“If it were not, how could you make it tell against Nathan’s book?”

asked Lousteau. “That is the first manner of demolishing a book, my

boy; it is the pickaxe style of criticism. But there are plenty of

other ways. Your education will complete itself in time. When you

are absolutely obliged to speak of a man whom you do not like, for

proprietors and editors are sometimes under compulsion, you bring out

a neutral special article. You put the title of the book at the head of

it, and begin with general remarks, on the Greeks and the Romans if you

like, and wind up with—‘and this brings us to Mr. So-and-so’s book,

which will form the subject of a second article.’ The second article

never appears, and in this way you snuff out the book between two

promises. But in this case you are writing down, not Nathan, but

Dauriat; he néeds the pickaxe style. If the book is really good, the

pickaxe does no harm; but it goes to the core of it if it is bad. In the

first case, no one but the publisher is any the worse; in the second,

you do the public a service. Both methods, moreover, are equally

serviceable in political criticism.”

Étienne Lousteau’s cruel lesson opened up possibilities for Lucien’s

imagination. He understood this craft to admiration.

“Let us go to the office,” said Lousteau; “we shall find our friends

there, and we will agree among ourselves to charge at Nathan; they will

laugh, you will see.”

Arrived in the Rue Saint-Fiacre, they went up to the room in the roof

where the paper was made up, and Lucien was surprised and gratified no

less to see the alacrity with which his comrades proceeded to demolish

Nathan’s book. Hector Merlin took up a piece of paper and wrote a few

lines for his own newspaper.—

“A second edition of M. Nathan’s book is announced. We had

intended to keep silence with regard to that work, but its

apparent success obliges us to publish an article, not so much

upon the book itself as upon certain tendencies of the new school

of literature.”

At the head of the “Facetiae” in the morning’s paper, Lousteau inserted

the following note:—

“M. Dauriat is bringing out a second edition of M. Nathan’s book.

Evidently he does not know the legal maxim, _Non bis in idem_. All

honor to rash courage.”

Lousteau’s words had been like a torch for burning; Lucien’s hot desire

to be revenged on Dauriat took the place of conscience and inspiration.

For three days he never left Coralie’s room; he sat at work by the fire,

waited upon by Bérénice; petted, in moments of weariness, by the silent

and attentive Coralie; till, at the end of that time, he had made a

fair copy of about three columns of criticism, and an astonishingly good

piece of work.

It was nine o’clock in the evening when he ran round to the office,

found his associates, and read over his work to an attentive audience.

Félicien said not a syllable. He took up the manuscript, and made off

with it pell-mell down the staircase.

“What has come to him?” cried Lucien.

“He has taken your article straight to the printer,” said Hector Merlin.

“‘Tis a masterpiece; not a line to add, nor a word to take out.”

“There was no néed to do more than show you the way,” said Lousteau.

“I should like to see Nathan’s face when he reads this to-morrow,” said

another contributor, beaming with gentle satisfaction.

“It is as well to have you for a friend,” remarked Hector Merlin.

“Then it will do?” Lucien asked quickly.

“Blondet and Vignon will feel bad,” said Lousteau.

“Here is a short article which I have knocked together for you,” began

Lucien; “if it takes, I could write you a series.”

“Read it over,” said Lousteau, and Lucien read the first of the

delightful short papers which made the fortune of the little newspaper;

a series of sketches of Paris life, a portrait, a type, an ordinary

event, or some of the oddities of the great city. This specimen—“The

Man in the Street”—was written in a way that was fresh and original;

the thoughts were struck out by the shock of the words, the sounding

ring of the adverbs and adjectives caught the reader’s ear. The paper

was as different from the serious and profound article on Nathan as the

_Lettres persanes_ from the _Esprit des lois_.

“You are a born journalist,” said Lousteau. “It shall go in to-morrow.

Do as much of this sort of thing as you like.”

“Ah, by the by,” said Merlin, “Dauriat is furious about those two

bombshells hurled into his magazine. I have just come from him. He was

hurling imprecations, and in such a rage with Finot, who told him that

he had sold his paper to you. As for me, I took him aside and just said

a word in his ear. ‘The _Marguerites_ will cost you dear,’ I told him.

‘A man of talent comes to you, you turn the cold shoulder on him, and

send him into the arms of the newspapers.’”

“Dauriat will be dumfounded by the article on Nathan,” said Lousteau.

“Do you see now what journalism is, Lucien? Your revenge is beginning to

tell. The Baron Châtelet came here this morning for your address.

There was a cutting article upon him in this morning’s issue; he is a

weakling, that buck of the Empire, and he has lost his head. Have you

seen the paper? It is a funny article. Look, ‘Funeral of the Heron,

and the Cuttlefish-bone’s lament.’ Mme. de Bargeton is called the

Cuttlefish-bone now, and no mistake, and Châtelet is known everywhere as

Baron Heron.”

Lucien took up the paper, and could not help laughing at Vernou’s

extremely clever skit.

“They will capitulate soon,” said Hector Merlin.

Lucien merrily assisted at the manufacture of epigrams and jokes at the

end of the paper; and the associates smoked and chatted over the day’s

adventures, over the foibles of some among their number, or some new bit

of personal gossip. From their witty, malicious, bantering talk, Lucien

gained a knowledge of the inner life of literature, and of the manners

and customs of the craft.

“While they are setting up the paper, I will go round with you and

introduce you to the managers of your theatres, and take you behind the

scenes,” said Lousteau. “And then we will go to the Panorama-Dramatique,

and have a frolic in their dressing-rooms.”

Arm-in-arm, they went from theatre to theatre. Lucien was introduced

to this one and that, and enthroned as a dramatic critic. Managers

complimented him, actresses flung him side glances; for every one of

them knew that this was the critic who, by a single article, had gained

an engagement at the Gymnase, with twelve thousand francs a year, for

Coralie, and another for Florine at the Panorama-Dramatique with eight

thousand francs. Lucien was a man of importance. The little ovations

raised Lucien in his own eyes, and taught him to know his power. At

eleven o’clock the pair arrived at the Panorama-Dramatique; Lucien with

a careless air that worked wonders. Nathan was there. Nathan held out a

hand, which Lucien squeezed.

“Ah! my masters, so you have a mind to floor me, have you?” said Nathan,

looking from one to the other.

“Just you wait till to-morrow, my dear fellow, and you shall see how

Lucien has taken you in hand. Upon my word, you will be pleased. A piece

of serious criticism like that is sure to do a book good.”

Lucien reddened with confusion.

“Is it severe?” inquired Nathan.

“It is serious,” said Lousteau.

“Then there is no harm done,” Nathan rejoined. “Hector Merlin in the

greenroom of the Vaudeville was saying that I had been cut up.”

“Let him talk, and wait,” cried Lucien, and took refuge in Coralie’s

dressing-room. Coralie, in her alluring costume, had just come off the

stage.

Next morning, as Lucien and Coralie sat at breakfast, a carriage drove

along the Rue de Vendôme. The street was quiet enough, so that they

could hear the light sound made by an elegant cabriolet; and there was

that in the pace of the horse, and the manner of pulling up at the door,

which tells unmistakably of a thoroughbred. Lucien went to the window,

and there, in fact, beheld a splendid English horse, and no less a

person than Dauriat flinging the reins to his man as he stepped down.

“‘Tis the publisher, Coralie,” said Lucien.

“Let him wait, Bérénice,” Coralie said at once.

Lucien smiled at her presence of mind, and kissed her with a great rush

of tenderness. This mere girl had made his interests hers in a wonderful

way; she was quick-witted where he was concerned. The apparition of the

insolent publisher, the sudden and complete collapse of that prince

of charlatans, was due to circumstances almost entirely forgotten, so

utterly has the book trade changed during the last fifteen years.

From 1816 to 1827, when newspaper reading-rooms were only just beginning

to lend new books, the fiscal law pressed more heavily than ever

upon periodical publications, and necessity created the invention of

advertisements. Paragraphs and articles in the newspapers were the only

means of advertisement known in those days; and French newspapers before

the year 1822 were so small, that the largest sheet of those times was

not so large as the smallest daily paper of ours. Dauriat and Ladvocat,

the first publishers to make a stand against the tyranny of journalists,

were also the first to use the placards which caught the attention of

Paris by strange type, striking colors, vignettes, and (at a later time)

by lithograph illustrations, till a placard became a fairy-tale for the

eyes, and not unfrequently a snare for the purse of the amateur. So much

originality indeed was expended on placards in Paris, that one of that

peculiar kind of maniacs, known as a collector, possesses a complete

series.

At first the placard was confined to the shop-windows and stalls upon

the Boulevards in Paris; afterwards it spread all over France, till

it was supplanted to some extent by a return to advertisements in the

newspapers. But the placard, nevertheless, which continues to strike the

eye, after the advertisement and the book which is advertised are both

forgotten, will always be among us; it took a new lease of life when

walls were plastered with posters.

Newspaper advertising, the offspring of heavy stamp duties, a high rate

of postage, and the heavy deposits of caution-money required by the

government as security for good behavior, is within the reach of all who

care to pay for it, and has turned the fourth page of every journal

into a harvest field alike for the speculator and the Inland Revenue

Department. The press restrictions were invented in the time of M. de

Villele, who had a chance, if he had but known it, of destroying the

power of journalism by allowing newspapers to multiply till no one

took any notice of them; but he missed his opportunity, and a sort

of privilege was created, as it were, by the almost insuperable

difficulties put in the way of starting a new venture. So, in 1821, the

periodical press might be said to have power of life and death over the

creations of the brain and the publishing trade. A few lines among

the items of news cost a fearful amount. Intrigues were multiplied in

newspaper offices; and of a night when the columns were divided up,

and this or that article was put in or left out to suit the space, the

printing-room became a sort of battlefield; so much so, that the largest

publishing firms had writers in their pay to insert short articles in

which many ideas are put in little space. Obscure journalists of

this stamp were only paid after the insertion of the items, and not

unfrequently spent the night in the printing-office to make sure that

their contributions were not omitted; sometimes putting in a long

article, obtained heaven knows how, sometimes a few lines of a puff.

The manners and customs of journalism and of the publishing houses have

since changed so much, that many people nowadays will not believe what

immense efforts were made by writers and publishers of books to secure a

newspaper puff; the martyrs of glory, and all those who are condemned to

the penal servitude of a life-long success, were reduced to such shifts,

and stooped to depths of bribery and corruption as seem fabulous to-day.

Every kind of persuasion was brought to bear on journalists—dinners,

flattery, and presents. The following story will throw more light on the

close connection between the critic and the publisher than any quantity

of flat assertions.

There was once upon a time an editor of an important paper, a clever

writer with a prospect of becoming a statesman; he was young in those

days, and fond of pleasure, and he became the favorite of a well-known

publishing house. One Sunday the wealthy head of the firm was

entertaining several of the foremost journalists of the time in the

country, and the mistress of the house, then a young and pretty woman,

went to walk in her park with the illustrious visitor. The head-clerk of

the firm, a cool, steady, methodical German with nothing but business in

his head, was discussing a project with one of the journalists, and as

they chatted they walked on into the woods beyond the park. In among the

thickets the German thought he caught a glimpse of his hostess, put

up his eyeglass, made a sign to his young companion to be silent,

and turned back, stepping softly.—“What did you see?” asked the

journalist.—“Nothing particular,” said the clerk. “Our affair of the

long article is settled. To-morrow we shall have at least three columns

in the _Débats_.”

Another anecdote will show the influence of a single article.

A book of M. de Chateaubriand’s on the last of the Stuarts was for some

time a “nightingale” on the bookseller’s shelves. A single article in

the _Journal des Débats_ sold the work in a week. In those days, when

there were no lending libraries, a publisher would sell an edition of

ten thousand copies of a book by a Liberal if it was well reviewed by

the Opposition papers; but then the Belgian pirated editions were not as

yet.

The preparatory attacks made by Lucien’s friends, followed up by his

article on Nathan, proved efficacious; they stopped the sale of his

book. Nathan escaped with the mortification; he had been paid; he had

nothing to lose; but Dauriat was like to lose thirty thousand francs.

The trade in new books may, in fact, be summed up much on this wise.

A ream of blank paper costs fifteen francs, a ream of printed paper is

worth anything between a hundred sous and a hundred crowns, according to

its success; a favorable or unfavorable review at a critical time often

decides the question; and Dauriat having five hundred reams of printed

paper on hand, hurried to make terms with Lucien. The sultan was now the

slave.

After waiting for some time, fidgeting and making as much noise as

he could while parleying with Bérénice, he at last obtained speech

of Lucien; and, arrogant publisher though he was, he came in with the

radiant air of a courtier in the royal presence, mingled, however, with

a certain self-sufficiency and easy good humor.

