The year 1829 was that in which my position was made and my future assured.  But it opened with a great sorrow.  I was one day at the theatre when a messenger ran in to tell me that my mother had fallen ill.  I sent for a doctor, hurried to her side, and found that she was unable to speak, and that one side of her body was totally paralysed.  My sister was soon with us, having come up to town for the first night of the play.  My state of mind during the following days may be imagined, under the dreadful affliction of seeing my mother dying, and under the enormous burden of producing my first play.

On the day before the presentation of “Henry III.,” I went to the palace, sent in my name to the Duke of Orleans, and boldly asked him the favour, or, rather, the act of justice, that he would be present at the theatre on the first night.  I pointed out to him that he had given ear to those who had charged me with vanity and willfulness, and begged him to come and hear the verdict of the public.  When his Highness told me that he could not come, because he had over a score of princes and princesses dining with him on that night, I suggested that he should bring them too.  And so it was arranged.

February 11, so long awaited, dawned at last, and I spent the whole day until evening with my mother.  I had given an order for the play to every one of my old colleagues at the office; I had a tiny stage-box; my sister had a box in which she entertained Boulanger, De Vigny, and Victor Hugo; every other place in the theatre was sold.  The circle was gorgeous with princes decorated with their orders, and the boxes with the nobility, the ladies all glittering with diamonds.

The curtain went up.  I have never felt anything to compare with the cool breath of air from the stage, which fanned my heated brow.  The first act was received sympathetically, and was followed by applause, and I seized the interval to run and see my mother.  The second act passed without disapproval.  The third, I knew, would mean success or disaster.  It called forth cries of fear, but also thunders of applause; never before had they seen a dramatic situation so realistically, I had almost said so brutally, presented.  Again I visited my mother; how I wished she could have been there!  Then came the fourth and fifth acts, which were received by a tumultuous frenzy of delight; and when the author’s name was called, the Duke of Orleans himself stood up to honour it.

The days of struggle were over, the triumph had come.  Utterly unknown that evening, I was next morning the talk of Paris.  They little knew that I had spent the night on the floor, by the bed of my dying mother.

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JOHN EVELYN

Diary