“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 tomorrow?” said Lucien. “So far, my friends have been mere skirmishers, but I have given them red-hot shot tonight. Tomorrow 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 forever, 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.