“Don’t disturb yourselves, my little dears! How nice they look, just

like a pair of turtle-doves! Who would think now, mademoiselle, that

he, with that girl’s face of his, could be a tiger with claws of steel,

ready to tear a reputation to rags, just as he tears your wrappers,

I’ll be bound, when you are not quick enough to unfasten them,” and he

laughed before he had finished his jest.

“My dear boy——” he began, sitting down beside Lucien.—“Mademoiselle,

I am Dauriat,” he said, interrupting himself. He judged it expedient to

fire his name at her like a pistol shot, for he considered that Coralie

was less cordial than she should have been.

“Have you breakfasted, monsieur; will you keep us company?” asked

Coralie.

“Why, yes; it is easier to talk at table,” said Dauriat. “Besides, by

accepting your invitation I shall have a right to expect you to dine

with my friend Lucien here, for we must be close friends now, hand and

glove!”

“Bérénice! Bring oysters, lemons, fresh butter, and champagne,” said

Coralie.

“You are too clever not to know what has brought me here,” said Dauriat,

fixing his eyes on Lucien.

“You have come to buy my sonnets.”

“Precisely. First of all, let us lay down our arms on both sides.” As

he spoke he took out a neat pocketbook, drew from it three bills for a

thousand francs each, and laid them before Lucien with a suppliant air.

“Is monsieur content?” asked he.

“Yes,” said the poet. A sense of beatitude, for which no words exist,

flooded his soul at the sight of that unhoped wealth. He controlled

himself, but he longed to sing aloud, to jump for joy; he was ready to

believe in Aladdin’s lamp and in enchantment; he believed in his own

genius, in short.

“Then the _Marguerites_ are mine,” continued Dauriat; “but you will

undertake not to attack my publications, won’t you?”

“The _Marguerites_ are yours, but I cannot pledge my pen; it is at the

service of my friends, as theirs are mine.”

“But you are one of my authors now. All my authors are my friends. So

you won’t spoil my business without warning me beforehand, so that I am

prepared, will you?”

“I agree to that.”

“To your fame!” and Dauriat raised his glass.

“I see that you have read the _Marguerites_,” said Lucien.

Dauriat was not disconcerted.

“My boy, a publisher cannot pay a greater compliment than by buying your

_Marguerites_ unread. In six months’ time you will be a great poet. You

will be written up; people are afraid of you; I shall have no difficulty

in selling your book. I am the same man of business that I was four days

ago. It is not I who have changed; it is _you_. Last week your sonnets

were so many cabbage leaves for me; to-day your position has ranked them

beside Delavigne.”

“Ah well,” said Lucien, “if you have not read my sonnets, you have read

my article.” With the sultan’s pleasure of possessing a fair mistress,

and the certainty of success, he had grown satirical and adorably

impertinent of late.

“Yes, my friend; do you think I should have come here in such a hurry

but for that? That terrible article of yours is very well written, worse

luck. Oh! you have a very great gift, my boy. Take my advice and make

the most of your vogue,” he added, with good humor, which masked the

extreme insolence of the speech. “But have you yourself a copy of the

paper? Have you seen your article in print?”

“Not yet,” said Lucien, “though this is the first long piece of prose

which I have published; but Hector will have sent a copy to my address

in the Rue Charlot.”

“Here—read!”... cried Dauriat, copying Talma’s gesture in _Manlius_.

Lucien took the paper but Coralie snatched it from him.

“The first-fruits of your pen belong to me, as you well know,” she

laughed.

Dauriat was unwontedly courtier-like and complimentary. He was afraid of

Lucien, and therefore he asked him to a great dinner which he was giving

to a party of journalists towards the end of the week, and Coralie was

included in the invitation. He took the _Marguerites_ away with him

when he went, asking _his_ poet to look in when he pleased in the Wooden

Galleries, and the agreement should be ready for his signature.

Dauriat never forgot the royal airs with which he endeavored to overawe

superficial observers, and to impress them with the notion that he was

a Maecenas rather than a publisher; at this moment he left the three

thousand francs, waving away in lordly fashion the receipt which Lucien

offered, kissed Coralie’s hand, and took his departure.

“Well, dear love, would you have seen many of these bits of paper if you

had stopped in your hole in the Rue de Cluny, prowling about among the

musty old books in the Bibliothèque de Sainte-Geneviève?” asked Coralie,

for she knew the whole story of Lucien’s life by this time. “Those

little friends of yours in the Rue des Quatre-Vents are great ninnies,

it seems to me.”

His brothers of the _cenacle_! And Lucien could hear the verdict and

laugh.

He had seen himself in print; he had just experienced the ineffable joy

of the author, that first pleasurable thrill of gratified vanity which

comes but once. The full import and bearing of his article became

apparent to him as he read and re-read it. The garb of print is to

manuscript as the stage is to women; it brings beauties and defects to

light, killing and giving life; the fine thoughts and the faults alike

stare you in the face.

Lucien, in his excitement and rapture, gave not another thought to

Nathan. Nathan was a stepping-stone for him—that was all; and he

(Lucien) was happy exceedingly—he thought himself rich. The money

brought by Dauriat was a very Potosi for the lad who used to go about

unnoticed through the streets of Angoulême and down the steep path into

L’Houmeau to Postel’s garret, where his whole family had lived upon an

income of twelve hundred francs. The pleasures of his life in Paris must

inevitably dim the memories of those days; but so keen were they, that,

as yet, he seemed to be back again in the Place du Mûrier. He thought of

Eve, his beautiful, noble sister, of David his friend, and of his poor

mother, and he sent Bérénice out to change one of the notes. While she

went he wrote a few lines to his family, and on the maid’s return

he sent her to the coach-office with a packet of five hundred francs

addressed to his mother. He could not trust himself; he wanted to sent

the money at once; later he might not be able to do it. Both Lucien and

Coralie looked upon this restitution as a meritorious action. Coralie

put her arms about her lover and kissed him, and thought him a model son

and brother; she could not make enough of him, for generosity is a trait

of character which delights these kindly creatures, who always carry

their hearts in their hands.

“We have a dinner now every day for a week,” she said; “we will make a

little carnival; you have worked quite hard enough.”

Coralie, fain to delight in the beauty of a man whom all other women

should envy her, took Lucien back to Staub. He was not dressed finely

enough for her. Thence the lovers went to drive in the Bois de Boulogne,

and came back to dine at Mme. du Val-Noble’s. Rastignac, Bixiou, des

Lupeaulx, Finot, Blondet, Vignon, the Baron de Nucingen, Beaudenord,

Philippe Bridau, Conti, the great musician, all the artists and

speculators, all the men who seek for violent sensations as a relief

from immense labors, gave Lucien a welcome among them. And Lucien had

gained confidence; he gave himself out in talk as though he had not to

live by his wit, and was pronounced to be a “clever fellow” in the slang

of the coterie of semi-comrades.

“Oh! we must wait and see what he has in him,” said Théodore Gaillard,

a poet patronized by the Court, who thought of starting a Royalist paper

to be entitled the _Réveil_ at a later day.

After dinner, Merlin and Lucien, Coralie and Mme. du Val-Noble, went to

the Opera, where Merlin had a box. The whole party adjourned thither,

and Lucien triumphant reappeared upon the scene of his first serious

check.

He walked in the lobby, arm in arm with Merlin and Blondet, looking

the dandies who had once made merry at his expense between the eyes.

Châtelet was under his feet. He clashed glances with de Marsay,

Vandenesse, and Manerville, the bucks of that day. And indeed Lucien,

beautiful and elegantly arrayed, had caused a discussion in the Marquise

d’Espard’s box; Rastignac had paid a long visit, and the Marquise and

Mme. de Bargeton put up their opera-glasses at Coralie. Did the sight

of Lucien send a pang of regret through Mme. de Bargeton’s heart?

This thought was uppermost in the poet’s mind. The longing for revenge

aroused in him by the sight of the Corinne of Angoulême was as fierce

as on that day when the lady and her cousin had cut him in the

Champs-Élysées.

“Did you bring an amulet with you from the provinces?”—It was Blondet

who made this inquiry some few days later, when he called at eleven

o’clock in the morning and found that Lucien was not yet risen.—“His

good looks are making ravages from cellar to garret, high and low,”

continued Blondet, kissing Coralie on the forehead. “I have come to

enlist you, dear fellow,” he continued, grasping Lucien by the hand.

“Yesterday, at the Italiens, the Comtesse de Montcornet asked me to

bring you to her house. You will not give a refusal to a charming woman?

You meet people of the first fashion there.”

“If Lucien is nice, he will not go to see your Countess,” put in

Coralie. “What call is there for him to show his face in fine society?

He would only be bored there.”

“Have you a vested interest in him? Are you jealous of fine ladies?”

“Yes,” cried Coralie. “They are worse than we are.”

“How do you know that, my pet?” asked Blondet.

“From their husbands,” retorted she. “You are forgetting that I once had

six months of de Marsay.”

“Do you suppose, child, that _I_ am particularly anxious to take such

a handsome fellow as your poet to Mme. de Montcornet’s house? If you

object, let us consider that nothing has been said. But I don’t fancy

that the women are so much in question as a poor devil that Lucien

pilloried in his newspaper; he is begging for mercy and peace. The Baron

du Châtelet is imbecile enough to take the thing seriously. The Marquise

d’Espard, Mme. de Bargeton, and Mme. de Montcornet’s set have taken up

the Heron’s cause; and I have undertaken to reconcile Petrarch and his

Laura—Mme. de Bargeton and Lucien.”

“Aha!” cried Lucien, the glow of the intoxication of revenge throbbing

full-pulsed through every vein. “Aha! so my foot is on their necks!

You make me adore my pen, worship my friends, bow down to the

fate-dispensing power of the press. I have not written a single sentence

as yet upon the Heron and the Cuttlefish-bone.—I will go with you,

my boy,” he cried, catching Blondet by the waist; “yes, I will go; but

first, the couple shall feel the weight of _this_, for so light as it

is.” He flourished the pen which had written the article upon Nathan.

“To-morrow,” he cried, “I will hurl a couple of columns at their heads.

Then, we shall see. Don’t be frightened, Coralie, it is not love but

revenge; revenge! And I will have it to the full!”

“What a man it is!” said Blondet. “If you but knew, Lucien, how rare

such explosions are in this jaded Paris, you might appreciate yourself.

You will be a precious scamp” (the actual expression was a trifle

stronger); “you are in a fair way to be a power in the land.”

“He will get on,” said Coralie.

“Well, he has come a good way already in six weeks.”

“And if he should climb so high that he can reach a sceptre by treading

over a corpse, he shall have Coralie’s body for a stepping-stone,” said

the girl.

“You are a pair of lovers of the Golden Age,” said Blondet.—“I

congratulate you on your big article,” he added, turning to Lucien.

“There were a lot of new things in it. You are past master!”

Lousteau called with Hector Merlin and Vernou. Lucien was immensely

flattered by this attention. Félicien Vernou brought a hundred francs

for Lucien’s article; it was felt that such a contributor must be well

paid to attach him to the paper.

Coralie, looking round at the chapter of journalists, ordered in a

breakfast from the _Cadran bleu_, the nearest restaurant, and asked

her visitors to adjourn to her handsomely furnished dining-room when

Bérénice announced that the meal was ready. In the middle of the repast,

when the champagne had gone to all heads, the motive of the visit came

out.

“You do not mean to make an enemy of Nathan, do you?” asked Lousteau.

“Nathan is a journalist, and he has friends; he might play you an ugly

trick with your first book. You have your _Archer of Charles IX._ to

sell, have you not? We went round to Nathan this morning; he is in a

terrible way. But you will set about another article, and puff praise in

his face.”

“What! After my article against his book, would you have me say——”

began Lucien.

The whole party cut him short with a shout of laughter.

“Did you ask him to supper here the day after to-morrow?” asked Blondet.

“You article was not signed,” added Lousteau. “Félicien, not being

quite such a new hand as you are, was careful to put an initial C at the

bottom. You can do that now with all your articles in his paper, which

is pure unadulterated Left. We are all of us in the Opposition. Félicien

was tactful enough not to compromise your future opinions. Hector’s shop

is Right Centre; you might sign your work on it with an L. If you cut a

man up, you do it anonymously; if you praise him, it is just as well to

put your name to your article.”

“It is not the signatures that trouble me,” returned Lucien, “but I

cannot see anything to be said in favor of the book.”

“Then did you really think as you wrote?” asked Hector.

“Yes.”

“Oh! I thought you were cleverer than that, youngster,” said Blondet.

“No. Upon my word, as I looked at that forehead of yours, I credited you

with the omnipotence of the great mind—the power of seeing both sides

of everything. In literature, my boy, every idea is reversible, and no

man can take upon himself to decide which is the right or wrong side.

Everything is bi-lateral in the domain of thought. Ideas are binary.

Janus is a fable signifying criticism and the symbol of Genius. The

Almighty alone is triform. What raises Molière and Corneille above the

rest of us but the faculty of saying one thing with an Alceste or an

Octave, and another with a Philinte or a Cinna? Rousseau wrote a letter

against dueling in the _Nouvelle_ Héloïse, and another in favor of it.

