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 I AP t 
 
 
 
 


 
 Bonore tie iSaljac
 
 J^tmorfc tre Balzac 
 
 PROVINCIAL LIFE 
 
 VOLUME VIII
 
 LIMITED TO ONE THOUSAND COMPLETE COPIES 
 
 713 
 
 NO.
 
 U97/ty "J " 
 
 
 
 m
 
 IN FINOT'S OFFICE 
 
 "A claim then, no doubt?" rejoined Napoleon's 
 former trooper. " We were a little hard on Mariette, 
 I admit. But what do you expect! I don't even 
 know why it was as yet. But if you demand sat- 
 isfaction, I am ready," he added, glancing at a col- 
 lection of foils and pistols, the modern stand of arms, 
 heaped together in a corner. 
 
 "Still less do I come for that, monsieur. I desire 
 to speak with the editor in chief."
 
 ?9 
 
 o 
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 189954
 
 TO MONSIEUR VICTOR HUGO 
 
 You who, by virtue of the privilege accorded the 
 Raphaels and the Pitts, were a great poet at the age 
 when men are usually so puny, have, like Chateau- 
 briand, like all men of genuine talent, been com- 
 pelled to combat the envious, ambuscaded behind 
 the pillars or crouching in the subterranean caverns 
 of the newspaper. Therefore do I desire that your 
 victorious name should participate in the victory of 
 this work, which 1 dedicate to you, and which, in 
 the view of some people, is a manifestation of cour- 
 age as well as a narrative faithful to the truth. 
 Did not journalists, like marquises, financiers, 
 doctors and lawyers, belong to Moliere and his 
 stage ? Why then should the COMEDIE HUMAINE, 
 which castigat ridendo mores, omit a single power, 
 when the Parisian press omits none? 
 
 I am happy, monsieur, to be able to subscribe 
 myself 
 
 Your sincere admirer and friend, 
 
 De Balzac. 
 
 (3)
 
 PART FIRST 
 THE TWO POETS 
 
 * 
 
 At the time when this narrative begins, the Stan- 
 hope press and the ink-distributing cylinders had 
 not yet been adopted in the small provincial print- 
 ing offices. Despite the special circumstances 
 which establish a direct connection between An- 
 gouleme and Parisian printing offices, that town 
 still used the wooden presses to which the language 
 is indebted for the expression, "to make the press 
 groan," an expression which now has no applica- 
 tion. The old-fashioned offices there still made use 
 of leather balls rubbed over with ink, with which 
 one of the pressmen besmeared the type. The 
 movable plate whereon is placed the form filled with 
 letters, upon which the sheet of paper is laid, was 
 still of stone and justified its name of marble. The 
 all-devouring machine presses of to-day have so 
 completely banished all memory of this mechanism, 
 to which we owe, despite its imperfections, the 
 noble volumes of Elzevir, Plantin, Aide and Didot, 
 that it is necessary to mention the old-fashioned 
 tools, for which Jerome-Nicolas Sechard had a 
 
 (5)
 
 6 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 superstitious affection, for they play a part in this 
 great petty narrative. 
 
 This Sechard was a former journeyman pressman, 
 one of those whom the workmen whose duty it is to 
 assemble the type, call, in their printers' slang, a 
 bear. The constant passing back and forth from ink- 
 well to press and from press to ink-well, not unlike 
 the movements of a bear in his cage, was un- 
 doubtedly responsible for that sobriquet. In re- 
 venge, the bears called the compositors monkeys, 
 because of the incessant exercise those gentlemen 
 go through in seizing the letters in the hundred and 
 fifty-two little cases in which they are contained. 
 
 In the disastrous days of 1793, Sechard, then 
 about fifty years old, was a married man. His age 
 and the fact of his marriage exempted him from the 
 great conscription, which drafted almost all the 
 mechanics into the armies. The old pressman was 
 left alone in the office, the proprietor, otherwise 
 called the innocent, having recently died, leaving a 
 childless widow. The establishment seemed to be 
 threatened with immediate destruction: the solitary 
 bear was incapable of transforming himself into a 
 monkey; for, printer though he was, he could 
 neither read nor write. Heedless of his incapacity, 
 a representative of the people, in eager haste to 
 spread broadcast the glorious decrees of the Con- 
 vention, invested the pressman with the commis- 
 sion of master printer, and set his presses at work. 
 Having accepted this perilous commission, Citizen 
 Sechard indemnified his master's widow by paying
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 7 
 
 her for the stock in trade of the office, at about 
 half its value, with his wife's savings. That 
 was nothing. He was required to print the 
 republican decrees without error or delay. At 
 that embarrassing conjuncture, Jerome-Nicolas 
 Sechard had the good fortune to meet a noble Mar- 
 seillais, who did not wish to emigrate, or to lose his 
 estates, or to show himself for fear of losing his 
 head, and who could not procure bread to eat un- 
 less he turned his hand to some kind of work. So 
 Monsieur le Comte de Maucombe donned the hum- 
 ble jacket of a provincial printer: he, himself, 
 composed, read and corrected the decrees which 
 called for the infliction of the death-penalty upon 
 citizens who harbored nobles ; the bear, now an in- 
 nocent, struck them off and caused them to be pla- 
 carded through the town; and they both escaped 
 safe and sound. 
 
 In 1795, the hurricane of the Revolution having 
 passed over, Nicolas Sechard was obliged to find 
 another Master Jacques, who could act as composi- 
 tor and as proof-reader. An abbe, who became a 
 bishop under the Restoration, but who refused at this 
 time to take the oath, replaced the Comte de Mau- 
 combe until the day that the First Consul re-estab- 
 lished the Catholic religion. The count and the 
 bishop met at a later period on the same bench in 
 the Chamber of Peers. Although in 1802, Jerome- 
 Nicolas Sechard was no better able to read and 
 write than in 1793, he had laid by sufficient stuff to 
 be able to hire a proof-reader. The journeyman
 
 8 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 with so little thought for the future had become an 
 object of awe to his bears and monkeys. Avarice 
 begins where poverty ends. On the day that the 
 possibility of making his fortune first dawned upon 
 the printer, self-interest developed in him a thor- 
 ough, but grasping, suspicious and far-sighted un- 
 derstanding of his trade. His method of conducting 
 the business snapped its fingers at theory. He had 
 finally acquired the power of estimating at a glance 
 the price of a page or a sheet according to the style 
 of letters used. He proved to his illiterate cus- 
 tomers that it was more expensive to move large 
 letters than small ones; or, if they wanted small 
 ones, he said that they were harder to handle. 
 Composition being a branch of typography of which 
 he had no comprehension, he was so afraid of mak- 
 ing mistakes against himself, that he never made 
 any but one-sided bargains. If his compositors 
 worked by the hour he never took his eyes off them. 
 If he knew that a paper manufacturer was in em- 
 barrassed circumstances, he would buy his stock at 
 a low price and store it. In 1802 he had saved 
 enough to purchase the house in which the printing 
 office had been located from time immemorial. 
 Fortune smiled upon him in every direction : he 
 lost his wife, and he had only one son ; he placed 
 him at the town lyceum, less for the purpose of 
 giving him an education than to prepare a successor 
 to himself; he treated him harshly in order to pro- 
 long the duration of his paternal authority; thus, on 
 holidays, he set him at work at the case, bidding
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 9 
 
 him learn to earn his own living so that he could 
 some day reward his poor father who was bleeding 
 himself to give him an education. 
 
 At the abbe's departure, Sechard chose for his 
 proof-reader that one of his four compositors who 
 was recommended by the future bishop as being no 
 less honest than intelligent. In this way the good- 
 man prepared for the time when his son should be 
 competent to undertake the management of the 
 establishment, which would expand rapidly in his 
 young and skilful hands. 
 
