Chapter I: Front Matter

An unpublished chapter from the _Diable boiteux_--History
of Samud and the beautiful Doña Lorenza

CHAPTER II

The good my flouting at the hands of the two Parisians
had done me--The young girls of Villers-Cotterets--My
three friends-- First love affairs

CHAPTER III

Adolphe de Leuven--His family--Unpublished details
concerning the death of Gustavus III.--The Count de
Ribbing--The shoemakers of the château de Villers-Hellon

CHAPTER IV

Adolphe's quatrain--The water-hen and King William--Lunch
in the wood--The irritant powder, the frogs and the
cock--The doctor's spectre--De Leuven, Hippolyte Leroy
and I are exiled from the drawing-room--Unfortunate
result of a geographical error--M. Paroisse

CHAPTER V

Amédée de la Ponce--He teaches me what work is--M.
Arnault and his two sons--A journey by diligence--A
gentleman fights me with cough lozenges and I fight him
with my fists--I learn the danger from which I escaped

CHAPTER VI

First dramatic impressions--The _Hamlet of Ducis_--_The
Bourbons en 1815_--Quotations from it

CHAPTER VII

The events of 1814 again--Marmont, Duc de Raguse,
Maubreuil and Roux-Laborie at M. de Talleyrand's--The
_Journal des Débats_ and the _Journal de Paris_--Lyrics
of the Bonapartists and enthusiasm of the Bourbons--End
of the Maubreuil affair--Plot against the life of the
Emperor--The Queen of Westphalia is robbed of her money
and jewels 63

CHAPTER VIII

Account of the proceedings relative to the abstraction
of the jewels of the Queen of Westphalia by the Sieur de
Maubreuil--Chamber of the Court of Appeal--The sitting of
17 April, 1817

BOOK II

CHAPTER I

The last shot of Waterloo--Temper of the provinces in
1817, 1818 and 1819--The _Messéniennes_--The _Vêpres
siciliennes--Louis IX._--Appreciation of these two
tragedies--A phrase of Terence--My claim to a similar
sentiment--Three o'clock in the morning--The course of
love-making--_Valeat res ludrica_

CHAPTER II

Return of Adolphe de Leuven--He shows me a corner of the
artistic and literary world--The death of Holbein and the
death of Orcagna--Entrance into the green-rooms--Bürger's
_Lénore_ --First thoughts of my vocation

CHAPTER III

The Cerberus of the rue de Largny--I tame it--The
ambush-- Madame Lebègue--A confession

CHAPTER IV

De Leuven makes me his collaborator--The _Major de
Strasbourg_-- My first _couplet-Chauvin_--The _Dîner
d'amis_--The _Abencérages_

CHAPTER V

Unrecorded stories concerning the assassination of the
Duc de Berry.

CHAPTER VI

Carbonarism 132

CHAPTER VII

My hopes--Disappointment--M. Deviolaine is appointed
forest-ranger to the Duc d'Orléans--His coldness
towards me--Half promises--First cloud on my
love-affairs--I go to spend three months with my
brother-in-law at Dreux--The news waiting for
me on my return--Muphti--Walls and hedges--The
summer-house--Tennis--Why I gave up playing it--The
wedding party in the wood

CHAPTER VIII

I leave Villers-Cotterets to be second or third
clerk at Crespy--M. Lefèvre--His character--My
journeys to Villers-Cotterets-- The _Pélerinage
d'Ermenonville_--Athénaïs--New matter sent to Adolphe--An
uncontrollable desire to pay a visit to Paris-- How
this desire was accomplished--The journey--Hôtel des
Vieux-Augustins--Adolphe--_Sylla_--Talma

CHAPTER IX

The theatre ticket--The _Café du Roi_--Auguste
Lafarge--Théaulon--Rochefort--Ferdinand Langlé--People
who dine and people who don't--Canaris--First sight of
Talma--Appreciation of Mars and Rachel--Why Talma has no
successor_--Sylla_ and the Censorship--Talma's box--A
cab-drive after midnight-- The return to Crespy--M.
Lefèvre explains that a machine, in order to work well,
needs all its wheels--I hand in my resignation as his
third clerk