Which of the two represented his own opinion? will you venture to

take it upon yourself to decide? Which of us could give judgement for

Clarissa or Lovelace, Hector or Achilles? Who was Homer’s hero? What did

Richardson himself think? It is the function of criticism to look at a

man’s work in all its aspects. We draw up our case, in short.”

“Do you really stick to your written opinions?” asked Vernou, with a

satirical expression. “Why, we are retailers of phrases; that is how we

make a livelihood. When you try to do a good piece of work—to write a

book, in short—you can put your thoughts, yourself into it, and cling

to it, and fight for it; but as for newspaper articles, read to-day and

forgotten to-morrow, they are worth nothing in my eyes but the money

that is paid for them. If you attach any importance to such drivel, you

might as well make the sign of the Cross and invoke heaven when you sit

down to write a tradesman’s circular.”

Every one apparently was astonished at Lucien’s scruples. The last rags

of the boyish conscience were torn away, and he was invested with the

_toga virilis_ of journalism.

“Do you know what Nathan said by way of comforting himself after your

criticism?” asked Lousteau.

“How should I know?”

“Nathan exclaimed, ‘Paragraphs pass away; but a great work lives!’ He

will be here to supper in two days, and he will be sure to fall flat at

your feet, and kiss your claws, and swear that you are a great man.”

“That would be a funny thing,” was Lucien’s comment.

“_Funny_” repeated Blondet. “He can’t help himself.”

“I am quite willing, my friends,” said Lucien, on whom the wine had

begun to take effect. “But what am I to say?”

“Oh well, refute yourself in three good columns in Merlin’s paper.

We have been enjoying the sight of Nathan’s wrath; we have just been

telling him that he owes us no little gratitude for getting up a hot

controversy that will sell his second edition in a week. In his eyes at

this present moment you are a spy, a scoundrel, a caitiff wretch; the

day after to-morrow you will be a genius, an uncommonly clever fellow,

one of Plutarch’s men. Nathan will hug you and call you his best friend.

Dauriat has been to see you; you have your three thousand francs; you

have worked the trick! Now you want Nathan’s respect and esteem. Nobody

ought to be let in except the publisher. We must not immolate any one

but an enemy. We should not talk like this if it were a question of

some outsider, some inconvenient person who had made a name for himself

without us and was not wanted; but Nathan is one of us. Blondet got some

one to attack him in the _Mercure_ for the pleasure of replying in the

_Débats_. For which reason the first edition went off at once.”

“My friends, upon my word and honor, I cannot write two words in praise

of that book——”

“You will have another hundred francs,” interrupted Merlin. “Nathan will

have brought you in ten louis d’or, to say nothing of an article that

you might put in Finot’s paper; you would get a hundred francs for

writing that, and another hundred francs from Dauriat—total, twenty

louis.”

“But what am I to say?”

“Here is your way out of the difficulty,” said Blondet, after some

thought. “Say that the envy that fastens on all good work, like wasps

on ripe fruit, has attempted to set its fangs in this production. The

captious critic, trying his best to find fault, has been obliged to

invent theories for that purpose, and has drawn a distinction between

two kinds of literature—‘the literature of ideas and the literature of

imagery,’ as he calls them. On the heads of that, youngster, say that to

give expression to ideas through imagery is the highest form of art. Try

to show that all poetry is summed up in that, and lament that there

is so little poetry in French; quote foreign criticisms on the

unimaginative precision of our style, and then extol M. de Canalis and

Nathan for the services they have done France by infusing a less prosaic

spirit into the language. Knock your previous argument to pieces by

calling attention to the fact that we have made progress since the

eighteenth century. (Discover the ‘progress,’ a beautiful word to

mystify the bourgeois public.) Say that the new methods in

literature concentrate all styles, comedy and tragedy, description,

character-drawing and dialogues, in a series of pictures set in the

brilliant frame of a plot which holds the reader’s interest. The Novel,

which demands sentiment, style, and imagery, is the greatest creation of

modern days; it is the successor of stage comedy grown obsolete with its

restrictions. Facts and ideas are all within the province of fiction.

The intellect of an incisive moralist, like La Bruyère, the power of

treating character as Molière could treat it, the grand machinery of a

Shakespeare, together with the portrayal of the most subtle shades of

passion (the one treasury left untouched by our predecessors)—for all

this the modern novel affords free scope. How far superior is all this

to the cut-and-dried logic-chopping, the cold analysis to the eighteenth

century!—‘The Novel,’ say sententiously, ‘is the Epic grown amusing.’

Instance _Corinne_, bring Mme. de Staël up to support your argument. The

eighteenth century called all things in question; it is the task of the

nineteenth to conclude and speak the last word; and the last word of the

nineteenth century has been for realities—realities which live

however and move. Passion, in short, an element unknown in Voltaire’s

philosophy, has been brought into play. Here a diatribe against

Voltaire, and as for Rousseau, his characters are polemics and systems

masquerading. Julie and Claire are entelechies—informing spirit

awaiting flesh and bones.

“You might slip off on a side issue at this, and say that we owe a

new and original literature to the Peace and the Restoration of the

Bourbons, for you are writing for a Right Centre paper.

“Scoff at Founders of Systems. And cry with a glow of fine enthusiasm,

‘Here are errors and misleading statements in abundance in our

contemporary’s work, and to what end? To depreciate a fine work, to

deceive the public, and to arrive at this conclusion—“A book that

sells, does not sell.”’ _Proh pudor_! (Mind you put _Proh pudor_! ‘tis

a harmless expletive that stimulates the reader’s interest.) Foresee the

approaching decadence of criticism, in fact. Moral—‘There is but one

kind of literature, the literature which aims to please. Nathan has

started upon a new way; he understands his epoch and fulfils the

requirements of his age—the demand for drama, the natural demand of a

century in which the political stage has become a permanent puppet show.

Have we not seen four dramas in a score of years—the Revolution,

the Directory, the Empire, and the Restoration?’ With that, wallow in

dithyramb and eulogy, and the second edition shall vanish like smoke.

This is the way to do it. Next Saturday put a review in our magazine,

and sign it ‘de Rubempré,’ out in full.

“In that final article say that ‘fine work always brings about abundant

controversy. This week such and such a paper contained such and such an

article on Nathan’s book, and such another paper made a vigorous reply.’

Then you criticise the critics ‘C’ and ‘L’; pay me a passing compliment

on the first article in the _Débats_, and end by averring that Nathan’s

work is the great book of the epoch; which is all as if you said nothing

at all; they say the same of everything that comes out.

“And so,” continued Blondet, “you will have made four hundred francs in

a week, to say nothing of the pleasure of now and again saying what you

really think. A discerning public will maintain that either C or L or

Rubempré is in the right of it, or mayhap all the three. Mythology,

beyond doubt one of the grandest inventions of the human brain, places

Truth at the bottom of a well; and what are we to do without buckets?

You will have supplied the public with three for one. There you are, my

boy, Go ahead!”

Lucien’s head was swimming with bewilderment. Blondet kissed him on both

cheeks.

“I am going to my shop,” said he. And every man likewise departed to his

shop. For these “_hommes forts_,” a newspaper office was nothing but a

shop.

They were to meet again in the evening at the Wooden Galleries,

and Lucien would sign his treaty of peace with Dauriat. Florine and

Lousteau, Lucien and Coralie, Blondet and Finot, were to dine in the

Palais-Royal; du Bruel was giving the manager of the Panorama-Dramatique

a dinner.

“They are right,” exclaimed Lucien, when he was alone with Coralie.

“Men are made to be tools in the hands of stronger spirits. Four hundred

francs for three articles! Doguereau would scarcely give me as much for

a book which cost me two years of work.”

“Write criticism,” said Coralie, “have a good time! Look at me, I am

an Andalusian girl to-night, to-morrow I may be a gypsy, and a man the

night after. Do as I do, give them grimaces for their money, and let us

live happily.”

Lucien, smitten with love of Paradox, set himself to mount and ride

that unruly hybrid product of Pegasus and Balaam’s ass; started out at a

gallop over the fields of thought while he took a turn in the Bois, and

discovered new possibilities in Blondet’s outline.

He dined as happy people dine, and signed away all his rights in the

_Marguerites_. It never occurred to him that any trouble might arise

from that transaction in the future. He took a turn of work at the

office, wrote off a couple of columns, and came back to the Rue de

Vendôme. Next morning he found the germs of yesterday’s ideas had sprung

up and developed in his brain, as ideas develop while the intellect

is yet unjaded and the sap is rising; and thoroughly did he enjoy

the projection of this new article. He threw himself into it with

enthusiasm. At the summons of the spirit of contradiction, new charms

met beneath his pen. He was witty and satirical, he rose to yet new

views of sentiment, of ideas and imagery in literature. With subtle

ingenuity, he went back to his own first impressions of Nathan’s

work, when he read it in the newsroom of the Cour du Commerce; and the

ruthless, bloodthirsty critic, the lively mocker, became a poet in the

final phrases which rose and fell with majestic rhythm like the swaying

censer before the altar.

“One hundred francs, Coralie!” cried he, holding up eight sheets of

paper covered with writing while she dressed.

The mood was upon him; he went on to indite, stroke by stroke, the

promised terrible article on Châtelet and Mme. de Bargeton. That morning

he experienced one of the keenest personal pleasures of journalism; he

knew what it was to forge the epigram, to whet and polish the cold blade

to be sheathed in a victim’s heart, to make of the hilt a cunning piece

of workmanship for the reader to admire. For the public admires the

handle, the delicate work of the brain, while the cruelty is not

apparent; how should the public know that the steel of the epigram,

tempered in the fire of revenge, has been plunged deftly, to rankle

in the very quick of a victim’s vanity, and is reeking from wounds

innumerable which it has inflicted? It is a hideous joy, that grim,

solitary pleasure, relished without witnesses; it is like a duel with an

absent enemy, slain at a distance by a quill; a journalist might really

possess the magical power of talismans in Eastern tales. Epigram is

distilled rancor, the quintessence of a hate derived from all the worst

passions of man, even as love concentrates all that is best in human

nature. The man does not exist who cannot be witty to avenge himself;

and, by the same rule, there is not one to whom love does not bring

delight. Cheap and easy as this kind of wit may be in France, it is

always relished. Lucien’s article was destined to raise the previous

reputation of the paper for venomous spite and evil-speaking. His

article probed two hearts to the depths; it dealt a grievous wound to

Mme. de Bargeton, his Laura of old days, as well as to his rival, the

Baron du Châtelet.

“Well, let us go for a drive in the Bois,” said Coralie, “the horses are

fidgeting. There is no néed to kill yourself.”

“We will take the article on Nathan to Hector. Journalism is really very

much like Achilles’ lance, it salves the wounds that it makes,” said

Lucien, correcting a phrase here and there.

The lovers started forth in splendor to show themselves to the Paris

which had but lately given Lucien the cold shoulder, and now was

beginning to talk about him. To have Paris talking of you! and this

after you have learned how large the great city is, how hard it is to

be anybody there—it was this thought that turned Lucien’s head with

exultation.

“Let us go by way of your tailor’s, dear boy, and tell him to be quick

with your clothes, or try them on if they are ready. If you are going to

your fine ladies’ houses, you shall eclipse that monster of a de

Marsay and young Rastignac and any Ajuda-Pinto or Maxime de Trailles or

Vandenesse of them all. Remember that your mistress is Coralie! But you

will not play me any tricks, eh?”

Two days afterwards, on the eve of the supper-party at Coralie’s house,

there was a new play at the Ambigu, and it fell to Lucien to write the

dramatic criticism. Lucien and Coralie walked together after dinner from

the Rue de Vendôme to the Panorama-Dramatique, going along the Café Turc

side of the Boulevard du Temple, a lounge much frequented at that

time. People wondered at his luck, and praised Coralie’s beauty. Chance

remarks reached his ears; some said that Coralie was the finest woman in

Paris, others that Lucien was a match for her. The romantic youth

felt that he was in his atmosphere. This was the life for him. The

brotherhood was so far away that it was almost out of sight. Only two

months ago, how he had looked up to those lofty great natures; now

he asked himself if they were not just a trifle ridiculous with their

notions and their Puritanism. Coralie’s careless words had lodged in

Lucien’s mind, and begun already to bear fruit. He took Coralie to her

dressing-room, and strolled about like a sultan behind the scenes; the

actresses gave him burning glances and flattering speeches.

“I must go to the Ambigu and attend to business,” said he.

At the Ambigu the house was full; there was not a seat left for

him. Indignant complaints behind the scenes brought no redress; the

box-office keeper, who did not know him as yet, said that they had sent

orders for two boxes to his paper, and sent him about his business.

“I shall speak of the play as I find it,” said Lucien, nettled at this.

