That promise put new life into Coralie. But the next day, as they breakfasted together, Lucien opened Lousteau’s newspaper, and found that unlucky anecdote of the Keeper of the Seals and his wife. The story was full of the blackest malice lurking in the most caustic wit. Louis XVIII was brought into the story in a masterly fashion, and held up to ridicule in such a way that prosecution was impossible. Here is the substance of a fiction for which the Liberal party attempted to win credence, though they only succeeded in adding one more to the tale of their ingenious calumnies.
The King’s passion for pink-scented notes and a correspondence full of madrigals and sparkling wit was declared to be the last phase of the tender passion; love had reached the Doctrinaire stage; or had passed, in other words, from the concrete to the abstract. The illustrious lady, so cruelly ridiculed under the name of Octavie by Béranger, had conceived (so it was said) the gravest fears. The correspondence was languishing. The more Octavie displayed her wit, the cooler grew the royal lover. At last Octavie discovered the cause of her decline; her power was threatened by the novelty and piquancy of a correspondence between the august scribe and the wife of his Keeper of the Seals. That excellent woman was believed to be incapable of writing a note; she was simply and solely godmother to the efforts of audacious ambition. Who could be hidden behind her petticoats? Octavie decided, after making observations of her own, that the King was corresponding with his Minister.
She laid her plans. With the help of a faithful friend, she arranged that a stormy debate should detain the Minister at the Chamber; then she contrived to secure a tête-à-tête, and to convince outraged Majesty of the fraud. Louis XVIII flew into a royal and truly Bourbon passion, but the tempest broke on Octavie’s head. He would not believe her. Octavie offered immediate proof, begging the King to write a note which must be answered at once. The unlucky wife of the Keeper of the Seals sent to the Chamber for her husband; but precautions had been taken, and at that moment the Minister was on his legs addressing the Chamber. The lady racked her brains and replied to the note with such intellect as she could improvise.
“Your Chancellor will supply the rest,” cried Octavie, laughing at the King’s chagrin.
There was not a word of truth in the story; but it struck home to three persons—the Keeper of the Seals, his wife, and the King. It was said that des Lupeaulx had invented the tale, but Finot always kept his counsel. The article was caustic and clever, the Liberal papers and the Orleanists were delighted with it, and Lucien himself laughed, and thought of it merely as a very amusing canard.
He called next day for des Lupeaulx and the Baron du Châtelet. The Baron had just been to thank his lordship. The Sieur Châtelet, newly appointed Councillor Extraordinary, was now Comte du Châtelet, with a promise of the prefecture of the Charente so soon as the present prefect should have completed the term of office necessary to receive the maximum retiring pension. The Comte du Châtelet (for the du had been inserted in the patent) drove with Lucien to the Chancellerie, and treated his companion as an equal. But for Lucien’s articles, he said, his patent would not have been granted so soon; Liberal persecution had been a stepping-stone to advancement. Des Lupeaulx was waiting for them in the Secretary-General’s office. That functionary started with surprise when Lucien appeared and looked at des Lupeaulx.
“What!” he exclaimed, to Lucien’s utter bewilderment. “Do you dare to come here, sir? Your patent was made out, but his lordship has torn it up. Here it is!” (the Secretary-General caught up the first torn sheet that came to hand). “The Minister wished to discover the author of yesterday’s atrocious article, and here is the manuscript,” added the speaker, holding out the sheets of Lucien’s article. “You call yourself a Royalist, sir, and you are on the staff of that detestable paper which turns the Minister’s hair gray, harasses the Centre, and is dragging the country headlong to ruin? You breakfast on the Corsair, the Miroir, the Constitutionnel, and the Courier; you dine on the Quotidienne and the Réveil, and then sup with Martainville, the worst enemy of the Government! Martainville urges the Government on to Absolutist measures; he is more likely to bring on another Revolution than if he had gone over to the extreme Left. You are a very clever journalist, but you will never make a politician. The Minister denounced you to the King, and the King was so angry that he scolded M. le Duc de Navarreins, his First Gentleman of the Bedchamber. Your enemies will be all the more formidable because they have hitherto been your friends. Conduct that one expects from an enemy is atrocious in a friend.”
“Why, really, my dear fellow, are you a child?” said des Lupeaulx. “You have compromised me.
