At the appointed time, my heart beating fast, I rang the bell of his flat, and as I waited for someone to come, I wondered at a strange noise that was going on within—­a deep, monotonous recitation, interrupted by occasional explosions of rage in a higher voice.  I rang for the third time, and as a door opened within, the mysterious sounds doubled in volume.  Then the outer door opened, and the Baron’s old servant hurried me in.  “Come in, sir,” she said, “come in; the Baron is longing for you to come!” I found Baron Taylor in his bath, and beside him a playwright reading a tragedy.  The fellow had insisted on entering, had caught the examiner of plays in his bath, and was inflicting on him a play of over two thousand lines!  Undaunted by the Baron’s rage, and unmoved by my arrival, he proceeded with his reading, while I waited in the bedroom.

When Baron Taylor at last came in and got into bed, he was shivering with cold, and I proposed to put off my reading; but he would not hear of it, and trembling, I began my play.  At the end of each act the Baron himself asked for the next, and when it was finished he leapt from bed and called for his clothes that he might go and arrange for an immediate hearing before the committee at the Francais.

And so a special meeting was called, and I read “Christine” to a gathering of the greatest actors and actresses of the time, all fully dressed as if for a dance.  I have rarely seen a play meet with so great a success at this ordeal; I was off my head with pleasure; the play was accepted by acclamation.  I ran home to our rooms to tell my mother the great news of this great day, April 30, 1828, and then back to the office to copy out a heap of papers.

“Christine” was not, however, produced at this time.  Another play on the same subject, written by a M. Brault, had also been accepted by the committee, and its author was suffering from an illness from which it was impossible that he should recover.  Under these circumstances it was felt right to present the dying man’s play while he was able to see it, and I willingly acceded to the requests, made by his son and friends, that my work should stand aside.

IV.—­Dumas Arrives

But now, by a happy chance, in a book that lay open on a table in the office, I came across the suggestions for my “Henry III.”; and as soon as the plot had grown clear in my mind, I wrote the play in a couple of months.  I was only twenty-five, and this was only my second play; yet it is as well constructed as any of the fifty which I have since written.

Beranger, the great poet of democracy, and a man at that time of unrivalled influence, was present at a private reading of “Henry III.,” and foretold its great success.  The official reading was on September 17, 1828, when the play was accepted by acclamation, and the parts were cast.  But my good fortune had not got into the papers, and this, as well as my frequent absences at the theatre, had done me no good at the office.  So I was sent for one morning by M. de Broval, the director-general, and was given, in set terms, my choice between my situation as a clerk and my literary career.  Only one choice was now possible, and from that very day my salary ceased.