“Gentlemen,” said Lousteau, “we have been eyewitnesses 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.
Everyone, thereupon, began to explain his character for the benefit of his neighbor; and when a clever man feels a pressing need 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