 David Sechard took very high rank in his studies 
 at the lyceum at Angouleme. Although a bear, who 
 had made his own way without knowledge or edu- 
 cation, and entertaining a sovereign contempt for 
 science, Pere Sechard sent his son to Paris to study 
 scientific typography; but he was so emphatic in 
 his injunctions to him to lay by a handsome sum in 
 a city which he called the paradise of workmen, bid- 
 ding him not to rely upon the paternal purse, that 
 he must have seen some way of attaining his own 
 ends in this sojourn in the land of sapience. While 
 learning his trade, David also completed his educa- 
 tion at Paris. The Didots' proof-reader became a 
 savant. In the latter part of 1819 David Sechard, 
 whose life in Paris had not cost his father a sou, 
 left the capital at the old man's summons, to return 
 to the province and assume the management of the 
 business. Nicolas Sechard's printing office pub- 
 lished at that time the only sheet in the department 
 containing legal announcements, and also did all the
 
 IO LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 printing for the prefecture and the diocese, three 
 sources of revenue upon which an energetic young 
 man might hope to found a handsome fortune. 
 
 Just at that time the brothers Cointet, paper man- 
 ufacturers, purchased the second printer's privilege 
 in the residency of Angouleme, which, up to that 
 time, old Sechard had succeeded in keeping abso- 
 lutely inactive by favor of the military crises 
 which, under the Empire, held all industrial prog- 
 ress in check; for that reason, he had not deemed 
 it worth his while to purchase it, and his parsimony 
 was one cause of the downfall of the old printing 
 house. When he heard the news, old Sechard re- 
 flected with great satisfaction that the contest be- 
 tween his establishment and that of the Cointets 
 would have to be carried on by his son and not by 
 himself. 
 
 "I should have gone to the wall," he said to him- 
 self; "but a young man brought up by Messieurs 
 Didot will pull through." 
 
 The septuagenarian sighed for the time when he 
 could lead a life of leisure. Although he had but 
 little knowledge of scientific typography, he was 
 supposed to be remarkably strong in an art which 
 has been jestingly dubbed by mechanics, tipsifica- 
 tion ; an art much esteemed by the divine creator 
 of Pantagruel, but the cultivation of which, under 
 the persecution of so-called temperance societies, 
 is more and more neglected from day to day. 
 Jer6me-Nicolas Sechard, faithful to the destiny his 
 name had created for him, was consumed by an
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS II 
 
 inextinguishable thirst. His wife had long kept 
 within reasonable bounds this passion for the ex- 
 pressed juice of the grape, a passion so natural to 
 bears, that Monsieur de Chateaubriand observed its 
 existence in the genuine American bear; but phil- 
 osophers have remarked that the habits of youth 
 return with renewed force in old age. Sechard 
 afforded a striking testimony to the truth of this 
 moral law : the older he grew, the more he loved to 
 drink. His passion left traces upon his ursine face 
 that made it quite unique: his nose had assumed 
 the proportions and the shape of a capital A of triple 
 canon type, his veined cheeks resembled vine-leaves 
 covered with violet, purple, often branching protu- 
 berances; you would have said it was an enormous 
 truffle enveloped in autumn vine-branches. Hidden 
 beneath huge eyebrows that resembled bushes 
 laden with snow, his little gray eyes, wherein shone 
 the crafty gleam of an avarice that killed every- 
 thing within him, even the impulses of paternity, 
 preserved their intelligence even in drunkenness. 
 His bald, shiny head, with its scanty fringe of gray 
 hair, still curly, reminded one of the cobblers in 
 La Fontaine's Fables. He was short and paunchy, 
 like many of the old styles of lamp that consume 
 more oil than wick; for excess in everything impels 
 the body along the path to which it naturally in- 
 clines. Drunkenness, like study, makes the fat 
 man fatter and the thin man thinner. 
 
 Jerome-Nicolas Sechard had worn for thirty years 
 the famous municipal three-cornered hat, which in
 
 12 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 some provinces is still seen on the head of the town 
 drummer. His waistcoat and his trousers were of 
 greenish velvet, and he wore an old brown frock- 
 coat, figured cotton stockings and shoes with silver 
 buckles. This costume, in which the mechanic 
 could be detected in the bourgeois, harmonized so 
 well with his vices and his habits, it was so ex- 
 pressive of his life, that it seemed as if the good- 
 man must have come into the world all dressed: 
 you could no more have imagined him without his 
 clothes than an onion without its skin. Even if 
 the old printer had not long before sufficiently man- 
 ifested his blind greed, the manner of his retirement 
 would have sufficed to depict his character. Not- 
 withstanding the knowledge and experience his son 
 was certain to have brought back with him from the 
 great school of the Didots, he proposed to drive a 
 profitable bargain with him, upon which he had long 
 been ruminating. If it was a profitable bargain 
 for the father, it was likely to be an unprofitable one 
 for the son. But, so far as the goodman was con- 
 cerned, there was no father and no son in business. 
 If he had at first thought of David as his only child, 
 he eventually saw in him a natural successor in the 
 business, whose interests were opposed to his: he 
 wanted to sell at a high price, David would want to 
 buy cheap; ergo, his son became an enemy to 
 conquer. This transformation of sentiment to per- 
 sonal interest, ordinarily a slow, tortuous and 
 hypocritical process in well-bred people, was swift 
 and unswerving in the case of the old bear, who
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 13 
 
 showed how superior a crafty drunkard is to a skilled 
 printer. 
 
 When his son arrived, the goodman manifested 
 the commercial affection which clever men bestow 
 upon their dupes: he waited upon him as a lover 
 waits upon his mistress; he offered him his arm, 
 he told him where he must put his feet in order not 
 to soil his boots; he had had his bed warmed, a fire 
 lighted and supper prepared. The next day, after 
 he had tried to make his son tipsy during a boun- 
 teous dinner, Jerome-Nicolas Sechard, thoroughly 
 saturated with wine, turned to his son with a Let's 
 talk business! which came out so queerly between 
 two hiccoughs that David begged him to postpone 
 the business until the following day. The old bear 
 was too well skilled in turning his drunkenness to his 
 own advantage to abandon a battle for which he 
 had been making ready so long. Furthermore, he 
 said that, after dragging his ball and chain for 
 fifty years, he did not propose to wear it an hour 
 longer. On the morrow, his son would be the inno- 
 cent. 
 
 At this point it will be well perhaps to say a 
 word concerning the Sechard establishment. The 
 printing office, located at the corner of Rue de 
 Beaulieu and Place du Murier, was established on 
 that spot toward the close of the reign of Louis XIV. 
 Thus the building had long been arranged to suit 
 the requirements of that branch of industry. The 
 ground floor formed one immense room lighted by 
 an old small-paned window on the street and by a
 
 14 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 large window looking on an interior courtyard. 
 The office of the proprietor could be reached by an 
 outside passage way. But, in the provinces, the 
 processes of printing are always the object of such 
 eager curiosity, that customers preferred to enter by 
 the glass door in the street front, although they 
 must descend several steps, the floor of the press- 
 room being below the level of the sidewalk. Vis- 
 itors, agape with curiosity, paid no heed to the 
 inconveniences of the passage through the defiles of 
 the workshop. While they were gazing at the 
 cradles formed by the sheets stretched upon cords 
 hanging from the ceiling, they would stumble 
 against the rows of cases or knock their hats off 
 against the iron bars that supported the presses. 
 If they followed the agile movements of a compos- 
 itor darting at his letters in the hundred and fifty- 
 two compartments of his case, reading his copy, 
 rereading the line in his galley and inserting a 
 lead, they would run into a ream of damp paper 
 with heavy weights upon it, or strike their hips 
 against the corner of a bench; all to the great 
 amusement of the bears and monkeys. No 
 one ever arrived without accident at the two great 
 cages situated at the farther end of this cavern, 
 forming two dilapidated cells upon the courtyard 
 side, in one of which the proof-reader, in the other 
 the master printer, sat in state. 
 
