A Distinguished Provincial at Paris

H >> Honore de Balzac >> A Distinguished Provincial at Paris


"Oh! we must wait and see what he has in him," said Theodore Gaillard,
a poet patronized by the Court, who thought of starting a Royalist
paper to be entitled the _Reveil_ 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.
Chatelet 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
Angouleme was as fierce as on that day when the lady and her cousin
had cut him in the Champs-Elysees.

"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 Chatelet 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. Felicien 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
Berenice 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. "Felicien, 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.
Felicien 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 Moliere 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_ Heloise, 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 _Debats_. 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
Bruyere, the power of treating character as Moliere 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 Stael 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 Rubempre,' 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 _Debats_, 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 Rubempre 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 at 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
Vendome. 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 Chatelet 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 Chatelet.

"Well, let us go for a drive in the Bois," said Coralie, "the horses
are fidgeting. There is no need 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 Vendome to the Panorama-Dramatique, going along
the Cafe 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 Rhetore 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 Chatelet 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.' Chatelet will be a
byword, a name for the type of courtiers 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 Rubempre. But he showed the tip of
his ear when he asserted his right to bear the name of Rubempre, the
Duc de Rhetore 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 Etienne 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 Etienne'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.