“What a dunce you are!” said the leading lady, addressing the box-office

keeper, “that is Coralie’s adorer.”

The box-office keeper turned round immediately at this. “I will speak to

the manager at once, sir,” he said.

In all these small details Lucien saw the immense power wielded by the

press. His vanity was gratified. The manager appeared to say that the

Duc de Rhétoré and Tullia the opera-dancer were in the stage-box, and

they had consented to allow Lucien to join them.

“You have driven two people to distraction,” remarked the young Duke,

mentioning the names of the Baron du Châtelet and Mme. de Bargeton.

“Distraction? What will it be to-morrow?” said Lucien. “So far, my

friends have been mere skirmishers, but I have given them red-hot shot

to-night. To-morrow you will know why we are making game of ‘Potelet.’

The article is called ‘Potelet from 1811 to 1821.’ Châtelet will be a

byword, a name for the type of courtier who deny their benefactor and

rally to the Bourbons. When I have done with him, I am going to Mme. de

Montcornet’s.”

Lucien’s talk was sparkling. He was eager that this great personage

should see how gross a mistake Mesdames d’Espard and de Bargeton had

made when they slighted Lucien de Rubempré. But he showed the tip of his

ear when he asserted his right to bear the name of Rubempré, the Duc de

Rhétoré having purposely addressed him as Chardon.

“You should go over to the Royalists,” said the Duke. “You have proved

yourself a man of ability; now show your good sense. The one way of

obtaining a patent of nobility and the right to bear the title of

your mother’s family, is by asking for it in return for services to be

rendered to the Court. The Liberals will never make a count of you. The

Restoration will get the better of the press, you see, in the long run,

and the press is the only formidable power. They have borne with it too

long as it is; the press is sure to be muzzled. Take advantage of the

last moments of liberty to make yourself formidable, and you will have

everything—intellect, nobility, and good looks; nothing will be out of

your reach. So if you are a Liberal, let it be simply for the moment, so

that you can make a better bargain for your Royalism.”

With that the Duke entreated Lucien to accept an invitation to dinner,

which the German Minister (of Florine’s supper-party) was about to send.

Lucien fell under the charm of the noble peer’s arguments; the salons

from which he had been exiled for ever, as he thought, but a few months

ago, would shortly open their doors for him! He was delighted. He

marveled at the power of the press; Intellect and the Press, these then

were the real powers in society. Another thought shaped itself in his

mind—Was Étienne Lousteau sorry that he had opened the gate of the

temple to a newcomer? Even now he (Lucien) felt on his own account that

it was strongly advisable to put difficulties in the way of eager and

ambitious recruits from the provinces. If a poet should come to him

as he had flung himself into Étienne’s arms, he dared not think of the

reception that he would give him.

The youthful Duke meanwhile saw that Lucien was deep in thought, and

made a pretty good guess at the matter of his meditations. He himself

had opened out wide horizons of public life before an ambitious poet,

with a vacillating will, it is true, but not without aspirations; and

the journalists had already shown the neophyte, from a pinnacle of the

temple, all the kingdoms of the world of letters and its riches.

Lucien himself had no suspicion of a little plot that was being woven,

nor did he imagine that M. de Rhétoré had a hand in it. M. de Rhétoré

had spoken of Lucien’s cleverness, and Mme. d’Espard’s set had taken

alarm. Mme. de Bargeton had commissioned the Duke to sound Lucien,

and with that object in view, the noble youth had come to the

Ambigu-Comique.

Do not believe in stories of elaborate treachery. Neither the great

world nor the world of journalists laid any deep schemes; definite plans

are not made by either; their Machiavelism lives from hand to mouth, so

to speak, and consists, for the most part, in being always on the spot,

always on the alert to turn everything to account, always on the watch

for the moment when a man’s ruling passion shall deliver him into

the hands of his enemies. The young Duke had seen through Lucien at

Florine’s supper-party; he had just touched his vain susceptibilities;

and now he was trying his first efforts in diplomacy upon the living

subject.

Lucien hurried to the Rue Saint-Fiacre after the play to write his

article. It was a piece of savage and bitter criticism, written in pure

wantonness; he was amusing himself by trying his power. The melodrama,

as a matter of fact, was a better piece than the _Alcalde_; but Lucien

wished to see whether he could damn a good play and send everybody to

see a bad one, as his associates had said.

He unfolded the sheet at breakfast next morning, telling Coralie as

he did so that he had cut up the Ambigu-Comique; and not a little

astonished was he to find below his paper on Mme. de Bargeton and

Châtelet a notice of the Ambigu, so mellowed and softened in the course

of the night, that although the witty analysis was still preserved, the

judgment was favorable. The article was more likely to fill the house

than to empty it. No words can describe his wrath. He determined to have

a word or two with Lousteau. He had already begun to think himself

an indispensable man, and he vowed that he would not submit to be

tyrannized over and treated like a fool. To establish his power beyond

cavil, he wrote the article for Dauriat’s review, summing up and

weighing all the various opinions concerning Nathan’s book; and while

he was in the humor, he hit off another of his short sketches

for Lousteau’s newspaper. Inexperienced journalists, in the first

effervescence of youth, make a labor of love of ephemeral work, and

lavish their best thought unthriftily thereon.

The manager of the Panorama-Dramatique gave a first performance of a

vaudeville that night, so that Florine and Coralie might be free for

the evening. There were to be cards before supper. Lousteau came for the

short notice of the vaudeville; it had been written beforehand after the

general rehearsal, for Étienne wished to have the paper off his mind.

Lucien read over one of the charming sketches of Parisian whimsicalities

which made the fortune of the paper, and Lousteau kissed him on both

eyelids, and called him the providence of journalism.

“Then why do you amuse yourself by turning my article inside out?” asked

Lucien. He had written his brilliant sketch simply and solely to give

emphasis to his grievance.

“_I_?” exclaimed Lousteau.

“Well, who else can have altered my article?”

“You do not know all the ins and outs yet, dear fellow. The Ambigu

pays for thirty copies, and only takes nine for the manager and box

office-keeper and their mistresses, and for the three lessees of the

theatre. Every one of the Boulevard theatres pays eight hundred francs

in this way to the paper; and there is quite as much again in boxes and

orders for Finot, to say nothing of the contributions of the company.

And if the minor theatres do this, you may imagine what the big ones do!

Now you understand? We are bound to show a good deal of indulgence.”

“I understand this, that I am not at liberty to write as I think——”

“Eh! what does that matter, so long as you turn an honest penny?” cried

Lousteau. “Besides, my boy, what grudge had you against the theatre? You

must have had some reason for it, or you would not have cut up the play

as you did. If you slash for the sake of slashing, the paper will get

into trouble, and when there is good reason for hitting hard it will not

tell. Did the manager leave you out in the cold?”

“He had not kept a place for me.”

“Good,” said Lousteau. “I shall let him see your article, and tell him

that I softened it down; you will find it serves you better than if it

had appeared in print. Go and ask him for tickets to-morrow, and he will

sign forty blank orders every month. I know a man who can get rid of

them for you; I will introduce you to him, and he will buy them all up

at half-price. There is a trade done in theatre tickets, just as Barbet

trades in reviewers’ copies. This is another Barbet, the leader of the

_claque_. He lives near by; come and see him, there is time enough.”

“But, my dear fellow, it is a scandalous thing that Finot should levy

blackmail in matters intellectual. Sooner or later——”

“Really!” cried Lousteau, “where do you come from? For what do you take

Finot? Beneath his pretence of good-nature, his ignorance and stupidity,

and those Turcaret’s airs of his, there is all the cunning of his father

the hatter. Did you notice an old soldier of the Empire in the den at

the office? That is Finot’s uncle. The uncle is not only one of the

right sort, he has the luck to be taken for a fool; and he takes all

that kind of business upon his shoulders. An ambitious man in Paris is

well off indeed if he has a willing scapegoat at hand. In public life,

as in journalism, there are hosts of emergencies in which the chiefs

cannot afford to appear. If Finot should enter on a political career,

his uncle would be his secretary, and receive all the contributions

levied in his department on big affairs. Anybody would take Giroudeau

for a fool at first sight, but he has just enough shrewdness to be an

inscrutable old file. He is on picket duty; he sees that we are not

pestered with hubbub, beginners wanting a job, or advertisements. No

other paper has his equal, I think.”

“He plays his part well,” said Lucien; “I saw him at work.”

Étienne and Lucien reached a handsome house in the Rue du

Faubourg-du-Temple.

“Is M. Braulard in?” Étienne asked of the porter.

“_Monsieur_?” said Lucien. “Then, is the leader of the _claque_

‘Monsieur’?”

“My dear boy, Braulard has twenty thousand francs of income. All the

dramatic authors of the Boulevards are in his clutches, and have

a standing account with him as if he were a banker. Orders and

complimentary tickets are sold here. Braulard knows where to get rid of

such merchandise. Now for a turn at statistics, a useful science enough

in its way. At the rate of fifty complimentary tickets every evening

for each theatre, you have two hundred and fifty tickets daily. Suppose,

taking one with another, that they are worth a couple of francs apiece,

Braulard pays a hundred and twenty-five francs daily for them, and takes

his chance of making cent per cent. In this way authors’ tickets alone

bring him in about four thousand francs every month, or forty-eight

thousand francs per annum. Allow twenty thousand francs for loss, for he

cannot always place all his tickets——”

“Why not?”

“Oh! the people who pay at the door go in with the holders of

complimentary tickets for unreserved seats, and the theatre reserves

the right of admitting those who pay. There are fine warm evenings to be

reckoned with besides, and poor plays. Braulard makes, perhaps, thirty

thousand francs every year in this way, and he has his _claqueurs_

besides, another industry. Florine and Coralie pay tribute to him; if

they did not, there would be no applause when they come on or go off.”

Lousteau gave this explanation in a low voice as they went up the stair.

“Paris is a queer place,” said Lucien; it seemed to him that he saw

self-interest squatting in every corner.

A smart maid-servant opened the door. At the sight of Étienne Lousteau,

the dealer in orders and tickets rose from a sturdy chair before a large

cylinder desk, and Lucien beheld the leader of the _claque_, Braulard

himself, dressed in a gray molleton jacket, footed trousers, and red

slippers; for all the world like a doctor or a solicitor. He was a

typical self-made man, Lucien thought—a vulgar-looking face with a

pair of exceedingly cunning gray eyes, hands made for hired applause,

a complexion over which hard living had passed like rain over a roof,

grizzled hair, and a somewhat husky voice.

“You have come from Mlle. Florine, no doubt, sir, and this gentleman

for Mlle. Coralie,” said Braulard; “I know you very well by sight. Don’t

trouble yourself, sir,” he continued, addressing Lucien; “I am buying

the Gymnase connection, I will look after your lady, and I will give her

notice of any tricks they may try to play on her.”

“That is not an offer to be refused, my dear Braulard, but we have come

about the press orders for the Boulevard theatres—I as editor, and this

gentleman as dramatic critic.”

“Oh!—ah, yes! Finot has sold his paper. I heard about it. He is getting

on, is Finot. I have asked him to dine with me at the end of the week;

if you will do me the honor and pleasure of coming, you may bring your

ladies, and there will be a grand jollification. Adèle Dupuis is coming,

and Ducange, and Frédéric du Petit-Méré, and Mlle. Millot, my mistress.

We shall have good fun and better liquor.”

“Ducange must be in difficulties. He has lost his lawsuit.”

“I have lent him ten thousand francs; if _Calas_ succeeds, it will repay

the loan, so I have been organizing a success. Ducange is a clever man;

he has brains——”

Lucien fancied that he must be dreaming when he heard a _claqueur_

appraising a writer’s value.

“Coralie has improved,” continued Braulard, with the air of a competent

critic. “If she is a good girl, I will take her part, for they have got

up a cabal against her at the Gymnase. This is how I mean to do it. I

will have a few well-dressed men in the balconies to smile and make a

little murmur, and the applause will follow. That is a dodge which makes

a position for an actress. I have a liking for Coralie, and you ought to

be satisfied, for she has feeling. Aha! I can hiss any one on the stage

if I like.”

“But let us settle this business about the tickets,” put in Lousteau.

“Very well, I will come to this gentleman’s lodging for them at the

beginning of the month. He is a friend of yours, and I will treat him as

I do you. You have five theatres; you will get thirty tickets—that

will be something like seventy-five francs a month. Perhaps you will be

wanting an advance?” added Braulard, lifting a cash-box full of coin out

of his desk.

“No, no,” said Lousteau; “we will keep that shift against a rainy day.”

“I will work with Coralie, sir, and we will come to an understanding,”

said Braulard, addressing Lucien, who was looking about him, not without

profound astonishment. There was a bookcase in Braulard’s study, there

were framed engravings and good furniture; and as they passed through

the drawing room, he noticed that the fittings were neither too

luxurious nor yet mean. The dining-room seemed to be the best ordered

room, he remarked on this jokingly.

