'Well, I don't care if I do,' answered the painter, whom the sight of one friend, and the expectation of seeing another, had made quite a different being from the David of the morning. 'Here goes for Leonidas; but, remember, I give you fair warning--I shall go to sleep. I have scarcely ever been in a theatre that I did not take a sound nap.'
'But when Talma plays, plaudits will keep you awake, M. David,' said the courtly M. Lesec; and this seasonable compliment obtained for him a smile, and an invitation for the next day, so flattering to his vanity that, even at the risk of compromising himself with the Prince of Orange, he unhesitatingly accepted.
That evening, between six and seven o'clock, the old French painter, a Baron of the Empire, entered the theatre in full dress, and with a new red ribbon in his button-hole; but, as if shrinking from notice, he took his seat at the back of the stage-box, reserved for him by his friend Talma, with M. Lesec by his side, prouder, more elated, more frizzled and befrilled, than if he had been appointed first-commissioner of finance. But notwithstanding all the care of the modest artist to preserve his incognito, it was soon whispered through the theatre that he was one of the audience; and it was not long before he was pointed out, when instantly the whole house stood up respectfully, and repeated cheers echoed from pit to vaulted roof. The prince himself was among the first to offer this tribute to the illustrious exile, who, confused, agitated, and scarcely able to restrain his tears, bowed to the audience rather awkwardly, as he whispered to M. Lesec: 'So, then, I am still remembered. I thought no one at Brussels cared whether I was dead or alive.'
Soon Talma appeared as Leonidas; and in his turn engrossed every eye, every thought of that vast assembly. A triple round of applause hailed every speech uttered by the generous Spartan. The painter of the Sabines, of Brutus, of the Horatii, of the Coronation, seemed to heed neither the noisy acclamations nor the deep silence that succeeded each other. Mute, motionless, transfixed, he heard not the plaudits: it was not Talma he saw, not Talma he was listening to. He was at Thermopylæ by the side of Leonidas himself; ready to die with him and his three hundred heroes. Never had he been so deeply moved. He had talked of sleep, but he was as much alive, as eager, as animated, as if he were an actual sharer in the heroic devotedness that was the subject of the drama. For some moments after the curtain fell, he seemed equally absorbed; it was not till he was out of the theatre, and in the street, that he recovered sufficiently to speak; and then it was only to repeat every five minutes: 'What a noble talent it is! What a power he has had over me!'