in vain. My ardour for the great city grew daily
until it became irresistible; and at length, in the temporary absence of
my notary, I made a three days' escape with a friend, saw Talma act, and
was even introduced to him by Adolphe. His playing opened a new world to
me, and the great man playfully foretold my destiny.

As one enchanted, I returned to the office, accepted my employers'
rebuke as a dismissal, and went home. I was without a penny, but was
immediately visited by a wonderful run of fortune. Among other strokes
of luck, I sold my rascal dog for $25 to an infatuated Englishman, and
won six hundred glasses of absinthe at a single game of billiards from
the proprietor of the Paris coach, commuting them for a dozen free
passages. I said good-bye to the dear mother and the saintly _abbe_, and
found myself early on a May morning at Adolphe's door. I had come to try
my fortune with my father's brothers-at-arms.

Of course, there were bitter disappointments, and when I called on
General Foy he was my last hope. Alas! did I know this subject, or that,
or that? My answer was always "No." But the general would at least keep
my address; and no sooner had I written it down than he cried aloud that
we were saved! It appeared that I had a good writing, and the Duke of
Orleans needed another copyist in his office. The next morning I was
engaged at a salary of twelve hundred francs. I came home for three days
with my mother, and on the advice of the bird-catcher took a ticket at
the lottery, which brought me 146 francs. And so, with a few bits of
furniture from home, I took up my lodging in a Parisian garret.

_II.--Launched in Paris_

Now began a life of daily work at the office, with agreeable companions,
and of evenings spent at the theatre or in study. On the first night I
went to the Porte-Sainte-Martin Theatre, where a melodrama, "The
Vampire," was presented, and fell into conversation with my neighbour, a
man of about forty, of fascinating discourse, who was inordinately
impatient with the piece, and was at last turned out of the theatre for
his expressions of disapproval. His talk, far more interesting than the
play, turned on rare editions of old books, on the sylphs, gnomes,
Undines of the invisible world, on microscopic creatures he had himself
discovered, and on vampires he had seen in Illyria. I learned next day
that this was the celebrated author and bibliophile, Charles Nodier,
himself one of the anonym