 The walls on the courtyard were agreeably em- 
 bellished with vine-trellises, which, in view of the 
 master's reputation, had an appetizing local color.
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 1 5 
 
 At the rear, supported against the party-wall, was 
 a dilapidated lean-to, where the paper was soaked 
 and cut There too was the sink at which the 
 forms, commonly cailed the letter-blocks, were 
 washed before and after the printing; the waste- 
 pipe discharged a decoction of ink, which, when 
 mingled with the waste water from the house, led 
 the peasants, who came there on market days, to 
 believe that the devil was in the habit of washing 
 in the house. The lean-to was flanked on one side 
 by the kitchen, on the other by a woodpile. The 
 first floor of the house, above which there were only 
 two attic chambers, contained three rooms. The 
 first, which was as long as the passageway, less the 
 cage of the old wooden stairway, was lighted by a 
 small oblong window on the street and by a bull's- 
 eye on the courtyard, and served the double purpose 
 of a reception-room and a dining-room. The walls 
 were whitewashed, and the whole room was notice- 
 able by reason of the cynical simplicity of commer- 
 cial greed; the dirty floor had never been washed; 
 the furniture consisted of three wretched chairs, a 
 round table and a sideboard, the latter placed be- 
 tween two doors leading respectively to a bedroom 
 and a salon; the windows and door were black 
 with dirt; the room was generally filled with paper, 
 blank or printed, and not infrequently the dessert, 
 the bottles and the side dishes of Jerome-Nicolas 
 Sechard's dinner were placed upon bales of paper. 
 The bedroom, which had a window with leaded 
 panes looking on the courtyard, was hung with the
 
 l6 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 old-fashioned tapestries that are used in the prov- 
 inces to decorate the house-fronts on Corpus Christi 
 Day. There was a great four-post bedstead, pro- 
 vided with curtains of coarse cloth, and a coverlid in 
 red serge, two moth-eaten armchairs, two uphol- 
 stered black walnut chairs, an old secretary and a 
 clock on the mantelpiece. This room, which ex- 
 haled an odor of patriarchal simplicity, obscured by 
 sombre coloring, had been arranged by Sieur 
 Rouzeau, Jerome-Nicolas Sechard's predecessor and 
 master. The salon, modernized by the late Madame 
 Sechard, was embellished with a hideous wooden 
 wainscoting, painted a barber's blue; the panels 
 were decorated with a paper representing oriental 
 scenes in dark-brown on a white ground; the furni- 
 ture consisted of six chairs with blue sheep-skin 
 seats and backs made in the shape of lyres. The 
 two arched windows, which looked on Place du 
 Murier, were without curtains; the mantelpiece had 
 neither candlesticks nor clock nor mirror. Madame 
 Sechard died in the midst of her schemes of embel- 
 lishment, and the bear, failing to appreciate the 
 utility of improvements which brought in nothing, 
 had abandoned them. 
 
 It was to this room that Jerome-Nicolas Sechard, 
 pede titubante, led his son, and pointed to the table, 
 whereon lay an inventory of the stock in his print- 
 ing office, prepared under his supervision by the 
 proof-reader. 
 
 "Read that, my boy," said Jerome-Nicolas 
 Sechard, rolling his drunken eyes from the paper
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 17 
 
 to his son and from his son to the paper. "You'll 
 see what a jewel of a printing office I'm giving 
 you." 
 
 " 'Three wooden presses supported by iron bars, 
 with the beds of cast-iron — ' 
 
 "An improvement of mine," interposed old 
 Sechard. 
 
 " 'With all their appurtenances, ink-wells, balls 
 and benches, etc., sixteen hundred francs!' Why, 
 father," said David Sechard, letting the inventory 
 fall, "your presses are old rubbish not worth a hun- 
 dred crowns, good for nothing but to be burned up." 
 
 "Old rubbish?" cried old Sechard, "rubbish? 
 Take the inventory and let's go down! You'll see 
 if your wretched blacksmith inventions work like 
 these good old well-tried tools. Then you won't 
 have the heart to insult honest presses that roll as 
 smoothly as post-chaises, and will last all your life 
 without the slightest need of repair. Rubbish! 
 Yes, rubbish in which you'll find salt enough to 
 cook eggs! rubbish your father has used twenty 
 years and that has helped him to make you what 
 you are." 
 
 The father shuffled down the rickety, worn-out, 
 shaking staircase without falling through ; he opened 
 the door of the passageway that led to the work- 
 room, rushed to the first of his presses, which he 
 had craftily had oiled and cleaned, and pointed to 
 the strong oaken cheeks, which his apprentice had 
 rubbed until they shone. 
 
 "Isn't that a love of a press?" he asked. 
 2
 
 l8 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 There was a wedding invitation on the press. 
 The old bear lowered the trisket on the tympan, and 
 the tympan on the slab, which he slid under the 
 press ; he drew the bar, loosened the cord to draw 
 back the slab, and raised tympan and frisket 
 with the agility of a young bear. The press, thus 
 handled, gave forth a sweet little note such as a 
 bird might have uttered as it flew away after strik- 
 ing against a window. 
 
 "Is there an English press capable of doing such 
 work as that ?" said the father to his astonished son. 
 
 He ran to the second and third presses in suc- 
 cession and went through the same performance 
 upon each of them with equal skill. Upon the last, 
 his hazy eye discovered a spot the apprentice had 
 overlooked; the drunkard, having sworn roundly, 
 took the skirt of his coat to rub it, as a groom 
 polishes the coat of a horse that is for sale. 
 
 "With these presses and without a proof-reader, 
 you can earn your nine thousand francs a year, 
 David. As your future partner, I object to your 
 replacing them by those accursed cast-iron presses 
 that wear out the type. You shouted miracles in 
 Paris when you saw the invention of that infernal 
 Englishman, an enemy of France, who has tried to 
 make the fortune of founders. So you wanted to 
 have Stanhopes, did you? a fig for your Stanhopes, 
 which cost twenty-five hundred francs each, almost 
 twice as much as my three jewels together are 
 worth, and break the backs of the letters by their 
 lack of elasticity. I'm not a learned man like
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 19 
 
 you, but just remember this: the life of the Stan- 
 hopes means the death of the type. These three 
 presses will do you good service, the work will be 
 done properly, and that's all the good people of 
 Angouleme want. Whether you print with iron or 
 wood, with gold or silver, they won't pay a sou 
 more." 
 
 " 'Item,' David read on, " 'five thousand pounds 
 of type from the foundry of Monsieur Vaflard — ' " 
 
 At that name, the pupil of the Didots could not 
 restrain a smile. 
 
 "Oh! laugh, laugh! After twelve years, the 
 type are still as good as new. That's what I call a 
 founder ! Monsieur Vaflard's an honest man who 
 supplies durable goods; and to my mind the best 
 founder is the one you have to call on least often." 
 
 " 'Appraised at ten thousand francs,' " continued 
 David. "Ten thousand francs, father! why that's 
 at forty sous a pound, and Messieurs Didot only 
 charge thirty-six sous a pound for their new pica. 
 Your nail-heads are only worth the value of the 
 castings, ten sous a pound." 
 
 "You give the name of 'nail-heads' to the italics, 
 running-hand and roundhand of Monsieur Gille, 
 formerly printer to the Emperor, type that is worth 
 six francs a pound, masterpieces of casting pur- 
 chased five years ago, and some of the pieces with 
 the white of the casting still on them: see!" 
 
