mainly
responsible for it. When Balzac was at Wierzchownia, on his last
visit, he wrote to his mother asking her to go to the theatrical
agent's in order to receive his third of the receipts produced by the
piece. These author's royalties must have helped his purse
considerably.

In the year after the novelist's death, the applauded representation
of _Mercadet_, a