BOOK III

CHAPTER I

I return to my mother's--The excuse I give concerning my
return-- The calfs lights--Pyramus and Cartouche--The
intelligence of the fox more developed than that of the
dog--Death of Cartouche--Pyramus's various gluttonous
habits

CHAPTER II

Hope in Laffitte--A false hope--New projects--M.
Lecomier--How and on what conditions I clothe myself
anew--Bamps, tailor, 12 rue du Helder--Bamps at
Villers-Cotterets--I visit our estate along with
him--Pyramus follows a butcher lad--An Englishman who
loved gluttonous dogs--I sell Pyramus--My first hundred
francs--The use to which they are put--Bamps departs for
Paris--Open credit

CHAPTER III

My mother is obliged to sell her land and her house--The
residu-- The Piranèses--An architect at twelve hundred
francs salary--I discount my first bill--Gondon--How
I was nearly killed at his house--The fifty
francs--Cartier--The game of billiards--How six hundred
small glasses of absinthe equalled twelve journeys to
Paris

CHAPTER IV

How I obtain a recommendation to General Foy--M. Danré
of Vouty advises my mother to let me go to Paris--My
good-byes--Laffitte and Perregaux--The three things
which Maître Mennesson asks me not to forget--The Abbé
Grégoire's advice and the discussion with him--I leave
Villers-Cotterets

CHAPTER V

I find Adolphe again--The pastoral drama--First
steps--The Duc de Bellune--General Sébastiani--His
secretaries and his snuff-boxes--The fourth floor, small
door to the left--The general who painted battles

CHAPTER VI

_Régulus_--Talma and the play--General Foy--The letter of
recommendation and the interview--The Duc de Bellune's
reply--I obtain a place as temporary clerk with M. le Duc
d'Orléans--Journey to Villers-Cotterets to tell my mother
the good news--No. 9--I gain a prize in a lottery

CHAPTER VII

I find lodgings--Hiraux's son--Journals and journalists
in 1823--By being saved the expense of a dinner I am
enabled to go to the play at the Porte-Saint-Martin--My
entry into the pit--Sensation caused by my hair--I am
turned out--How I am obliged to pay for three places in
order to have one--A polite gentleman who reads Elzevirs

CHAPTER VIII

My neighbour--His portrait--The _Pastissier françois_--A
course in bibliomania--Madame Méchin and the governor of
Soissons--Cannons and Elzevirs

CHAPTER IX

Prologue of the _Vampire_--The style offends my
neighbour's ear-- First act--Idealogy--The rotifer--What
the animal is--Its conformation, its life, its death and
its resurrection

CHAPTER X

Second act of the _Vampire_--Analysis--My neighbour
again objects--He has seen a vampire--Where and
how--A statement which records the existence of
vampires--Nero--Why he established the race of hired
applauders--My neighbour leaves the orchestra

CHAPTER XI

A parenthesis_--Hariadan Barberousse_ at
Villers-Cotterets--I play the rôle of Don Ramire as an
amateur--My costume--The third act of the _Vampire_--My
friend the bibliomaniac whistles at the most critical
moment--He is expelled from the theatre--Madame
Allan-Dorval--Her family and her childhood--Philippe--His
death and his funeral

BOOK IV

CHAPTER I

My beginning at the office--Ernest Basset--Lassagne--M.
Oudard--I see M. Deviolaine--M. le Chevalier de
Broval--His portrait--Folded letters and oblong
letters--How I acquire a splendid reputation for sealing
letters--I learn who was my neighbour the bibliomaniac
and whistler

CHAPTER II

Illustrious contemporaries--The sentence written on my
foundation stone--My reply--I settle down in the place
des Italiens-- M. de Leuven's table--M. Louis-Bonaparte's
witty saying--Lassagne gives me my first lesson in
literature and history