 Old Sechard picked up several handfuls of "sorts" 
 that had never been used and showed them to him. 
 
 "I'm no scholar, I don't know how to read or
 
 20 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 write, but I know enough to know that the Gille 
 written type is the father of your Didots' English 
 type. Here's a roundhand," he said, pointing to 
 a case and taking out an M, "a case of pica round- 
 hand that's not yet out of use." 
 
 David saw that it was impossible to argue with 
 his father. He must either agree to everything or 
 nothing; it must be yes or no. The old bear had 
 included everything in the inventory, even to the 
 cords in the drying-room. The smallest chase, the 
 shelves, the trays, the stone and the scrubbing 
 brushes, everything was figured with the scrupulous 
 exactitude of a miser. The whole amounted to 
 thirty thousand francs, including the license as 
 master printer and the good-will. David deliber- 
 ated as to whether it was or was not a practicable 
 opportunity. Seeing his son sitting mute over the 
 figures, old Sechard became uneasy ; for he preferred 
 a violent dispute to silent acquiescence. In bar- 
 gains of this sort, discussion indicates a capable 
 negotiator defending his interests. The man who 
 agrees to everything pays for nothing, thought old 
 Sechard. Watching his son's countenance the 
 while, he went through the enumeration of the 
 sorry accessories essential to the working of a pro- 
 vincial printing office; he led him to a polishing 
 press, a cutting machine for the town work, and 
 boasted of their long use and their durability. 
 
 "Old tools are always the best," he said. "A 
 printer ought to be willing to pay more for them 
 than for new, as gold-beaters do."
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 21 
 
 Hideous vignettes representing Hymens and 
 Cupids, dead men lifting the stones from their 
 sepulchres, describing a V or an M, enormous bor- 
 ders with masks for play bills, became, by virtue 
 of the vinous eloquence of Jerome-Nicolas Sechard, 
 objects of immense value. He told his son that the 
 habits of provincials were so deeply rooted that he 
 would try in vain to arouse a taste for anything 
 finer. He, Jerome-Nicolas Sechard, had tried to 
 sell them better almanacs than the Double Liegois 
 printed on sugar paper! but they preferred the gen- 
 uine Double Liegois to the most magnificent alma- 
 nacs. David would soon realize the value of these 
 old-fashioned things when he found he could sell 
 them for more than the most expensive novelties. 
 
 "Ah! my boy, the province is the province, and 
 Paris is Paris. If a man from L'Houmeau comes to 
 order his wedding invitations and you print them 
 for him without a cupid and garlands of roses, he 
 won't believe he's married, and he'll bring them 
 back to you if he sees nothing but an M, such as 
 your Messieurs Didot would give him; they may 
 be the glory of typography, but their inventions 
 won't be adopted in the provinces in less than a 
 hundred years. And there you are." 
 
 Generous-minded men are very poor hands at 
 driving a bargain. David was one of those shy, 
 affectionate creatures who shrink from a dispute, 
 and who yield at once when their opponent appeals 
 to their heart. His exalted sentiments and the 
 power the old drunkard had retained over him made
 
 22 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 him still more unfit to sustain a discussion concern- 
 ing money matters with his father, especially when 
 he credited him with the best intentions; for at 
 first he attributed the voracity of selfishness to the 
 old pressman's attachment to his tools. However, 
 as Jerome-Nicolas Sechard had purchased the whole 
 establishment from the widow Rouzeau for ten 
 thousand francs in assignats, and as thirty thousand 
 francs was a most exorbitant price for them in their 
 present condition, he cried: 
 "Father, you are robbing me!" 
 "I, who gave you your life? — "said the old 
 drunkard raising his hand toward the drying-room. 
 "Why, David, what do you value the license at? 
 Do you know what the legal notices are worth at 
 ten sous a line, — a privilege that brought in five 
 hundred francs last month, all by itself? Just open 
 the books, my boy, and see what the advertisements 
 and lists of the prefecture produce and the custom 
 of the mayor's office and the bishopric! You're a 
 sluggard who doesn't want to make his fortune. 
 You're haggling over the horse that will take you 
 to some fine estate like Marsac." 
 
 To the inventory were appended articles of part- 
 nership between the father and son. The kind 
 father leased his house to the firm for twelve hun- 
 dred francs, although he had paid only six thou- 
 sand for it, and he reserved for himself one of the 
 two attic rooms. Until David Sechard should pay 
 the thirty thousand francs, the profits were to be 
 equally divided; on the day when he paid his
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 23 
 
 father that sum, he was to become the sole 
 proprietor of the business. David formed an esti- 
 mate of the value of the license, the good-will and 
 the journal, paying no heed to the stock and 
 machinery; he believed that he could see his way 
 to make money and he accepted the conditions. 
 The father, accustomed as he was to the pettifog- 
 ging shrewdness of the peasantry, and knowing 
 nothing of the far-reaching projects of Parisian men 
 of business, was amazed at so prompt a conclusion. 
 
 "Can my son have got rich?" he thought, "or is 
 he now thinking up some way of not paying me?" 
 
 With that conjecture in his mind, he questioned 
 him as to whether he had brought any money home, 
 so that he might secure it as a payment on account. 
 The father's inquisitiveness aroused the son's sus- 
 picions, and he maintained a close reserve. The 
 next day, old Sechard bade his apprentice carry his 
 furniture to his room on the second floor, intending 
 to send it to his house in the country by wagons 
 that were returning in that direction empty. He 
 turned over to his son the three rooms on the first 
 floor stripped perfectly bare, just as he put him in 
 possession of the printing office without giving him 
 a centime to pay the workmen. When David urged 
 his father, as a partner, to contribute to the fund 
 that was essential for running the office for their 
 mutual benefit, the old pressman feigned ignorance. 
 He was not obliged, he said, to furnish money when 
 he had furnished the plant; his contribution was all 
 made. Cornered by his son's logic, he retorted
 
 24 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 that, when he bought the plant from the widow 
 Rouzeau, he had made his way without a sou. If 
 he, a poor journeyman, without any sort of knowl- 
 edge, had succeeded, a pupil of the Didots ought to 
 do even better. Furthermore, David had earned 
 money because of the education his old father had 
 paid for with the sweat of his brow; he might well 
 put it to some use to-day. 
 
 "What have you done with your funds?" he said, 
 returning to the charge in the hope of gaining some 
 light upon the problem which his son's silence had 
 left unsolved the night before. 
 
 "Why, have I not had to live? haven't I bought 
 books?" replied David indignantly. 
 
 "Ah! you have bought books? You won't make 
 a good business man. People who buy books are 
 hardly fit to print them," retorted the bear. 
 
 David experienced the most horrible of humilia- 
 tions, that caused by the degradation of one's father : 
 he was forced to submit to the flood of base, cow- 
 ardly, tearful, commercial reasons with which the 
 old miser supported his refusal. He forced his sor- 
 row back into his heart, realizing that he was alone 
 and unsupported, and finding a vile speculator in 
 his father, whom, through philosophical curiosity, 
 he determined to probe to the bottom. He called 
 his attention to the fact that he had never asked for 
 an account of his mother's fortune. If that fortune 
 was not to enter into the matter of payment for the 
 plant, it should at least be used for the expenses of 
 carrying on the business.
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 25 
 
 "Your mother's fortune?" said old Sechard; 
 "why her wit and her beauty were her fortune!" 
 
 From that reply David gauged his father's char- 
 acter completely, and realized that, in order to 
 obtain an account, he would be compelled to enter 
 upon an expensive, interminable, degrading lawsuit. 
 The noble heart accepted the burden that was cast 
 upon it, for he knew how difficult it would be for 
 him to fulfil his agreements with his father. 
 