“But Braulard is an epicure,” said Lousteau; “his dinners are famous

in dramatic literature, and they are what you might expect from his

cash-box.”

“I have good wine,” Braulard replied modestly.—“Ah! here are my

lamplighters,” he added, as a sound of hoarse voices and strange

footsteps came up from the staircase.

Lucien on his way down saw a march past of _claqueurs_ and retailers of

tickets. It was an ill smelling squad, attired in caps, seedy trousers,

and threadbare overcoats; a flock of gallows-birds with bluish and

greenish tints in their faces, neglected beards, and a strange mixture

of savagery and subservience in their eyes. A horrible population lives

and swarms upon the Paris boulevards; selling watch guards and brass

jewelry in the streets by day, applauding under the chandeliers of the

theatre at night, and ready to lend themselves to any dirty business in

the great city.

“Behold the Romans!” laughed Lousteau; “behold fame incarnate for

actresses and dramatic authors. It is no prettier than our own when you

come to look at it close.”

“It is difficult to keep illusions on any subject in Paris,”

answered Lucien as they turned in at his door. “There is a tax upon

everything—everything has its price, and anything can be made to

order—even success.”

Thirty guests were assembled that evening in Coralie’s rooms, her dining

room would not hold more. Lucien had asked Dauriat and the manager of

the Panorama-Dramatique, Matifat and Florine, Camusot, Lousteau, Finot,

Nathan, Hector Merlin and Mme. du Val-Noble, Félicien Vernou, Blondet,

Vignon, Philippe Bridau, Mariette, Giroudeau, Cardot and Florentine, and

Bixiou. He had also asked all his friends of the Rue des Quatre-Vents.

Tullia the dancer, who was not unkind, said gossip, to du Bruel, had

come without her duke. The proprietors of the newspapers, for whom most

of the journalists wrote, were also of the party.

At eight o’clock, when the lights of the candles in the chandeliers

shone over the furniture, the hangings, and the flowers, the rooms wore

the festal air that gives to Parisian luxury the appearance of a dream;

and Lucien felt indefinable stirrings of hope and gratified vanity and

pleasure at the thought that he was the master of the house. But how and

by whom the magic wand had been waved he no longer sought to remember.

Florine and Coralie, dressed with the fanciful extravagance and

magnificent artistic effect of the stage, smiled on the poet like two

fairies at the gates of the Palace of Dreams. And Lucien was almost in a

dream.

His life had been changed so suddenly during the last few months; he had

gone so swiftly from the depths of penury to the last extreme of luxury,

that at moments he felt as uncomfortable as a dreaming man who knows

that he is asleep. And yet, he looked round at the fair reality about

him with a confidence to which envious minds might have given the name

of fatuity.

Lucien himself had changed. He had grown paler during these days of

continual enjoyment; languor had lent a humid look to his eyes; in

short, to use Mme. d’Espard’s expression, he looked like a man who is

loved. He was the handsomer for it. Consciousness of his powers and

his strength was visible in his face, enlightened as it was by love and

experience. Looking out over the world of letters and of men, it seemed

to him that he might go to and fro as lord of it all. Sober reflection

never entered his romantic head unless it was driven in by the pressure

of adversity, and just now the present held not a care for him. The

breath of praise swelled the sails of his skiff; all the instruments of

success lay there to his hand; he had an establishment, a mistress whom

all Paris envied him, a carriage, and untold wealth in his inkstand.

Heart and soul and brain were alike transformed within him; why should

he care to be over nice about the means, when the great results were

visibly there before his eyes.

As such a style of living will seem, and with good reason, to be

anything but secure to economists who have any experience of Paris, it

will not be superfluous to give a glance to the foundation, uncertain as

it was, upon which the prosperity of the pair was based.

Camusot had given Coralie’s tradesmen instructions to grant her credit

for three months at least, and this had been done without her knowledge.

During those three months, therefore, horses and servants, like

everything else, waited as if by enchantment at the bidding of two

children, eager for enjoyment, and enjoying to their hearts’ content.

Coralie had taken Lucien’s hand and given him a glimpse of the

transformation scene in the dining-room, of the splendidly appointed

table, of chandeliers, each fitted with forty wax-lights, of the royally

luxurious dessert, and a menu of Chevet’s. Lucien kissed her on the

forehead and held her closely to his heart.

“I shall succeed, child,” he said, “and then I will repay you for such

love and devotion.”

“Pshaw!” said Coralie. “Are you satisfied?”

“I should be very hard to please if I were not.”

“Very well, then, that smile of yours pays for everything,” she said,

and with a serpentine movement she raised her head and laid her lips

against his.

When they went back to the others, Florine, Lousteau, Matifat, and

Camusot were setting out the card-tables. Lucien’s friends began to

arrive, for already these folk began to call themselves “Lucien’s

friends”; and they sat over the cards from nine o’clock till midnight.

Lucien was unacquainted with a single game, but Lousteau lost a thousand

francs, and Lucien could not refuse to lend him the money when he asked

for it.

Michel, Fulgence, and Joseph appeared about ten o’clock; and Lucien,

chatting with them in a corner, saw that they looked sober and serious

enough, not to say ill at ease. D’Arthez could not come, he was

finishing his book; Léon Giraud was busy with the first number of his

review; so the brotherhood had sent three artists among their number,

thinking that they would feel less out of their element in an uproarious

supper party than the rest.

“Well, my dear fellows,” said Lucien, assuming a slightly patronizing

tone, “the ‘comical fellow’ may become a great public character yet, you

see.”

“I wish I may be mistaken; I don’t ask better,” said Michel.

“Are you living with Coralie until you can do better?” asked Fulgence.

“Yes,” said Lucien, trying to look unconscious. “Coralie had an elderly

adorer, a merchant, and she showed him the door, poor fellow. I am

better off than your brother Philippe,” he added, addressing Joseph

Bridau; “he does not know how to manage Mariette.”

“You are a man like another now; in short, you will make your way,” said

Fulgence.

“A man that will always be the same for you, under all circumstances,”

returned Lucien.

Michel and Fulgence exchanged incredulous scornful smiles at this.

Lucien saw the absurdity of his remark.

“Coralie is wonderfully beautiful,” exclaimed Joseph Bridau. “What a

magnificent portrait she would make!”

“Beautiful and good,” said Lucien; “she is an angel, upon my word. And

you shall paint her portrait; she shall sit to you if you like for your

Venetian lady brought by the old woman to the senator.”

“All women who love are angelic,” said Michel Chrestien.

Just at that moment Raoul Nathan flew upon Lucien, and grasped both his

hands and shook them in a sudden access of violent friendship.

“Oh, my good friend, you are something more than a great man, you have a

heart,” cried he, “a much rarer thing than genius in these days. You are

a devoted friend. I am yours, in short, through thick and thin; I shall

never forget all that you have done for me this week.”

Lucien’s joy had reached the highest point; to be thus caressed by a

man of whom everyone was talking! He looked at his three friends of the

brotherhood with something like a superior air. Nathan’s appearance

upon the scene was the result of an overture from Merlin, who sent him a

proof of the favorable review to appear in to-morrow’s issue.

“I only consented to write the attack on condition that I should be

allowed to reply to it myself,” Lucien said in Nathan’s ear. “I am one

of you.” This incident was opportune; it justified the remark which

amused Fulgence. Lucien was radiant.

“When d’Arthez’s book comes out,” he said, turning to the three, “I am

in a position to be useful to him. That thought in itself would induce

me to remain a journalist.”

“Can you do as you like?” Michel asked quickly.

“So far as one can when one is indispensable,” said Lucien modestly.

It was almost midnight when they sat down to supper, and the fun grew

fast and furious. Talk was less restrained in Lucien’s house than

at Matifat’s, for no one suspected that the representatives of the

brotherhood and the newspaper writers held divergent opinions. Young

intellects, depraved by arguing for either side, now came into conflict

with each other, and fearful axioms of the journalistic jurisprudence,

then in its infancy, hurtled to and fro. Claude Vignon, upholding the

dignity of criticism, inveighed against the tendency of the smaller

newspapers, saying that the writers of personalities lowered themselves

in the end. Lousteau, Merlin, and Finot took up the cudgels for the

system known by the name of _blague_; puffery, gossip, and humbug, said

they, was the test of talent, and set the hall-mark, as it were, upon

it. “Any man who can stand that test has real power,” said Lousteau.

“Besides,” cried Merlin, “when a great man receives ovations, there

ought to be a chorus in insults to balance, as in a Roman triumph.”

“Oho!” put in Lucien; “then every one held up to ridicule in print will

fancy that he has made a success.”

“Any one would think that the question interested you,” exclaimed Finot.

“And how about our sonnets,” said Michel Chrestien; “is that the way

they will win us the fame of a second Petrarch?”

“Laura already counts for something in his fame,” said Dauriat, a pun

[Laure (l’or)] received with acclamations.

“_Faciamus experimentum in anima vili_,” retorted Lucien with a smile.

“And woe unto him whom reviewers shall spare, flinging him crowns at

his first appearance, for he shall be shelved like the saints in their

shrines, and no man shall pay him the slightest attention,” said Vernou.

“People will say, ‘Look elsewhere, simpleton; you have had your due

already,’ as Champcenetz said to the Marquis de Genlis, who was looking

too fondly at his wife,” added Blondet.

“Success is the ruin of a man in France,” said Finot. “We are so jealous

of one another that we try to forget, and to make others forget, the

triumphs of yesterday.”

“Contradiction is the life of literature, in fact,” said Claude Vignon.

“In art as in nature, there are two principles everywhere at strife,”

exclaimed Fulgence; “and victory for either means death.”

“So it is with politics,” added Michel Chrestien.

“We have a case in point,” said Lousteau. “Dauriat will sell a couple

of thousand copies of Nathan’s book in the coming week. And why? Because

the book that was cleverly attacked will be ably defended.”

Merlin took up the proof of to-morrow’s paper. “How can such an article

fail to sell an edition?” he asked.

“Read the article,” said Dauriat. “I am a publisher wherever I am, even

at supper.”

Merlin read Lucien’s triumphant refutation aloud, and the whole party

applauded.

“How could that article have been written unless the attack had preceded

it?” asked Lousteau.

Dauriat drew the proof of the third article from his pocket and read it

over, Finot listening closely; for it was to appear in the second number

of his own review, and as editor he exaggerated his enthusiasm.

“Gentlemen,” said he, “so and not otherwise would Bossuet have written

if he had lived in our day.”

“I am sure of it,” said Merlin. “Bossuet would have been a journalist

to-day.”

“To Bossuet the Second!” cried Claude Vignon, raising his glass with an

ironical bow.

“To my Christopher Columbus!” returned Lucien, drinking a health to

Dauriat.

“Bravo!” cried Nathan.

“Is it a nickname?” Merlin inquired, looking maliciously from Finot to

Lucien.

“If you go on at this pace, you will be quite beyond us,” said Dauriat;

“these gentlemen” (indicating Camusot and Matifat) “cannot follow you

as it is. A joke is like a bit of thread; if it is spun too fine, it

breaks, as Bonaparte said.”

“Gentlemen,” said Lousteau, “we have been eye-witnesses of a strange,

portentous, unheard-of, and truly surprising phenomenon. Admire

the rapidity with which our friend here has been transformed from a

provincial into a journalist!”

“He is a born journalist,” said Dauriat.

“Children!” called Finot, rising to his feet, “all of us here present

have encouraged and protected our amphitryon in his entrance upon a

career in which he has already surpassed our hopes. In two months he has

shown us what he can do in a series of excellent articles known to us

all. I propose to baptize him in form as a journalist.”

“A crown of roses! to signalize a double conquest,” cried Bixiou,

glancing at Coralie.

Coralie made a sign to Bérénice. That portly handmaid went to Coralie’s

dressing-room and brought back a box of tumbled artificial flowers.

The more incapable members of the party were grotesquely tricked out

in these blossoms, and a crown of roses was soon woven. Finot, as high

priest, sprinkled a few drops of champagne on Lucien’s golden curls,

pronouncing with delicious gravity the words—“In the name of the

Government Stamp, the Caution-money, and the Fine, I baptize thee,

Journalist. May thy articles sit lightly on thee!”

“And may they be paid for, including white lines!” cried Merlin.

Just at that moment Lucien caught sight of three melancholy faces.

Michel Chrestien, Joseph Bridau, and Fulgence Ridal took up their hats

and went out amid a storm of invective.

“Queer customers!” said Merlin.

“Fulgence used to be a good fellow,” added Lousteau, “before they

perverted his morals.”

“Who are ‘they’?” asked Claude Vignon.

“Some very serious young men,” said Blondet, “who meet at a

philosophico-religious symposium in the Rue des Quatre-Vents, and worry

themselves about the meaning of human life——”

“Oh! oh!”

