Chapter XVII: Collaboration 364

BOOK IV

CHAPTER I

The feudal edifice and the industrial—The workmen of Lyons—M. Bouvier-Dumolard—General Roguet—Discussion and signing of the tariff regulating the price of the workmanship of fabrics—The makers refuse to submit to it—Artificial prices for silk-workers—Insurrection[Pg xi] of Lyons—Eighteen millions on the civil list—Timon's calculations—An unlucky saying of M. de Montalivet 376

CHAPTER II

Death of Mirabeau—The accessories of Charles VII.—A shooting party—Montereau—A temptation I cannot resist—Critical position in which my shooting companions and I find ourselves—We introduce ourselves into an empty house by breaking into it at night—Inspection of the premises—Improvised supper—As one makes one's bed, so one lies on it—I go to see the dawn rise—Fowl and duck shooting—Preparations for breakfast—Mother Galop 388

CHAPTER III

Who Mother Galop was—Why M. Dupont-Delporte was absent— How I quarrelled with Viardot—Rabelais's quarter of an hour—Providence No. I—The punishment of Tantalus—A waiter who had not read Socrates—Providence No. 2—A breakfast for four—Return to Paris 397

CHAPTER IV

Le Masque de fer—Georges' suppers—The garden of the Luxembourg by moonlight—M. Scribe and the Clerc de la Basoche—M. d'Épagny and Le Clerc et le Théologien—Classical performances at the Théâtre-Français—Les Guelfes, by M. Arnault—Parenthesis—Dedicatory epistle to the prompter 406

CHAPTER V

M. Arnault's Pertinax—Pizarre, by M. Fulchiron—M. Fulchiron as a politician—M. Fulchiron as magic poet—A word about M. Viennet—My opposite neighbour at the performance of Pertinax—Splendid failure of the play—Quarrel with my vis-à-vis—The newspapers take it up—My reply in the Journal de Paris—Advice of M. Pillet 419

CHAPTER VI

Chateaubriand ceases to be a peer of France—He leaves the country—Béranger's song thereupon—Chateaubriand as versifier—First night of Charles VII.—Delafosse's vizor—Yaqoub and Frédérick-Lemaître—La Reine d'Espagne—M. Henri de Latouche—His works, talent and character—Interlude of La Reine d'Espagne—Preface of the play—Reports of the pit collected by the author 432

[Pg xii]

CHAPTER VII

Victor Escousse and Auguste Lebras 440