 "I will work," he said to himself. "After all, if 
 I have bad luck, it's no more than the goodman him- 
 self had. Besides, I shall really be working for 
 myself." 
 
 "I leave you a great treasure," said the father, 
 disturbed by his son's silence. 
 
 David inquired what the treasure might be. 
 
 "Marion," was the reply. 
 
 Marion was a stout country girl, whose services 
 were indispensable in carrying on the printing 
 office; she soaked the paper and cut it, did the 
 errands and the cooking and washing, unloaded the 
 wagons of paper, collected the money and cleaned 
 the rolls. If Marion had known how to read, old 
 Sechard would have made a compositor of her. 
 
 The old man set out on foot for the country. 
 Although highly pleased with his sale, which he 
 disguised under the name of partnership, he was 
 anxious as to his means of obtaining payment. 
 After the agonizing suspense of a sale comes always 
 that of its completion. All the passions are essen- 
 tially Jesuitical. This man, who deemed education
 
 26 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 useless, forced himself to believe in the influence of 
 education. He based his hopes of realizing his 
 thirty thousand francs on the ideas of honor that 
 education had probably developed in his son. 
 David, being a well brought-up youth, would sweat 
 blood and water to fulfil his undertakings, his 
 knowledge would suggest ways and means, he had 
 shown himself to be actuated by praiseworthy sen- 
 timents, and he would pay! Many fathers, who 
 act in this way, believe that they have acted as 
 fathers should and old Sechard had succeeded in so 
 persuading himself by the time he arrived at his 
 vineyard at Marsac, a small village four leagues 
 from Angouleme. 
 
 This estate, upon which the last owner had built 
 an attractive little house, had been added to from 
 year to year since 1809, when the old bear pur- 
 chased it. There he laid aside the cares of the 
 printing-press for those of the wine-press, and he 
 had, as he himself said, been too long among the 
 vines not to know a thing or two about them. Dur- 
 ing the first year of his retirement, Pere Sechard 
 exhibited an anxious face over his vine poles.; for 
 he was always in his vineyard, just as he used to 
 be. always in his press-room. The thirty thousand 
 francs he almost despaired of receiving intoxicated 
 him more than the September wine; he constantly 
 imagined that he had them between his fingers. 
 The less reason he had to expect the money, the 
 greater his longing to see it safely stowed away in 
 his strong-box. So he often made hurried trips from
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 2^ 
 
 Marsac to Angouleme, drawn thither by his anxiety. 
 He would climb the steps up the cliff on whose sum- 
 mit the town is built, and go at once to the press- 
 room to see if his son were going out of business. 
 But the presses were always in their places. The 
 only apprentice, with his paper cap on his head, 
 was scraping the dirt off the rolls. The old bear 
 would hear the squeak of a press upon some invita- 
 tion, he would recognize his old type, and see his 
 son and the proof-reader, each in his cage, reading 
 what the bear took for proofs. Having dined with 
 David, he would return to Marsac, ruminating over 
 his fears. 
 
 Avarice, like love, has the gift of second sight as 
 to future contingencies, it scents them and hurries 
 them on. When he was away from the press-room, 
 where the sight of his tools fascinated him, taking 
 him back to the days when he made his fortune, 
 the vinegrower recalled ominous symptoms of in- 
 activity in his son. The name of Coiniet Frlres 
 frightened him, he fancied that he saw it overshad- 
 owing that of Sechard ei Fits. In short, the old 
 man scented the wind of misfortune. His presenti- 
 ment was well-founded: disaster was hovering over 
 the house of Sechard. But misers have a god. 
 Through a combination of unforeseen circumstances, 
 that god was destined to drop the price of the 
 usurious sale into the old drunkard's purse. 
 
 The fall of the Sechard establishment, notwith- 
 standing its elements of prosperity, was due to 
 the following reason. Indifferent to the religious
 
 28 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 reaction which the Restoration produced in the gov- 
 ernment, and equally indifferent to the cause of 
 liberalism, David maintained a most injudicious 
 neutrality in political and religious matters. It 
 was a time when provincial tradesmen were com- 
 pelled to profess some opinion in order to have any 
 customers, and one must choose between liberal 
 and royalist tenets. A passion that assailed David's 
 heart, and his absorption in scientific investigations, 
 together with his naturally noble character, kept 
 him from that keen thirst for gain which constitutes 
 the true tradesman, and which would have led him 
 to study the points of difference between the Parisian 
 method of doing business and that in vogue in 
 the provinces. The lines of demarcation that are 
 so sharply marked in the departments, disappear in 
 the constant movement of Paris. 
 
 The brothers Cointet adopted monarchical opin- 
 ions, they fasted ostentatiously, they haunted the 
 cathedral, cultivated the acquaintance of the 
 priests, and reprinted the first religious books of 
 which the supply ran short. Thus the Cointets 
 took the lead in that lucrative branch of the trade, 
 and slanderously accused David Sechard of liber- 
 alism and atheism. How, they asked, could anyone 
 employ a man, whose father was a Septembrist, a 
 drunkard, a Bonapartist, an old miser who would 
 die sooner or later and leave heaps of gold ? They 
 were poor and burdened with families, while David 
 was a bachelor and would be immensely rich; that 
 was the reason that he took things so easily, etc.
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 29 
 
 Influenced by these accusations against David, the 
 prefecture and the bishopric finally transferred the 
 privilege of doing such printing as they had to do, 
 to the brothers Cointet. Soon these grasping 
 rivals, emboldened by David's indifference, estab- 
 lished a second journal of legal announcements. 
 The old office was thus reduced to the town printing, 
 and the profits of its journal of announcements were 
 cut down one-half. Having realized a considerable 
 sum on their church books and religious publica- 
 tions, the Cointets soon proposed to the Sechards 
 that the latter should sell them their journal, so 
 that the departmental and legal announcements 
 might all appear in the same sheet. David had no 
 sooner transmitted this proposition to his father 
 than the old vinegrower, already alarmed at the 
 progress made by the Cointet establishment, rushed 
 from Marsac to Place du Murier with the celerity 
 of the crow that has scented the dead bodies lying 
 on a field of battle. 
 
 "Let me handle the Cointets, don't you meddle 
 in this business," he said to his son. The old man 
 soon detected the purpose of the Cointets; he 
 frightened them by his keen insight. His son was 
 on the point of doing a foolish thing which he had 
 come there to prevent, he said. 
 
 "What will our custom have to rest upon, if he 
 gives up our journal ? The solicitors, the notaries, 
 all the tradesmen of L'Houmeau are liberals; the 
 Cointets have tried to injure the Sechards by accus- 
 ing them of liberalism, and in that way they have
 
 30 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 prepared a plank of salvation for them; the liberal 
 announcements will still be published by the 
 Sechards! Sell the journal? — why we might as 
 well sell the stock in trade and the license.'' 
 
 He thereupon asked the Cointets to buy the plant 
 for sixty thousand francs, in order not to ruin his 
 son ; he loved his son, he would defend his son. 
 The vinegrower used his son as peasants use their 
 wives: whether his son was willing or not, he at 
 last led the Cointets, extorting from them one offer 
 after another, to give twenty-two thousand francs 
 for the Journal de la Charente. But David was to 
 bind himself never to print a journal of any 
 description, under a penalty of thirty thousand 
 francs. This sale was the suicide of the Sechard 
 printing office; but the old vinegrower was but 
 little disturbed by that fact. After the theft comes 
 always the murder. The goodman proposed to apply 
 this sum in part payment for his plant; and, in 
 order to make sure of it, he would have thrown in 
 David to boot, especially as that burdensome son 
 was really entitled to half of the unhoped-for treas- 
 ure. In return, the generous father turned over the 
 printing office to his son, but still insisted upon his 
 rent of twelve hundred francs. 
 
