“We will pay the Liberals out,” cried Merlin.
“Gentlemen,” said Nathan, “if we are for war, let us have war in earnest; we must not carry it on with popguns. Let us fall upon all Classicals and Liberals without distinction of age or sex, and put them all to the sword with ridicule. There must be no quarter.”
“We must act honorably; there must be no bribing with copies of books or presents; no taking money of publishers. We must inaugurate a Restoration of Journalism.”
“Good!” said Martainville. “Justum et tenacem propositi virum! Let us be implacable and virulent. I will give out La Fayette for the prince of harlequins that he is!”
“And I will undertake the heroes of the Constitutionnel,” added Lucien; “Sergeant Mercier, M. Jouy’s Complete Works, and ‘the illustrious orators of the Left.’ ”
A war of extermination was unanimously resolved upon, and by one o’clock in the morning all shades of opinion were merged and drowned, together with every glimmer of sense, in a flaming bowl of punch.
“We have had a fine Monarchical and Religious jollification,” remarked an illustrious reveler in the doorway as he went.
That comment appeared in the next day’s issue of the Miroir through the good offices of a publisher among the guests, and became historic. Lucien was supposed to be the traitor who blabbed. His defection gave the signal for a terrific hubbub in the Liberal camp; Lucien was the butt of the Opposition newspapers, and ridiculed unmercifully. The whole history of his sonnets was given to the public. Dauriat was said to prefer a first loss of a thousand crowns to the risk of publishing the verses; Lucien was called “the Poet sans Sonnets”; and one morning, in that very paper in which he had so brilliant a beginning, he read the following lines, significant enough for him, but barely intelligible to other readers:
*** “If M. Dauriat persistently withholds the Sonnets of the future Petrarch from publication, we will act like generous foes. We will open our own columns to his poems, which must be piquant indeed, to judge by the following specimen obligingly communicated by a friend of the author.”
And close upon that ominous preface followed a sonnet entitled “The Thistle” (le Chardon):
A chance-come seedling, springing up one day
Among the flowers in a garden fair,
Made boast that splendid colors bright and rare
Its claims to lofty lineage should display.So for a while they suffered it to stay;
But with such insolence it flourished there,
That, out of patience with its braggart’s air,
They bade it prove its claims without delay.It bloomed forthwith; but ne’er was blundering clown
Upon the boards more promptly hooted down;
The sister flowers began to jeer and laugh.The owner flung it out. At close of day
A solitary jackass came to bray—
A common Thistle’s fitting epitaph.
Lucien read the words through scalding tears.
Vernou touched elsewhere on Lucien’s gambling propensities, and spoke of the forthcoming Archer of Charles IX as “anti-national” in its tendency, the writer siding with Catholic cutthroats against their Calvinist victims.
Another week found the quarrel embittered. Lucien had counted upon his friend Étienne; Étienne owed him a thousand francs, and there had been besides a private understanding between them; but Étienne Lousteau during the interval became his sworn foe, and this was the manner of it.
For the past three months Nathan had been smitten with Florine’s charms, and much at a loss how to rid himself of Lousteau his rival, who was in fact dependent upon the actress. And now came Nathan’s opportunity, when Florine was frantic with distress over the failure of the Panorama-Dramatique, which left her without an engagement. He went as Lucien’s colleague to beg Coralie to ask for a part for Florine in a play of his which was about to be produced at the Gymnase. Then Nathan went to Florine and made capital with her out of the service done by the promise of a conditional engagement. Ambition turned Florine’s head; she did not hesitate. She had had time to gauge Lousteau pretty thoroughly. Lousteau’s courses were weakening his will, and here was Nathan with his ambitions in politics and literature, and energies strong as his cravings. Florine proposed to reappear on the stage with renewed éclat, so she handed over Matifat’s correspondence to Nathan. Nathan drove a bargain for them with Matifat, and took the sixth share of Finot’s review in exchange for the compromising billets. After this, Florine was installed in sumptuously furnished apartments in the Rue Hauteville, where she took Nathan for her protector in the face of the theatrical and journalistic world.
Lousteau was terribly overcome. He wept (towards the close of a dinner given by his friends to console him in his affliction). In the course of that banquet it was decided that Nathan had not acted unfairly; several writers present—Finot and Vernou, for instance—knew of Florine’s fervid admiration for dramatic literature; but they all agreed that Lucien had behaved very ill when he arranged that business at the Gymnase; he had indeed broken the most sacred laws of friendship. Party-spirit and zeal to serve his new friends had led the Royalist poet on to sin beyond forgiveness.
“Nathan was carried away by passion,” pronounced Bixiou, “while this ‘distinguished provincial,’ as Blondet calls him, is simply scheming for his own selfish ends.”
And so it came to pass that deep plots were laid by all parties alike to rid themselves of this little upstart intruder of a poet who wanted to eat everybody up. Vernou bore Lucien a personal grudge, and undertook to keep a tight hand
