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 Odeon, 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.

I knew now that everything in the world of drama derives from Shakespeare, as everything in the natural world depends on the sun; I knew that, after God, Shakespeare was the great creator.  And from the night when I had first seen, in these English players, men on the stage forgetful of the stage, and revealing themselves, by natural eloquence and manner, as God’s creatures, with all their good and evil, their passions and weaknesses, from that night my vocation was irrevocable.  A new confidence was given me, and I boldly adventured on the future.  Besides observing mankind, I entered with redoubled zest upon the dissection and study of the words of the great dramatists.

My attention had been turned to the story of Christine and the murder of Monaldeschi by an exquisite little bas-relief in the Salon; and reading up the history in the biographical dictionary, I saw that it held the possibility of a tremendous drama.  The subject haunted my mind continually, and soon my “Christine” came into life and was written.  But Talma was dead; I had now no friend at the theatre; and I cast about me in vain for the means of getting my play produced.

Baron Taylor was at this time the official charged with the acceptance or rejection of plays, and Charles Nodier, so Lassagne informed me, was on intimate terms with him.  Lassagne suggested that I should write to Nodier, reminding him of our chat on the night of “The Vampire,” and asking for an introduction to the Baron.  I did so, and the reply came from Baron Taylor himself, offering me an interview at seven in the morning.