 After the sale of the journal to Cointet, the old 
 man rarely came to the town, alleging his ad- 
 vanced age as an excuse; but the real reason was 
 his lack of interest in an establishment that no 
 longer belonged to him. He could not, however, 
 entirely renounce his old affection for his tools.
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 31 
 
 When his business took him to AngoulSme, it 
 would have been very hard to say whether his 
 wooden presses or his son, from whom he went 
 through the form of demanding his rent, were more 
 potent in attracting him to his house. His former 
 proof-reader, who was now employed in that 
 capacity by the Cointets, was able to explain this 
 paternal generosity; he said that the old fox, by 
 allowing the rent to accumulate, had in view the 
 right to intervene, as a privileged creditor, in the 
 settlement of his son's affairs.
 
 David Sechard's indifference was attributable to 
 certain causes which will serve to depict the young 
 man's character. Some days after his installation 
 in his father's printing office, he had fallen in with 
 one of his- college friends, then in utterly destitute 
 circumstances. This friend of David Sechard was 
 a young man of about twenty-one, named Lucien 
 Chardon, the son of a former surgeon in the repub- 
 lican army, who was incapacitated for further ser- 
 vice by a severe wound. Nature had made the 
 elder Chardon a chemist and chance had established 
 him at Angouleme as a druggist. Death came 
 upon him in the midst of the necessary prepara- 
 tions for exploiting a valuable discovery, to which 
 he had devoted several years of scientific research. 
 He aimed at curing every variety of gout. Gout 
 is the disease of the rich and the rich will pay a 
 high price for health when they are deprived of it. 
 Therefore, the druggist had selected that particular 
 problem for solution among all those that presented 
 themselves to his mind. Placed between science 
 and empiricism, the late Chardon realized that 
 science alone could assure his fortune; he had there- 
 fore studied the causes of the disease, and based his 
 remedy upon a special diet which he varied to suit 
 each individual temperament. He died during a 
 3 (33)
 
 34 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 visit to Paris, whither he had gone to seek the ap- 
 probation of the Academy of Sciences, and thus he 
 lost the fruit of his labors. Deeming his fortune 
 assured, the druggist had neglected no means of 
 perfecting the education of his son and of his daugh- 
 ter, so that his family expenses had constantly 
 eaten up the profits of his pharmacy. And so, not 
 only did he leave his children in destitute circum- 
 stances, but, unluckily for them, he had brought 
 them up in the hope of a brilliant destiny, which 
 hope died with him. The illustrious Desplein, 
 who attended him in his last illness, watched him 
 die in convulsions of impotent rage. The moving 
 cause of this intense ambition was the ex-surgeon's 
 deep affection for his wife, the last scion of the 
 family of Rubempre, whom he had saved from the 
 scaffold, as by a miracle, in 1793. Without obtain- 
 ing her consent to the falsehood, he had gained time 
 by saying that she was enceinie. Having thus ac- 
 quired a sort of right to marry her, marry her he 
 did, notwithstanding their common poverty. Her 
 children, like all love children, had no other inher- 
 itance than their mother's marvelous beauty, a gift 
 that is so often fatal when accompanied by poverty. 
 Her husband's hopes and toil and despair, which 
 she had so fully shared, had wrought prodigious 
 changes in Madame Chardon's beauty, just as the 
 gradual degradation of want had changed her man- 
 ners; but her courage and her children's equaled 
 their misfortunes. 
 
 The poor widow sold the pharmacy, which was
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 35 
 
 located on the main street of L'Houmeau, the prin- 
 cipal suburb of Angouleme. The sum she received 
 therefor enabled her to assure herself an income 
 of three hundred francs, which was quite insufficient 
 for her own support; but she and her daughter ac- 
 cepted their situation without shame, and devoted 
 themselves to such work as they could procure. 
 The mother nursed women in childbed, and her 
 pleasant manners led to her being preferred to all 
 others in the wealthy families, where she lived with- 
 out expense to her children, and earned twenty sous 
 per day. To spare her son the humiliation of see- 
 ing his mother in such a plight, she had taken the 
 name of Madame Charlotte. Those persons who 
 desired her services applied to Monsieur Postel, 
 Monsieur Chardon's successor. 
 
 Lucien's sister was employed by a neighbor, a 
 most respectable woman, much esteemed at 
 L'Houmeau, one Madame Prieur, a laundress, and 
 earned about fifteen sous per day. She superin- 
 tended the other girls, and occupied a sort of superior 
 position in the establishment, which raised her 
 slightly above the grisette class. The trifling pro- 
 ceeds of their labor, added to Madame Chardon's 
 three hundred francs, made a total of about eight 
 hundred francs a year, with which those three per- 
 sons had to board and clothe themselves. Even the 
 strict economy with which the household was con- 
 ducted could hardly make that sum sufficient, as it 
 was almost entirely absorbed by Lucien. Madame 
 Chardon and her daughter Eve believed in Lucien
 
 36 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 as Mahomet's wife believed in her husband; their 
 devotion to the interests of his future was absolutely 
 unlimited. The impoverished family lived at 
 L'Houmeau in lodgings let to them for a very 
 moderate sum by Monsieur Chardon's successor, 
 and situated at the end of an inner court, above the 
 laboratory. Lucien occupied a wretched attic 
 room. Being constantly spurred on by a father, 
 who, in his passionate inclination for natural 
 science, had first turned his mind in that direction, 
 Lucien was one of the most brilliant pupils at the 
 College of Angouleme, and was in the third class 
 when David Sechard completed his studies there. 
 
 When chance brought these two old schoolmates 
 together, Lucien, weary of drinking from the bitter 
 cup of poverty, was upon the point of adopting one 
 of the extreme courses to which young men of 
 twenty sometimes resort. Forty francs a month, 
 which David generously offered him, together with a 
 proposition to teach him the trade of proof-reader, 
 although a proof-reader was absolutely useless to 
 him, rescued Lucien from despair. The bonds of 
 their college friendship, thus renewed, were soon 
 drawn tighter by the similarity of their destinies 
 and the difference in their characters. Each of 
 them possessed a mind teeming with the material for 
 several fortunes, and that lofty intelligence which 
 places man upon a level with eminence of every 
 sort, and yet they found themselves on the very 
 lowest rung of the social ladder. This injustice 
 on the part of fate was a powerful bond of union.
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 37 
 
 Furthermore, both had arrived at versifying, but by 
 different roads. Although destined to the loftiest 
 speculations in the natural sciences, Lucien's eyes 
 were turned with ardor toward literary renown; 
 while David, whom his meditative temperament 
 predisposed to poesy, inclined, as a matter of taste, 
 to the exact sciences. This intermingling of char- 
 acters engendered a sort of mental brotherhood. 
 Lucien soon told David of the lofty views he in- 
 herited from his father as to the applications of 
 science to manufacturing, and David called Lucien's 
 attention to the untrodden roads in literature which 
 he proposed to venture upon in order to make a 
 name and a fortune for himself. The friendship of 
 the two young men became in a few days one of 
 those passions which spring into being only on the 
 threshold of manhood. 
 
