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The men most highly placed in literature at the time when I came to Paris were MM. de Chateaubriand, Jouy, Lemercier, Arnault, Etienne, Baour-Lormian, Béranger, Charles Nodier, Viennet Scribe, Théaulon, Soumet, Casimir Delavigne, Lucien Arnault, Ancelot, Lamartine, Victor Hugo, Désaugiers, and Alfred de Vigny. After them came names half literary, half political, such as MM. Cousin, Salvandy, Yillemain, Thiers, Augustin Thierry, Michelet, Mignet, Vitet, Cavé, Mérimée, and Guizot. Others, who were not yet known, but were coming forward, were Balzac, Soulié, De Musset, Sainte-Beuve, Auguste Barbier, Alphonse Karr, Théophile Gautier. Madame Sand was not known until her "Indiana," in 1828. I knew all this constellation, some of them as friends and supporters, others as enemies.

In December, 1823, Talma made perhaps the greatest success of his life in Delavigne's "L'Ecole des Vieillards," in which his power of modulating his voice to the various emotions of old age was superbly shown. But Talma was never content with his triumphs; he awaited eagerly the rise of a new drama; and when I confided to him my ambitions, he would urge me to be quick and succeed within his day. Art was all that he lived for. How wonderful a thing is art, more faithful than a friend or lover!

On the first day of 1824 I rose to be a regular clerk at 1,500 francs, and determined to bring up my mother from the country. It was now nine months since I had seen her. So she sold her tobacco shop and came up to Paris with a little furniture and a hundred louis. We were both very glad to be united, though she was anxious about my future.

I had by this time learned my ignorance of much that was necessary to my success as a dramatist, and began to devote every hour of my leisure to study, attending the theatre as often as I could get a pass. A young medical man named Thibaut helped me much in my education; he took me to the hospital, where I picked up a knowledge of medicine and surgery which has repeatedly done service in my novels, and I learned from him the actions of poisons, such as I have used in "Monte Cristo."

I read also under the guidance of Lassagne, beginning with "Ivanhoe," in which the pictures of mediæval life cleared the clouds from my vision and gave me a far wider horizon. Next the vast forests, prairies, and oceans of Cooper held me; and then I came to Byron, who died in Greece at the very time when I was entering on my apprenticeship to poetry. The romantic movement in France was beginning to invade literature and the drama, but its expression was still most evident in the younger painters.

My mother's little capital only lasted eighteen months, and I found myself forced to supplement my salary by other work. I had until now collaborated with Adolphe, but all in vain, and we now determined to associate Ph. Rousseau with our efforts. The three of us together quickly produced a vaudeville in twenty-one scenes, "La Chasse et l'Amour," of which I wrote the first seven scenes, Adolphe the second seven, and Rousseau the conclusion. The piece was rejected at the Gymnase, but accepted at the Ambigu; and my share of the profits came to six francs a night.

A.M. Porcher, who always had a pleasant welcome and an open purse for a literary man, lent me 300 francs on the security of my receipts, and with that money I printed a volume of three stories under the title of "Nouvelles Contemporaines," of which, however, only four copies were sold. But the next adventure was more profitable. A play, by Lassagne and myself, "La Noce et l'Enterrement," was presented at the Porte-Sainte-Martin in November 1826, and brought me eight francs a night for forty nights.

III.--Under Shakespeare's Spell

As recently as 1822 an English theatrical company, which had opened at the Porte-Sainte-Martin Theatre, had been hissed and pelted off the stage for offering the dramas of the barbaric Shakespeare. But when, in September 1827, another English company brought Shakespeare's plays to the Odéon, this contempt for English literature had changed to ardent admiration--so quickly had the mind of Paris broadened. Shakespeare had been translated by Guizot, and everyone had read Scott, Cooper, and Byron.

The English season was opened by Sheridan's "Rivals," followed by Allingham's "Fortune's Freak." Then came "Hamlet," which infinitely surpassed all my expectations. Kemble's Hamlet was amazing, and Miss Smithson's Ophelia adorable. From that very night, but not before, I knew what the theatre was. I had seen for the first time real men and women, of flesh and blood, moved by real passions. I understood Talma's continual lament, his incessant desire for plays which should show him, not as a hero only, but also as a man. "Romeo and Juliet," "Othello," and all the other masterpieces followed. Then, in their turn, Macready and Kean appeared in Paris.