The first representation of the "École des Vieillards" played by Talma and Mademoiselle Mars was a great occasion. It was the first time indeed that these two great actors had appeared together in the same play.
Casimir Delavigne had laid down his own conditions. Expelled from the Théâtre-Francais under pretext that "his work was badly put together", he had profited by the proscription. His "Messéniennes," his "Vêpres siciliennes", his "Comédiens" and the "Paria," and perhaps even more than all these, the need felt by the Opposition party for a Liberal poet to set against Lamartine and Hugo, the Royalist poets of the period, had made the author of the "École des Vieillards" so popular that, with this popularity, all difficulties were cleared away, perhaps even too smoothly; for, like Richelieu in his litter, Casimir Delavigne returned to the Théâtre-Francais not through the door, but by means of a gap.
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