 David was soon presented to Eve and fell in love 
 with her, as melancholy and meditative natures are 
 wont to fall in love. The Et nunc et semper et in 
 secula seculorum of the liturgy is the device of the 
 sublime unknown poets whose works consist of 
 magnificent epics born and lost between two hearts! 
 When the lover had fathomed the secret of the hopes 
 that Lucien's mother and sister placed upon that 
 beautiful poetic forehead, when their blind devotion 
 became known to him, he took delight in drawing 
 near his mistress by sharing her sacrifices and her 
 hopes. Thus Lucien was David's brother-elect. 
 Like the ultras who tried to be more royalist than 
 the king himself, David's faith in Lucien's genius 
 
 189954
 
 38 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 surpassed that of his mother and sister, he spoiled 
 him as a mother spoils her child. During one of 
 the conversations, in which, impelled by the lack 
 of money that tied their hands, they considered, 
 like all young men, the different ways of attaining 
 wealth promptly by shaking to no purpose all the 
 trees that have already been stripped of their fruit 
 by earlier comers, Lucien recalled two ideas that 
 his father had suggested to him. Monsieur Chardon 
 had contemplated reducing the price of sugar one- 
 half by the use of a new chemical agent, and of 
 effecting a proportionate reduction in the price of 
 paper, by bringing from America certain inexpen- 
 sive vegetable substances analogous to those used 
 by the Chinese. David, who knew the importance 
 of this matter, which had already been discussed by 
 the Didots, seized upon the idea, believing that he 
 saw a fortune in it, and he looked upon Lucien as a 
 benefactor to whom he could never hope to pay his 
 debt. 
 
 It will readily be understood that the dominant 
 thoughts as well as the private lives of the two 
 friends made them wholly unfitted to manage a 
 printing office. Instead of bringing in fifteen to 
 twenty thousand francs, like the establishment of 
 the brothers Cointet, printers and publishers to the 
 bishopric and proprietors of the Courrier de la 
 Charente, now the only journal in the department, 
 the Sechard establishment produced hardly three 
 hundred francs a month, out of which the proof- 
 reader's salary, Marion's wages, taxes and rent had
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 39 
 
 to be paid ; which reduced David's net income to 
 about a hundred francs a month. Energetic and in- 
 dustrious men would have renewed the type, pur- 
 chased iron presses, and procured books at the 
 Parisian bookstores which they would have re- 
 printed at a low price; but master and proof-reader, 
 engrossed by the absorbing labors of the mind, con- 
 tented themselves with the work their last cus- 
 tomers gave them. The brothers Cointet had come 
 at last to understand David's character and habits, 
 and they no longer slandered him ; on the other 
 hand, a wise policy led them to allow his printing 
 office to live on, and to help to support it in decent 
 mediocrity, so that it might not fall into the hands 
 of some dangerous antagonist; they themselves sent 
 the so-called town work there. Thus, although he 
 had no idea of it, David Sechard continued to exist, 
 commercially speaking, only by virtue of his rivals' 
 shrewd foresight. Delighted with what they called 
 his mania, the Cointets treated him, so far as ap- 
 pearances went, with the utmost straightforward- 
 ness and loyalty; but, in reality, they were acting 
 like the management of the Messageries Roy ales, 
 when they invent a feigned rivalry in order to 
 avoid a genuine one. 
 
 The exterior of the Sechard house was in har- 
 mony with the shameful avarice that reigned 
 supreme in the interior, where the old bear had 
 never repaired anything. The rain and sun, the 
 changing seasons, had given the door of the passage- 
 way the appearance of an old tree trunk, it was so
 
 40 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 furrowed with cracks of all lengths and widths. 
 The front, wretchedly constructed of stone and 
 bricks, mingled without any attempt at symmetry, 
 seemed to bulge out under the weight of a moulder- 
 ing roof overburdened with the hollow tiles with 
 which all roofs are covered in the south of France. 
 The rotting window frames were embellished with 
 enormous shutters held in place by the thick cross- 
 bars which the heat of the climate demands. It 
 would have been difficult to find in all Angouleme 
 another house as cracked and seamed as this one, 
 which was held together only by the strength of the 
 cement. Imagine the press-room, light at both ends, 
 dark in the middle, the walls covered with hand- 
 bills; darkened at the lower part by the workmen 
 rubbing against it for thirty years past, its network 
 of cords hanging from the ceiling, its piles of paper, 
 its old presses, its heaps of stones to press the 
 dampened sheets, its rows of cases, and at the end, 
 the two cages in which the master and the proof- 
 reader respectively sat; you will then understand 
 the existence of the two friends. 
 
 In 1821, early in the month of May, David and 
 Lucien were standing near the window looking on 
 the courtyard, about two o'clock one afternoon, just 
 as their four or five workmen left the press-room to 
 go to dinner. When the master saw his apprentice 
 close the street door, which had a bell attached, he 
 led Lucien into the courtyard, as if the smell of the 
 paper and ink and presses and old wood were un- 
 bearable to him. They sat down under an arbor
 
 ANDRE DE CHENIER 
 
 "So that is Andre de Chenier!" cried Lucien 
 more than once. "He drives one to despair" lie re- 
 peated for the third time, when David, too deeply 
 moved to continue, allowed him to take the book. — 
 "A poet discovered by a poet 1" he said, when he 
 saw the signature at the end of the preface.
 
 
 • 
 
 IIIP'I N-lWORj'AU.
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 41 
 
 from which they could see whatever took place in 
 the press-room. The sunbeams playing among the 
 vine-leaves on the trellis caressed the two poets, 
 enveloping them with their light as with a halo. 
 The contrast between the two characters and the 
 two faces was so strikingly brought out that it would 
 have charmed the brush of a great artist. Davidi 
 had thefigure that nature bestows upon beings! 
 "destined tcTsustain violent conflicts, open or secret! 
 His broad chest was flanked by sturdy shoulders 
 that harmonized with the amplitude of all his pro- 
 portions. His full, dark, sunburned face, supported 
 by a thick neck, and surrounded by a dense forest 
 of black hair, resembled at a first glance the faces of 
 the canons of whom Boileau sings; but a second 
 glance disclosed to you, in the furrows of the thick 
 lips, in the dimpled chin, in the profile of a square- 
 cut nose, divided by a strong irregular line, and 
 above all in the eyes, the ever-burning fire of a 
 single passion, the sagacity of the thinker, the 
 ardent melancholy of a mind that could embrace the 
 whole horizon from end to end, penetrating all its 
 windings, and that was readily disenchanted with 
 purely ideal pleasures by subjecting them to the 
 searching light of analysis. 
 
 If one could detect in that face the gleams of the 
 genius that will not be restrained, one also saw 
 therein the ashes beside the volcano; hope faded 
 away in a deep-rooted consciousness of the social 
 nullity to which obscure birth and lack of fortune 
 condemn so many superior minds. Beside the poor
 
 42 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 printer, who had an intense loathing for his trade, 
 although it borders so closely on the realm of the 
 intellect, beside this Silenus who leaned heavily 
 upon himself and drank long draughts from the cup 
 of science and poetry, intoxicating himself in order 
 to forget the woes of provincial life, stood Luci en in 
 the graceful attitude in vented by sculptors for the 
 Indian Bacchus. His iace~Tra"a' the distinguished 
 outlines of the antique type of beauty; the forehead 
 'and nose were Greek, the skin as velvety and 
 white as a woman's, the eyes of such a deep blue 
 that they seemed black, eyes overflowing with love, 
 the whites as clear and unspotted as a child's. 
 Those lovely eyes were surmounted by eyebrows 
 that might have been drawn by a Chinese pencil, 
 and bordered with long chestnut lashes. Along the 
 cheeks glistened a silky down, of a color that 
 harmonized perfectly with the naturally curly, 
 blond hair. Divine amiability was written upon 
 his golden-white temples. Incomparable nobility 
 of character was stamped upon his short, gracefully 
 curved chin. The smile of a sorrowful angel played 
 upon his coral lips whose color was heightened by 
 handsome white teeth. He had the hands of a 
 patrician, elegant hands, whose slightest sign men 
 would hasten to obey, such hands as women love to 
 kiss. Lucien was slender and of medium height. 
 Upon looking at his feet one would have been in- 
 clined to take him for a young woman in disguise, 
 the more because, like the majority of shrewd, not 
 to say astute men, his hips were shaped like a
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 43 
 
 woman's. This! indjcjitjon ^ rarely misleading, was 
 
 accurate in Cucien's case, for the bent of his active \ 
 mind often led him, when he set about analyzing 
 the present condition of society, to act upo n the 
 depraved theory peculiar to diplomatists^thal^gc 
 "cess^justifies anyjngans, however snameful they 
 
 may be. OTTeof the misfortunes to which great 
 "mindsTre subjected is the necessity of comprehend- 
 ing everything, vices as well as virtues. 
 
