The subject pleased him, and the contract was signed on the spot. I wished to go to Varennes; I was not acquainted with the locality, and I confess there is one thing I cannot do; I am unable to write a novel or a drama about localities with which I am not familiar. This gives such a character of veracity to all that I write, that the personages whom I create become eventually such integral parts of the places in which I planted them that, as a consequence, many end by believing in their actual existence.
There are even some people who claim to have known them. In this connection, dear readers, I am going to tell you something in confidenceβonly do not repeat it. This drawing was for the use of the scene painter. The artist to whom I had recourse forwarded me the desired plan.
But that is what comes from visiting these localities in person. Therefore, I wished to visit Varennes before commencing my novel, because the first chapter was to open in that city.
I therefore proposed to my young friend, Paul Bocage, that he accompany me to Varennes. I was sure in advance that he would accept. To merely propose such a trip to his picturesque and charming mind was to make him bound from his chair to the tram.
There we bargained with a livery-stable keeper, who agreed, for a consideration of ten francs a day, to furnish us with a horse and carriage. I recognized with a degree of satisfaction which you will easily comprehend, that not a single historian had been historical, and with still greater satisfaction that M. Thiers had been the least accurate of all these historians.
