balls and the pea-shooters. I was much affected too by the death of
Arthur, a charming page in a violet dress, played by Mile. Despreaux,
who afterwards became Madame Allan. I had no eyes for anybody else. As
we were going away, my father leading me by the hand, we found the
Duchesse de Guise, Mademoiselle Mars, panting, and wrapped in a rose-
coloured satin cloak lined with swansdown, waiting for the compliments
which my father showered on her. She had not impressed me nearly so much
as the page in violet.

Talking of Henri III., a play we took great interest in, because its
author, quite unknown at the time, belonged to our household, I will
recall here a recollection connected with the name of Alexandre Dumas.
Everybody knows he began life as a clerk in my father's library at the
Palais-Royal. The chief librarian was Vatout, whose works, and perhaps
too some well-known songs, have gained him a seat in the Academy. But
Vatout was never in the library by any chance. The real librarian, and a
very worthy fellow he was, was a man of the name of Tallencourt. He was
an old soldier, and this caused him to be elected captain of a grenadier
company in the Citizen Guard--a position to which, in the first blush of
his enthusiasm, he attached an exaggerated importance. Well, some time
after Dumas had resigned his position in the library, in the midst of
the riots which occurred so frequently about that period, we saw
Tallencourt come home one day in full warlike attire, with his bearskin
cap and his cloak, and a very gloomy countenance." What do you think has
just happened to me? I was in command of a patrol in my ward--as we had
heard several shots, we were advancing with the greatest caution, in
double file, keeping close to the walls, with our eyes and ears open.
All at once I heard a shout--'Here's for you, de Tallencourt!' and then
a shot. Well, the shout--that voice--it was Alexandre Dumas' voice!"
"Oh, nonsense!" we all cried. But he stuck to it--and we resisted the