“No,” Balzac answered, “but I should prefer the nineteenth; the number is more quaint.”
This plan amicably arranged, the actors agreed upon, and the date of the first representation settled, Balzac proceeded to talk finance.
“Beside the customary royalty, I wish the entire house for the first three nights.”
“But what shall I get?” Lireux timidly inquired.
“Half the profits, which will be incalculable.”
Lireux reflected for a moment. “Very good,” he said; “I accept.”
From the first rehearsal Balzac recommenced with “Quinola” the treatment to which “Vautrin” had been subjected. Sometimes a phrase was altered, sometimes a scene, while at others an entire act was remodeled. That which pleased him one day displeased him the next, and each rehearsal brought fresh corrections and alterations, until the original manuscript was entirely obliterated with erasures and new ideas.
Besides undergoing the mental and physical labor attendant on these rehearsals, Balzac undertook the entire charge of the sale of the seats, or rather the entire charge of refusing seats to all comers; for the box office was opened merely for form’s sake, and tickets were to be had only of Balzac in person. To obtain one was not so much a question of money as of position and influence. The orchestra stalls he reserved for the nobility, the avant-scènes for the court circle; the boxes in the first gallery were for the ambassadors and plenipotentiaries; the second gallery was for the statesmen, the third for the moneyed aristocracy, the fourth for the select bourgeoisie. “As for the critics,” he said, “they can buy their seats, if there are any left, and there will be none.”
As a rule, therefore, when any one asked for a box, Balzac would reply, “Too late: last one just sold to the Princesse de Machin and the Grande Duchesse de Chose.” During the first few days of the sale, seats were in consequence sold at extraordinary prices; but later on the anxiety to obtain them decreased, and during the week preceding the first performance Balzac was very glad to dispose of them to any one at the regular rates.
On the 6th of March, 1842, thirteen days before the play was to be performed, he wrote to a friend as follows:—