“They are trying to find out whether it goes round in a circle, or

makes some progress,” continued Blondet. “They were very hard put to

it between the straight line and the curve; the triangle, warranted by

Scripture, seemed to them to be nonsense, when, lo! there arose among

them some prophet or other who declared for the spiral.”

“Men might meet to invent more dangerous nonsense than that!” exclaimed

Lucien, making a faint attempt to champion the brotherhood.

“You take theories of that sort for idle words,” said Félicien Vernou;

“but a time comes when the arguments take the form of gunshot and the

guillotine.”

“They have not come to that yet,” said Bixiou; “they have only come

as far as the designs of Providence in the invention of champagne, the

humanitarian significance of breeches, and the blind deity who keeps the

world going. They pick up fallen great men like Vico, Saint-Simon, and

Fourier. I am much afraid that they will turn poor Joseph Bridau’s head

among them.”

“Bianchon, my old schoolfellow, gives me the cold shoulder now,” said

Lousteau; “it is all their doing——”

“Do they give lectures on orthopedy and intellectual gymnastics?” asked

Merlin.

“Very likely,” answered Finot, “if Bianchon has any hand in their

theories.”

“Pshaw!” said Lousteau; “he will be a great physician anyhow.”

“Isn’t d’Arthez their visible head?” asked Nathan, “a little youngster

that is going to swallow all of us up.”

“He is a genius!” cried Lucien.

“Genius, is he! Well, give me a glass of sherry!” said Claude Vignon,

smiling.

Every one, thereupon, began to explain his character for the benefit of

his neighbor; and when a clever man feels a pressing néed of explaining

himself, and of unlocking his heart, it is pretty clear that wine has

got the upper hand. An hour later, all the men in the company were the

best friends in the world, addressing each other as great men and bold

spirits, who held the future in their hands. Lucien, in his quality

of host, was sufficiently clearheaded to apprehend the meaning of the

sophistries which impressed him and completed his demoralization.

“The Liberal party,” announced Finot, “is compelled to stir up

discussion somehow. There is no fault to find with the action of the

Government, and you may imagine what a fix the Opposition is in.

Which of you now cares to write a pamphlet in favor of the system of

primogeniture, and raise a cry against the secret designs of the Court?

The pamphlet will be paid for handsomely.”

“I will write it,” said Hector Merlin. “It is my own point of view.”

“Your party will complain that you are compromising them,” said Finot.

“Félicien, you must undertake it; Dauriat will bring it out, and we will

keep the secret.”

“How much shall I get?”

“Six hundred francs. Sign it ‘Le Comte C, three stars.’”

“It’s a bargain,” said Félicien Vernou.

“So you are introducing the _canard_ to the political world,” remarked

Lousteau.

“It is simply the Chabot affair carried into the region of abstract

ideas,” said Finot. “Fasten intentions on the Government, and then let

loose public opinion.”

“How a Government can leave the control of ideas to such a pack of

scamps as we are, is matter for perpetual and profound astonishment to

me,” said Claude Vignon.

“If the Ministry blunders so far as to come down into the arena, we can

give them a drubbing. If they are nettled by it, the thing will rankle

in people’s minds, and the Government will lose its hold on the masses.

The newspaper risks nothing, and the authorities have everything to

lose.”

“France will be a cipher until newspapers are abolished by law,” said

Claude Vignon. “You are making progress hourly,” he added, addressing

Finot. “You are a modern order of Jesuits, lacking the creed, the fixed

idea, the discipline, and the union.”

They went back to the card-tables; and before long the light of the

candles grew feeble in the dawn.

“Lucien, your friends from the Rue des Quatre-Vents looked as dismal as

criminals going to be hanged,” said Coralie.

“They were the judges, not the criminals,” replied the poet.

“Judges are more amusing than _that_,” said Madame Coralie.

For a month Lucien’s whole time was taken up with supper parties, dinner

engagements, breakfasts, and evening parties; he was swept away by an

irresistible current into a vortex of dissipation and easy work. He

no longer thought of the future. The power of calculation amid the

complications of life is the sign of a strong will which poets,

weaklings, and men who live a purely intellectual life can never

counterfeit. Lucien was living from hand to mouth, spending his money

as fast as he made it, like many another journalist; nor did he give

so much as a thought to those periodically recurrent days of reckoning

which chequer the life of the bohemian in Paris so sadly.

In dress and figure he was a rival for the great dandies of the day.

Coralie, like all zealots, loved to adorn her idol. She ruined herself

to give her beloved poet the accoutrements which had so stirred his

envy in the Garden of the Tuileries. Lucien had wonderful canes, and

a charming eyeglass; he had diamond studs, and scarf-rings, and

signet-rings, besides an assortment of waistcoats marvelous to behold,

and in sufficient number to match every color in a variety of costumes.

His transition to the estate of dandy swiftly followed. When he went

to the German Minister’s dinner, all the young men regarded him with

suppressed envy; yet de Marsay, Vandenesse, Ajuda-Pinto, Maxime de

Trailles, Rastignac, Beaudenord, Manerville, and the Duc de Maufrigneuse

gave place to none in the kingdom of fashion. Men of fashion are as

jealous among themselves as women, and in the same way. Lucien was

placed between Mme. de Montcornet and Mme. d’Espard, in whose honor the

dinner was given; both ladies overwhelmed him with flatteries.

“Why did you turn your back on society when you would have been so well

received?” asked the Marquise. “Every one was prepared to make much of

you. And I have a quarrel with you too. You owed me a call—I am still

waiting to receive it. I saw you at the Opera the other day, and you

would not deign to come to see me nor to take any notice of me.”

“Your cousin, madame, so unmistakably dismissed me—”

“Oh! you do not know women,” the Marquise d’Espard broke in upon him.

“You have wounded the most angelic heart, the noblest nature that I

know. You do not know all that Louise was trying to do for you, nor

how tactfully she laid her plans for you.—Oh! and she would have

succeeded,” the Marquise continued, replying to Lucien’s mute

incredulity. “Her husband is dead now; died, as he was bound to die, of

an indigestion; could you doubt that she would be free sooner or later?

And can you suppose that she would like to be Madame Chardon? It was

worth while to take some trouble to gain the title of Comtesse de

Rubempré. Love, you see, is a great vanity, which requires the lesser

vanities to be in harmony with itself—especially in marriage. I might

love you to madness—which is to say, sufficiently to marry you—and yet

I should find it very unpleasant to be called Madame Chardon. You can

see that. And now that you understand the difficulties of Paris life,

you will know how many roundabout ways you must take to reach your end;

very well, then, you must admit that Louise was aspiring to an all but

impossible piece of Court favor; she was quite unknown, she is not rich,

and therefore she could not afford to neglect any means of success.

“You are clever,” the Marquise d’Espard continued; “but we women, when

we love, are cleverer than the cleverest man. My cousin tried to make

that absurd Châtelet useful—Oh!” she broke off, “I owe not a little

amusement to you; your articles on Châtelet made me laugh heartily.”

Lucien knew not what to think of all this. Of the treachery and bad

faith of journalism he had had some experience; but in spite of his

perspicacity, he scarcely expected to find bad faith or treachery in

society. There were some sharp lessons in store for him.

“But, madame,” he objected, for her words aroused a lively curiosity,

“is not the Heron under your protection?”

“One is obliged to be civil to one’s worst enemies in society,”

protested she; “one may be bored, but one must look as if the talk was

amusing, and not seldom one seems to sacrifice friends the better to

serve them. Are you still a novice? You mean to write, and yet you know

nothing of current deceit? My cousin apparently sacrificed you to the

Heron, but how could she dispense with his influence for you? Our friend

stands well with the present ministry; and we have made him see that

your attacks will do him service—up to a certain point, for we want

you to make it up again some of these days. Châtelet has received

compensations for his troubles; for, as des Lupeaulx said, ‘While the

newspapers are making Châtelet ridiculous, they will leave the Ministry

in peace.’”

There was a pause; the Marquise left Lucien to his own reflections.

“M. Blondet led me to hope that I should have the pleasure of seeing

you in my house,” said the Comtesse de Montcornet. “You will meet a few

artists and men of letters, and some one else who has the keenest desire

to become acquainted with you—Mlle. des Touches, the owner of talents

rare among our sex. You will go to her house, no doubt. Mlle. de Touches

(or Camille Maupin, if you prefer it) is prodigiously rich, and presides

over one of the most remarkable salons in Paris. She has heard that you

are as handsome as you are clever, and is dying to meet you.”

Lucien could only pour out incoherent thanks and glance enviously at

Émile Blondet. There was as great a difference between a great lady like

Mme. de Montcornet and Coralie as between Coralie and a girl out of the

streets. The Countess was young and witty and beautiful, with the

very white fairness of women of the north. Her mother was the Princess

Scherbellof, and the Minister before dinner had paid her the most

respectful attention.

By this time the Marquise had made an end of trifling disdainfully with

the wing of a chicken.

“My poor Louise felt so much affection for you,” she said. “She took me

into her confidence; I knew her dreams of a great career for you. She

would have borne a great deal, but what scorn you showed her when you

sent back her letters! Cruelty we can forgive; those who hurt us must

have still some faith in us; but indifference! Indifference is like

polar snows, it extinguishes all life. So, you must see that you have

lost a precious affection through your own fault. Why break with

her? Even if she had scorned you, you had your way to make, had you

not?—your name to win back? Louise thought of all that.”

“Then why was she silent?”

“_Eh! mon Dieu!_” cried the Marquise, “it was I myself who advised her

not to take you into her confidence. Between ourselves, you know, you

seemed so little used to the ways of the world, that I took alarm. I

was afraid that your inexperience and rash ardor might wreck our

carefully-made schemes. Can you recollect yourself as you were then? You

must admit that if you could see your double to-day, you would say the

same yourself. You are not like the same man. That was our mistake. But

would one man in a thousand combine such intellectual gifts with such

wonderful aptitude for taking the tone of society? I did not think that

you would be such an astonishing exception. You were transformed so

quickly, you acquired the manner of Paris so easily, that I did not

recognize you in the Bois de Boulogne a month ago.”

Lucien heard the great lady with inexpressible pleasure; the flatteries

were spoken with such a petulant, childlike, confiding air, and she

seemed to take such a deep interest in him, that he thought of his first

evening at the Panorama-Dramatique, and began to fancy that some such

miracle was about to take place a second time. Everything had smiled

upon him since that happy evening; his youth, he thought, was the

talisman that worked this change. He would prove this great lady; she

should not take him unawares.

“Then, what were these schemes which have turned to chimeras, madame?”

asked he.

“Louise meant to obtain a royal patent permitting you to bear the name

and title of Rubempré. She wished to put Chardon out of sight. Your

opinions have put that out of the question now, but _then_ it would not

have been so hard to manage, and a title would mean a fortune for you.

“You will look on these things as trifles and visionary ideas,” she

continued; “but we know something of life, and we know, too, all the

solid advantages of a Count’s title when it is borne by a fashionable

and extremely charming young man. Announce ‘M. Chardon’ and ‘M. le Comte

de Rubempré’ before heiresses or English girls with a million to their

fortune, and note the difference of the effect. The Count might be in

debt, but he would find open hearts; his good looks, brought into relief

by his title, would be like a diamond in a rich setting; M. Chardon

would not be so much as noticed. WE have not invented these notions;

they are everywhere in the world, even among the burgeois. You

are turning your back on fortune at this minute. Do you see that

good-looking young man? He is the Vicomte Félix de Vandenesse, one of

the King’s private secretaries. The King is fond enough of young men of

talent, and Vandenesse came from the provinces with baggage nearly as

light as yours. You are a thousand times cleverer than he; but do you

belong to a great family, have you a name? You know des Lupeaulx; his

name is very much like yours, for he was born a Chardin; well, he would

not sell his little farm of Lupeaulx for a million, he will be Comte

des Lupeaulx some day, and perhaps his grandson may be a duke.—You have

made a false start; and if you continue in that way, it will be all over

with you. See how much wiser M. Émile Blondet has been! He is engaged on

a Government newspaper; he is well looked on by those in authority; he

can afford to mix with Liberals, for he holds sound opinions; and soon

or later he will succeed. But then he understood how to choose his

opinions and his protectors.

“Your charming neighbor” (Mme. d’Espard glanced at Mme. de Montcornet)

“was a Troisville; there are two peers of France in the family and two

deputies. She made a wealthy marriage with her name; she sees a great

deal of society at her house; she has influence, she will move the

political world for young M. Blondet. Where will a Coralie take you? In

a few years’ time you will be hopelessly in debt and weary of pleasure.

You have chosen badly in love, and you are arranging your life ill. The

woman whom you delight to wound was at the Opera the other night, and

this was how she spoke of you. She deplored the way in which you were

throwing away your talent and the prime of youth; she was thinking of

you, and not of herself, all the while.”

“Ah! if you were only telling me the truth, madame!” cried Lucien.