CHAPTER III

Adolphe reads a play at the Gymnase--M.
Dormeuil--_Kenilworth Castle_--M. Warez and
Soulié--Mademoiselle Lévesque--The Arnault family--The
_Feuille--Marius à Minturnes_--Danton's epigram--The
reversed passport--Three fables--_Germanicus_
--Inscriptions and epigrams--Ramponneau--The young
man and the tilbury_--Extra ecclesiam nulla est
salus_--Madame Arnault

CHAPTER IV

Frédéric Soulié, his character, his talent--Choruses
of the various plays, sung as prologues and
epilogues--Transformation of the vaudeville--The Gymnase
and M. Scribe--The _Folie de Waterloo_

CHAPTER V

The Duc d'Orléans--My first interview with
him--Maria-Stella-Chiappini--Her attempts to
gain rank--Her history--The statement of the Duc
d'Orléans--Judgment of the Ecclesiastical Court of
Faenza--Rectification of Maria-Stella's certificate of
birth

CHAPTER VI

The "year of trials"--The case of Potier and the
director of the theatre of the Porte-Saint-Martin--Trial
and condemnation of Magallon--The anonymous
journalist--Beaumarchais sent to Saint-Lazare--A few
words on censorships in general--Trial of Benjamin
Constant--Trial of M. de Jouy--A few words concerning
the author of _Sylla_--Three letters extracted from the
_Ermite de la Chaussée-d'Antin_--Louis XVIII. as author

CHAPTER VII

The house in the rue Chaillot--Four poets and a
doctor--Corneille and the Censorship--Things M. Faucher
does not know--Things the President of the Republic ought
to know

BOOK V

CHAPTER I

Chronology of the drama--Mademoiselle Georges
Weymer--Mademoiselle Raucourt--Legouvé and his
works--Marie-Joseph Chénier--His letter to the
company of the Comédie-Française--Young boys
_perfectionnés_--Ducis--His work

CHAPTER II

Bonaparte's attempts at discovering poets--Luce de
Lancival--Baour-Lormian--_Lebrun-Pindare_--Lucien
Bonaparte, the author--Début of Mademoiselle Georges--The
Abbé Geoffroy's critique--Prince Zappia--Hermione at
Saint-Cloud

CHAPTER III

Imperial literature--The _Jeunesse de Henri IV_--Mercier
and Alexandre Duval--The _Templiers_ and their
author--César Delrieu--Perpignan--Mademoiselle Georges'
rupture with the Théâtre-Français--Her flight to
Russia--The galaxy of kings--The tragédienne acts as
ambassador

CHAPTER IV

The Comédie-Française at Dresden--Georges returns
to the Théâtre-Français--The _Deux Gendres--Mahomet
II._--_Tippo-Saëb_-- 1814--Fontainebleau--The allied
armies enter Paris--Lilies--Return from the isle of
Elba--Violets--Asparagus stalks--Georges returns to Paris

CHAPTER V

The drawbacks to theatres which have the monopoly of
a great actor--Lafond takes the rôle of Pierre de
Portugal upon Talma declining it--Lafond--His school--His
sayings--Mademoiselle Duchesnois--Her failings and her
abilities-_Pierre de Portugal_ succeeds

CHAPTER VI

General Riégo--His attempted insurrection--His escape
and flight--He is betrayed by the brothers Lara--His
trial--His execution

CHAPTER VII

The inn of the _Tête-Noire_--Auguste
Ballet--Castaing--His trial--His attitude towards the
audience and his words to the jury--His execution

CHAPTER VIII

Casimir Delavigne--An appreciation of the man and of the
poet-- The origin of the hatred of the old school of
literature for the new--Some reflections upon _Marino
Faliero_ and the _Enfants d'Édouard_--Why Casimir
Delavigne was more a comedy writer than a tragic
poet--Where he found the ideas for his chief plays

CHAPTER IX

Talma in the _École des Vieillards_--One of his
letters--Origin of his name and of his family--_Tamerlan_
at the pension Verdier--Talma's début--Dugazon's
advice--More advice from Shakespeare--Opinions of the
critics of the day upon the débutant--Talma's passion for
his art

THE MEMOIRS OF ALEXANDRE DUMAS