“What object should I have in telling lies?” returned the Marquise, with

a glance of cold disdain which annihilated him. He was so dashed by it,

that the conversation dropped, for the Marquise was offended, and said

no more.

Lucien was nettled by her silence, but he felt that it was due to his

own clumsiness, and promised himself that he would repair his error.

He turned to Mme. de Montcornet and talked to her of Blondet, extolling

that young writer for her benefit. The Countess was gracious to him,

and asked him (at a sign from Mme. d’Espard) to spend an evening at her

house. It was to be a small and quiet gathering to which only friends

were invited—Mme. de Bargeton would be there in spite of her mourning;

Lucien would be pleased, she was sure, to meet Mme. de Bargeton.

“Mme. la Marquise says that all the wrong is on my side,” said Lucien;

“so surely it rests with her cousin, does it not, to decide whether she

will meet me?”

“Put an end to those ridiculous attacks, which only couple her name with

the name of a man for whom she does not care at all, and you will soon

sign a treaty of peace. You thought that she had used you ill, I am

told, but I myself have seen her in sadness because you had forsaken

her. Is it true that she left the provinces on your account?”

Lucien smiled; he did not venture to make any other reply.

“Oh! how could you doubt the woman who made such sacrifices for you?

Beautiful and intellectual as she is, she deserves besides to be loved

for her own sake; and Mme. de Bargeton cared less for you than for your

talents. Believe me, women value intellect more than good looks,” added

the Countess, stealing a glance at Émile Blondet.

In the Minister’s hotel Lucien could see the differences between the

great world and that other world beyond the pale in which he had lately

been living. There was no sort of resemblance between the two kinds of

splendor, no single point in common. The loftiness and disposition of

the rooms in one of the handsomest houses in the Faubourg Saint-Germain,

the ancient gilding, the breadth of decorative style, the subdued

richness of the accessories, all this was strange and new to him; but

Lucien had learned very quickly to take luxury for granted, and he

showed no surprise. His behavior was as far removed from assurance

or fatuity on the one hand as from complacency and servility upon the

other. His manner was good; he found favor in the eyes of all who were

not prepared to be hostile, like the younger men, who resented his

sudden intrusion into the great world, and felt jealous of his good

looks and his success.

When they rose from table, he offered his arm to Mme. d’Espard, and was

not refused. Rastignac, watching him, saw that the Marquise was gracious

to Lucien, and came in the character of a fellow-countryman to remind

the poet that they had met once before at Mme. du Val-Noble’s. The young

patrician seemed anxious to find an ally in the great man from his own

province, asked Lucien to breakfast with him some morning, and offered

to introduce him to some young men of fashion. Lucien was nothing loath.

“The dear Blondet is coming,” said Rastignac.

The two were standing near the Marquis de Ronquerolles, the Duc de

Rhétoré, de Marsay, and General Montriveau. The Minister came across to

join the group.

“Well,” said he, addressing Lucien with a bluff German heartiness that

concealed his dangerous subtlety; “well, so you have made your peace

with Mme. d’Espard; she is delighted with you, and we all know,” he

added, looking round the group, “how difficult it is to please her.”

“Yes, but she adores intellect,” said Rastignac, “and my illustrious

fellow-countryman has wit enough to sell.”

“He will soon find out that he is not doing well for himself,” Blondet

put in briskly. “He will come over; he will soon be one of us.”

Those who stood about Lucien rang the changes on this theme; the older

and responsible men laid down the law with one or two profound remarks;

the younger ones made merry at the expense of the Liberals.

“He simply tossed up head or tails for Right or Left, I am sure,”

remarked Blondet, “but now he will choose for himself.”

Lucien burst out laughing; he thought of his talk with Lousteau that

evening in the Luxembourg Gardens.

“He has taken on a bear-leader,” continued Blondet, “one Étienne

Lousteau, a newspaper hack who sees a five-franc piece in a column.

Lousteau’s politics consist in a belief that Napoleon will return, and

(and this seems to me to be still more simple) in a confidence in the

gratitude and patriotism of their worships the gentlemen of the Left. As

a Rubempré, Lucien’s sympathies should lean towards the aristocracy; as

a journalist, he ought to be for authority, or he will never be either

Rubempré or a secretary-general.”

The Minister now asked Lucien to take a hand at whist; but, to the great

astonishment of those present, he declared that he did not know the

game.

“Come early to me on the day of that breakfast affair,” Rastignac

whispered, “and I will teach you to play. You are a discredit to the

royal city of Angoulême; and, to repeat M. de Talleyrand’s saying, you

are laying up an unhappy old age for yourself.”

Des Lupeaulx was announced. He remembered Lucien, whom he had met at

Mme. du Val-Noble’s, and bowed with a semblance of friendliness which

the poet could not doubt. Des Lupeaulx was in favor, he was a Master

of Requests, and did the Ministry secret services; he was, moreover,

cunning and ambitious, slipping himself in everywhere; he was

everybody’s friend, for he never knew whom he might néed. He saw plainly

that this was a young journalist whose social success would probably

equal his success in literature; saw, too, that the poet was ambitious,

and overwhelmed him with protestations and expressions of friendship and

interest, till Lucien felt as if they were old friends already, and took

his promises and speeches for more than their worth. Des Lupeaulx made a

point of knowing a man thoroughly well if he wanted to get rid of him or

feared him as a rival. So, to all appearance, Lucien was well received.

He knew that much of his success was owing to the Duc de Rhétoré, the

Minister, Mme. d’Espard, and Mme. de Montcornet, and went to spend a

few moments with the two ladies before taking leave, and talked his very

best for them.

“What a coxcomb!” said des Lupeaulx, turning to the Marquise when he had

gone.

“He will be rotten before he is ripe,” de Marsay added, smiling. “You

must have private reasons of your own, madame, for turning his head in

this way.”

When Lucien stepped into the carriage in the courtyard, he found Coralie

waiting for him. She had come to fetch him. The little attention touched

him; he told her the history of his evening; and, to his no small

astonishment, the new notions which even now were running in his head

met with Coralie’s approval. She strongly advised him to enlist under

the ministerial banner.

“You have nothing to expect from the Liberals but hard knocks,” she

said. “They plot and conspire; they murdered the Duc de Berri. Will

they upset the Government? Never! You will never come to anything

through them, while you will be the Comte de Rubempré if you throw in

your lot with the other side. You might render services to the State,

and be a peer of France, and marry an heiress. Be an Ultra. It is the

proper thing besides,” she added, this being the last word with her on

all subjects. “I dined with the Val-Noble; she told me that Théodore

Gaillard is really going to start his little Royalist _Revue_, so as

to reply to your witticisms and the jokes in the _Miroir_. To hear

them talk, M. Villele’s party will be in office before the year is

out. Try to turn the change to account before they come to power; and

say nothing to Étienne and your friends, for they are quite equal to

playing you some ill turn.”

A week later, Lucien went to Mme. de Montcornet’s house, and saw the

woman whom he had so loved, whom later he had stabbed to the heart with

a jest. He felt the most violent agitation at the sight of her, for

Louise also had undergone a transformation. She was the Louise that she

would always have been but for her detention in the provinces—she was a

great lady. There was a grace and refinement in her mourning dress which

told that she was a happy widow; Lucien fancied that this coquetry was

aimed in some degree at him, and he was right; but, like an ogre, he had

tasted flesh, and all that evening he vacillated between Coralie’s warm,

voluptuous beauty and the dried-up, haughty, cruel Louise. He could not

make up his mind to sacrifice the actress to the great lady; and Mme.

de Bargeton—all the old feeling reviving in her at the sight of Lucien,

Lucien’s beauty, Lucien’s cleverness—was waiting and expecting that

sacrifice all evening; and after all her insinuating speeches and her

fascinations, she had her trouble for her pains. She left the room with

a fixed determination to be revenged.

“Well, dear Lucien,” she had said, and in her kindness there was both

generosity and Parisian grace; “well, dear Lucien, so you, that were to

have been my pride, took me for your first victim; and I forgave you, my

dear, for I felt that in such a revenge there was a trace of love still

left.”

With that speech, and the queenly way in which it was uttered, Mme.

de Bargeton recovered her position. Lucien, convinced that he was a

thousand times in the right, felt that he had been put in the wrong. Not

one word of the causes of the rupture! not one syllable of the terrible

farewell letter! A woman of the world has a wonderful genius for

diminishing her faults by laughing at them; she can obliterate them all

with a smile or a question of feigned surprise, and she knows this.

She remembers nothing, she can explain everything; she is amazed, asks

questions, comments, amplifies, and quarrels with you, till in the end

her sins disappear like stains on the application of a little soap and

water; black as ink you knew them to be; and lo! in a moment, you behold

immaculate white innocence, and lucky are you if you do not find that

you yourself have sinned in some way beyond redemption.

In a moment old illusions regained their power over Lucien and

Louise; they talked like friends, as before; but when the lady, with a

hesitating sigh, put the question, “Are you happy?” Lucien was not ready

with a prompt, decided answer; he was intoxicated with gratified vanity;

Coralie, who (let us admit it) had made life easy for him, had turned

his head. A melancholy “No” would have made his fortune, but he must

néeds begin to explain his position with regard to Coralie. He said that

he was loved for his own sake; he said a good many foolish things that

a man will say when he is smitten with a tender passion, and thought the

while that he was doing a clever thing.

Mme. de Bargeton bit her lips. There was no more to be said. Mme.

d’Espard brought Mme. de Montcornet to her cousin, and Lucien became

the hero of the evening, so to speak. He was flattered, petted, and made

much of by the three women; he was entangled with art which no words can

describe. His social success in this fine and brilliant circle was

at least as great as his triumphs in journalism. Beautiful Mlle. des

Touches, so well known as “Camille Maupin,” asked him to one of her

Wednesday dinners; his beauty, now so justly famous, seemed to have

made an impression upon her. Lucien exerted himself to show that his wit

equaled his good looks, and Mlle. des Touches expressed her admiration

with a playful outspokenness and a pretty fervor of friendship which

deceives those who do not know life in Paris to its depths, nor suspect

how continual enjoyment whets the appetite for novelty.

“If she should like me as much as I like her, we might abridge the

romance,” said Lucien, addressing de Marsay and Rastignac.

“You both of you write romances too well to care to live them,” returned

Rastignac. “Can men and women who write ever fall in love with each

other? A time is sure to come when they begin to make little cutting

remarks.”

“It would not be a bad dream for you,” laughed de Marsay. “The charming

young lady is thirty years old, it is true, but she has an income of

eighty thousand livres. She is adorably capricious, and her style of

beauty wears well. Coralie is a silly little fool, my dear boy, well

enough for a start, for a young spark must have a mistress; but unless

you make some great conquest in the great world, an actress will do you

harm in the long run. Now, my boy, go and cut out Conti. Here he is,

just about to sing with Camille Maupin. Poetry has taken precedence of

music ever since time began.”

But when Lucien heard Mlle. des Touches’ voice blending with Conti’s,

his hopes fled.

“Conti sings too well,” he told des Lupeaulx; and he went back to Mme.

de Bargeton, who carried him off to Mme. d’Espard in another room.

“Well, will you not interest yourself in him?” asked Mme. de Bargeton.

The Marquise spoke with an air half kindly, half insolent. “Let M.

Chardon first put himself in such a position that he will not compromise

those who take an interest in him,” she said. “If he wishes to drop his

patronymic and to bear his mother’s name, he should at any rate be on

the right side, should he not?”

“In less than two months I will arrange everything,” said Lucien.

“Very well,” returned Mme. d’Espard. “I will speak to my father and

uncle; they are in waiting, they will speak to the Chancellor for you.”

The diplomatist and the two women had very soon discovered Lucien’s weak

side. The poet’s head was turned by the glory of the aristocracy; every

man who entered the rooms bore a sounding name mounted in a glittering

title, and he himself was plain Chardon. Unspeakable mortification

filled him at the sound of it. Wherever he had been during the last few

days, that pang had been constantly present with him. He felt, moreover,

a sensation quite as unpleasant when he went back to his desk after an

evening spent in the great world, in which he made a tolerable figure,

thanks to Coralie’s carriage and Coralie’s servants.

He learned to ride, in order to escort Mme. d’Espard, Mlle. des Touches,

and the Comtesse de Montcornet when they drove in the Bois, a privilege

which he had envied other young men so greatly when he first came to

Paris. Finot was delighted to give his right-hand man an order for the

Opera, so Lucien wasted many an evening there, and thenceforward he was

among the exquisites of the day.

The poet asked Rastignac and his new associates to a breakfast, and made

the blunder of giving it in Coralie’s rooms in the Rue de Vendôme;

he was too young, too much of a poet, too self-confident, to discern

certain shades and distinctions in conduct; and how should an actress,

a good-hearted but uneducated girl, teach him life? His guests were

anything but charitably disposed towards him; it was clearly proven to

their minds that Lucien the critic and the actress were in collusion

for their mutual interests, and all of the young men were jealous of an

arrangement which all of them stigmatized. The most pitiless of those

who laughed that evening at Lucien’s expense was Rastignac himself.

Rastignac had made and held his position by very similar means; but

so careful had he been of appearances, that he could afford to treat

scandal as slander.

Lucien proved an apt pupil at whist. Play became a passion with him; and

so far from disapproving, Coralie encouraged his extravagance with the

peculiar short-sightedness of an all-absorbing love, which sees nothing

beyond the moment, and is ready to sacrifice anything, even the future,

to the present enjoyment. Coralie looked on cards as a safe-guard

against rivals. A great love has much in common with childhood—a

child’s heedless, careless, spendthrift ways, a child’s laughter and

tears.

In those days there lived and flourished a set of young men,

some of them rich, some poor, and all of them idle, called

“free-livers” (_viveurs_); and, indeed, they lived with incredible

insolence—unabashed and unproductive consumers, and yet more intrepid

drinkers. These spendthrifts mingled the roughest practical jokes with

a life not so much reckless as suicidal; they drew back from no

impossibility, and gloried in pranks which, nevertheless, were confined

within certain limits; and as they showed the most original wit in their

escapades, it was impossible not to pardon them.

No sign of the times more plainly discovered the helotism to which the

Restoration had condemned the young manhood of the epoch. The younger

men, being at a loss to know what to do with themselves, were compelled

to find other outlets for their superabundant energy besides journalism,

or conspiracy, or art, or letters. They squandered their strength in

the wildest excesses, such sap and luxuriant power was there in young

France. The hard workers among these gilded youths wanted power and

pleasure; the artists wished for money; the idle sought to stimulate

their appetites or wished for excitement; one and all of them wanted

a place, and one and all were shut out from politics and public life.

Nearly all the “free-livers” were men of unusual mental powers; some

held out against the enervating life, others were ruined by it. The

most celebrated and the cleverest among them was Eugène Rastignac, who

entered, with de Marsay’s help, upon a political career, in which he

has since distinguished himself. The practical jokes, in which the set

indulged became so famous, that not a few vaudevilles have been founded

upon them.

Blondet introduced Lucien to this society of prodigals, of which he

became a brilliant ornament, ranking next to Bixiou, one of the most

mischievous and untiring scoffing wits of his time. All through that

winter Lucien’s life was one long fit of intoxication, with intervals of

easy work. He continued his series of sketches of contemporary life,

and very occasionally made great efforts to write a few pages of serious

criticism, on which he brought his utmost power of thought to bear.

But study was the exception, not the rule, and only undertaken at the

bidding of necessity; dinners and breakfasts, parties of pleasure and

play, took up most of his time, and Coralie absorbed all that was left.

He would not think of the morrow. He saw besides that his so-called

friends were leading the same life, earning money easily by writing

publishers’ prospectuses and articles paid for by speculators; all of

them lived beyond their incomes, none of them thought seriously of the

future.

Lucien had been admitted into the ranks of journalism and of literature

on terms of equality; he foresaw immense difficulties in the way if he

should try to rise above the rest. Every one was willing to look upon

him as an equal; no one would have him for a superior. Unconsciously he

gave up the idea of winning fame in literature, for it seemed easier to

gain success in politics.

“Intrigue raises less opposition than talent,” du Châtelet had said one

day (for Lucien and the Baron had made up their quarrel); “a plot below

the surface rouses no one’s attention. Intrigue, moreover, is superior

to talent, for it makes something out of nothing; while, for the most

part, the immense resources of talent only injure a man.”

So Lucien never lost sight of his principal idea; and though to-morrow,

following close upon the heels of to-day in the midst of an orgy, never

found the promised work accomplished, Lucien was assiduous in society.

He paid court to Mme. de Bargeton, the Marquise d’Espard, and the

Comtesse de Montcornet; he never missed a single party given by Mlle.

des Touches, appearing in society after a dinner given by authors or

publishers, and leaving the salons for a supper given in consequence of

a bet. The demands of conversation and the excitement of play absorbed

all the ideas and energy left by excess. The poet had lost the lucidity

of judgment and coolness of head which must be preserved if a man is

to see all that is going on around him, and never to lose the exquisite

tact which the _parvenu_ néeds at every moment. How should he know how

many a time Mme. de Bargeton left him with wounded susceptibilities, how

often she forgave him or added one more condemnation to the rest?

Châtelet saw that his rival had still a chance left, so he became

Lucien’s friend. He encouraged the poet in dissipation that wasted his

energies. Rastignac, jealous of his fellow-countryman, and thinking,

besides, that Châtelet would be a surer and more useful ally than

Lucien, had taken up the Baron’s cause. So, some few days after the

meeting of the Petrarch and Laura of Angoulême, Rastignac brought about

the reconciliation between the poet and the elderly beau at a sumptuous

supper given at the _Rocher de Cancale_. Lucien never returned home till

morning, and rose in the middle of the day; Coralie was always at his

side, he could not forego a single pleasure. Sometimes he saw his real

position, and made good resolutions, but they came to nothing in

his idle, easy life; and the mainspring of will grew slack, and only

responded to the heaviest pressure of necessity.

Coralie had been glad that Lucien should amuse himself; she had

encouraged him in this reckless expenditure, because she thought that

the cravings which she fostered would bind her lover to her; he could

not lead his present life without her. But tender-hearted and loving

as she was, she found courage to advise Lucien not to forget his work,

and once or twice was obliged to remind him that he had earned very

little during the month. Their debts were growing frightfully fast. The

fifteen hundred francs which remained from the purchase-money of the

_Marguerites_ had been swallowed up at once, together with Lucien’s

first five hundred livres. In three months he had only made a thousand

francs, yet he felt as though he had been working tremendously hard.

But by this time Lucien had adopted the “free-livers” pleasant theory

of debts.

Debts are becoming to a young man, but after the age of five-and-twenty

they are inexcusable. It should be observed that there are certain

natures in which a really poetic temper is united with a weakened will;

and these while absorbed in feeling, that they may transmute personal

experience, sensation, or impression into some permanent form, are

essentially deficient in the moral sense which should accompany all

observation. Poets prefer rather to receive their own impressions

than to enter into the souls of others to study the mechanism of their

feelings and thoughts. So Lucien neither asked his associates what

became of those who disappeared from among them, nor looked into the

futures of his so-called friends. Some of them were heirs to property,

others had definite expectations; yet others either possessed names that

were known in the world, or a most robust belief in their destiny and

a fixed resolution to circumvent the law. Lucien, too, believed in

his future on the strength of various profound axiomatic sayings

of Blondet’s: “Everything comes out all right at last—If a man has

nothing, his affairs cannot be embarrassed—We have nothing to lose

but the fortune that we seek—Swim with the stream; it will take you

somewhere—A clever man with a footing in society can make a fortune

whenever he pleases.”

That winter, filled as it was with so many pleasures and dissipations,

was a necessary interval employed in finding capital for the new

Royalist paper; Théodore Gaillard and Hector Merlin only brought out the

first number of the _Réveil_ in March 1822. The affair had been settled

at Mme. du Val-Noble’s house. Mme. du val-Noble exercised a certain

influence over the great personages, Royalist writers, and bankers who

met in her splendid rooms—“fit for a tale out of the _Arabian Nights_,”

as the elegant and clever courtesan herself used to say—to transact

business which could not be arranged elsewhere. The editorship had been

promised to Hector Merlin. Lucien, Merlin’s intimate, was pretty certain

to be his right-hand man, and a _feuilleton_ in a Ministerial paper

had been promised to him besides. All through the dissipations of that

winter Lucien had been secretly making ready for this change of front.

Child as he was, he fancied that he was a deep politician because he

concealed the preparation for the approaching transformation-scene,

while he was counting upon Ministerial largesses to extricate himself

from embarrassment and to lighten Coralie’s secret cares. Coralie said

nothing of her distress; she smiled now, as always; but Bérénice was

bolder, she kept Lucien informed of their difficulties; and the budding

great man, moved, after the fashion of poets, by the tale of disasters,

would vow that he would begin to work in earnest, and then forget his

resolution, and drown his fleeting cares in excess. One day Coralie saw

the poetic brow overcast, and scolded Bérénice, and told her lover that

everything would be settled.

Mme. d’Espard and Mme. de Bargeton were waiting for Lucien’s profession

of his new creed, so they said, before applying through Châtelet for

the patent which should permit Lucien to bear the so-much desired name.

Lucien had proposed to dedicate the _Marguerites_ to Mme. d’Espard, and

the Marquise seemed to be not a little flattered by a compliment which

authors have been somewhat chary of paying since they became a power in

the land; but when Lucien went to Dauriat and asked after his book, that

worthy publisher met him with excellent reasons for the delay in its

appearance. Dauriat had this and that in hand, which took up all his

time; a new volume by Canalis was coming out, and he did not want the

two books to clash; M. de Lamartine’s second series of _Meditations_

was in the press, and two important collections of poetry ought not to

appear together.

By this time, however, Lucien’s néeds were so pressing that he had

recourse to Finot, and received an advance on his work. When, at a

supper-party that evening, the poet journalist explained his position

to his friends in the fast set, they drowned his scruples in champagne,

iced with pleasantries. Debts! There was never yet a man of any power

without debts! Debts represented satisfied cravings, clamorous vices.

A man only succeeds under the pressure of the iron hand of necessity.

Debts forsooth!

“Why, the one pledge of which a great man can be sure, is given him by

his friend the pawnbroker,” cried Blondet.

“If you want everything, you must owe for everything,” called Bixiou.

“No,” corrected des Lupeaulx, “if you owe for everything, you have had

everything.”

The party contrived to convince the novice that his debts were a golden

spur to urge on the horses of the chariot of his fortunes. There

is always the stock example of Julius Caesar with his debt of forty

millions, and Friedrich II. on an allowance of one ducat a month, and a

host of other great men whose failings are held up for the corruption

of youth, while not a word is said of their wide-reaching ideas, their

courage equal to all odds.

Creditors seized Coralie’s horses, carriage, and furniture at last, for

an amount of four thousand francs. Lucien went to Lousteau and asked

his friend to meet his bill for the thousand francs lent to pay gaming

debts; but Lousteau showed him certain pieces of stamped paper, which

proved that Florine was in much the same case. Lousteau was grateful,

however, and offered to take the necessary steps for the sale of

Lucien’s _Archer of Charles IX._

“How came Florine to be in this plight?” asked Lucien.

“The Matifat took alarm,” said Lousteau. “We have lost him; but if

Florine chooses, she can make him pay dear for his treachery. I will

tell you all about it.”

Three days after this bootless errand, Lucien and Coralie were

breakfasting in melancholy spirits beside the fire in their pretty

bedroom. Bérénice had cooked a dish of eggs for them over the grate; for

the cook had gone, and the coachman and servants had taken leave. They

could not sell the furniture, for it had been attached; there was not

a single object of any value in the house. A goodly collection of

pawntickets, forming a very instructive octavo volume, represented all

the gold, silver, and jewelry. Bérénice had kept back a couple of spoons

and forks, that was all.

Lousteau’s newspaper was of service now to Coralie and Lucien, little as

they suspected it; for the tailor, dressmaker, and milliner were afraid

to meddle with a journalist who was quite capable of writing down their

establishments.

Étienne Lousteau broke in upon their breakfast with a shout of “Hurrah!

Long live _The Archer of Charles IX._! And I have converted a hundred

francs worth of books into cash, children. We will go halves.”

He handed fifty francs to Coralie, and sent Bérénice out in quest of a

more substantial breakfast.

“Hector Merlin and I went to a booksellers’ trade dinner yesterday, and

prepared the way for your romance with cunning insinuations. Dauriat

is in treaty, but Dauriat is haggling over it; he won’t give more than

four thousand francs for two thousand copies, and you want six thousand

francs. We made you out twice as great as Sir Walter Scott! Oh! you

have such novels as never were in the inwards of you. It is not a mere

book for sale, it is a big business; you are not simply the writer

of one more or less ingenious novel, you are going to write a whole

series. That word ‘series’ did it! So, mind you, don’t forget that you

have a great historical series on hand—_La Grande Mademoiselle_, or

_The France of Louis Quatorze_; _Cotillon I._, or _The Early Days of

Louis Quinze_; _The Queen and the Cardinal_, or _Paris and the Fronde_;

_The Son of the Concini_, or _Richelieu’s Intrigue_. These novels will

be announced on the wrapper of the book. We call this manoeuvre ‘giving

a success a toss in the coverlet,’ for the titles are all to appear on

the cover, till you will be better known for the books that you have

not written than for the work you have done. And ‘In the Press’ is a

way of gaining credit in advance for work that you will do. Come, now,

let us have a little fun! Here comes the champagne. You can understand,

Lucien, that our men opened eyes as big as saucers. By the by, I see

that you have saucers still left.”

“They are attached,” explained Coralie.