 These two young men passed judgment upon so- 
 ciety with the greater freedom because of their 
 lowly station therein, for undervalued men take 
 their revenge for the humility of their position by 
 the loftiness of their glance. But, in like manner, 
 their despair was the more bitter because in this 
 way they traveled more rapidly in the direction in 
 which their real destiny impelled them. Lucien 
 had read much and compared much; David had 
 thought much and meditated much. Despite his 
 apparent robust and vigorous health, the printer was 
 a melancholy, sickly genius; he doubted himself; 
 whereas Lucien, being endowed with an enterpris- 
 ing and versatile mind, was audacious to a degree 
 that was not in accord with his effeminate, almost 
 weakly carriage, instinct with the graces of the 
 gentler sex. Lucien had to the highest degree the 
 Gascon character, bold, courageous, adventurous, 
 prone to exaggerate good and to make light of evil, 
 which does not shrink from a sin if there is profit in 
 it, and which laughs at vice if it can use it as a 
 stepping-stone. This ambitious disposition had
 
 44 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 hitherto been held in check by the seductive illu- 
 sions of youth, by the ardor that inclined him to- 
 ward the noble methods that young men who are 
 enamored of renown employ before all others. Jfcle 
 was as yet at od ds only with his longings and not 
 w ith the difficulties of life, with his own power ancf 
 not with the cowardice of men, which sets a fatal 
 example to changeable minds. Thoroughly fas- 
 cinated by Lucien's brilliant mind, David admired 
 him, while he sought to rectify the errors into which 
 the characteristic French ardor led him. That just 
 man had a retiring disposition not in harmony with 
 his powerful constitution, but he did not lack the 
 persistence of the men of the North. Although he 
 always foresaw all sorts of difficulties, he promised 
 himself that he would overcome them without be- 
 coming discouraged; and although he had the firm- 
 ness of truly apostolic virtue, he tempered it by the 
 charms of inexhaustible indulgence. In this friend- 
 ship, already of long standing, one of the two loved 
 idolatrously and that one was David. Thus Lucien 
 issued orders like a woman who knows that she is 
 beloved. David obeyed with delight. His friend's 
 physical_b eauty imported a superiority which he 
 ackno wledged, deem ing himself stu pid a nd common- 
 )Tace7 
 
 pjace. 
 ~ 77 FoT 
 
 *or the ox, patient agriculture ; for the bird, 
 heedless life," said the printer to himself. "I will 
 be the ox, Lucien shall be the eagle." 
 
 For some three years past the friends had thus 
 mingled their destinies, of such brilliant promise for
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 45 
 
 the future. They read the great works that appeared 
 upon the literary and scientific horizon after the 
 peace; the works of Schiller, Goethe, Lord Byron, 
 Walter Scott, Jean-Paul, Berzelius, Davy, Cuvier 
 and Lamartine. They warmed themselves at those 
 great fires, they tried their own powers in works, 
 mostly abortive, laid aside and taken up again 
 with ardor. They worked constantly without ex- 
 hausting the inexhaustible strength of youth. 
 Equally poor, but consumed by the love of art 
 and science, they forgot their present misery, so 
 engrossed were they in laying the foundations of 
 their renown. 
 
 "Lucien, what do you suppose I have just received 
 from Paris?" said the printer, taking a little i8mo 
 volume from his pocket. "Listen!" 
 
 David read, as only poets can read, Andre de 
 Chenier's idyl, entitled Neere, then Le Jeune Malade 
 and then the elegy upon suicide, the first in the 
 ancient metre, the last two in iambics. 
 
 "So that is Andre de Chenier !" cried Lucien 
 more than once. "He drives one to despair," 
 he repeated for the third time, when David, too 
 deeply moved to continue, allowed him to take 
 the book. — "A poet discovered by a poet!" he 
 said, when he saw the signature at the end of 
 the preface. 
 
 "After producing that book," said David, 
 "Chenier thought he had done nothing worthy to 
 be published." 
 
 Lucien in his turn read the epic fragment,
 
 46 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 L'Aveugle, and several elegies. When he hap- 
 pened upon the line: 
 
 " If they're not happy, is happiness found on earth? " 
 
 he kissed the book, and the two friends wept, for 
 both loved idolatrously. The vine-leaves took on 
 a brilliant coloring, the old walls of the house, split 
 and battered and irregularly traversed by unsightly 
 cracks, were embellished by fairy fingers with 
 delicate tracery and carvings, bas-reliefs and count- 
 less masterpieces of some forgotten school of archi- 
 tecture. Fancy scattered its flowers and its rubies 
 on the dark little courtyard. Andre de Chenier's 
 Camille became in David's eyes his adored Eve, 
 and in Lucien's a great lady to whom he was pay- 
 ing court. Poetry shook the majestic skirts of its 
 starry robe over the press-room where the monkeys 
 and bears were making wry faces over their work. 
 The clock struck five, but the two friends were 
 neither hungry nor thirsty; their life was a golden 
 dream, they had all the treasures of earth at their 
 feet. They saw the corner of the blue horizon 
 which the finger of Hope points out to those whose 
 lives are stormy, and to whom her siren's voice 
 says: "Go, fly, you will escape disaster through 
 that patch of gold or silver or azure." At that 
 moment an apprentice named Cerizet, a Paris gamin 
 whom David had sent for to come to Angouleme, 
 opened the small glass door that led from the press- 
 room into the courtyard, and called the attention of
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 47 
 
 the two friends to a stranger who came toward them, 
 bowing. 
 
 "Monsieur," he said to David, taking from his 
 pocket an enormous roll of paper, "here is a memoir 
 which I desire to have printed; will you kindly- 
 estimate the cost?" 
 
 "Monsieur, we don't print manuscripts of such 
 length," replied David, without looking at the roll. 
 "See Messieurs Cointet. " 
 
 "But we have a very pretty type that might be 
 suitable," observed Lucien, taking the manuscript. 
 "We shall have to ask you to be good enough to 
 return to-morrow, and to leave the manuscript with 
 us to estimate the cost of printing." 
 
 "Have I not the honor of addressing Monsieur 
 Lucien Chardon?" 
 
 "Yes, monsieur," the proof-reader replied. 
 
 "I am very happy, monsieur," said the author, 
 "to have met a young poet who has so great a future 
 in store. I am sent by Madame de Bargeton. " 
 
 When he heard that name, Lucien blushed and 
 stammered a few words expressive of his gratitude 
 for Madame de Bargeton's interest in him. David 
 noticed his friend's blushes and embarrassment, 
 and left him in conversation with the country gen- 
 tleman, author of a memoir upon the cultivation of 
 silk worms, whose vanity impelled him to have 
 his lucubrations printed in order that they might 
 be read by his colleagues in the Society of Agri- 
 culture. 
 
 "Well, Lucien," said David, when the gentleman
 
 48 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 had taken his leave, "are you in love with Madame 
 de Bargeton ?" 
 
 "Madly." 
 
 "But you are more completely separated by social 
 prejudices than if she were in Pekin and you in 
 Greenland." 
 
 "The will of two lovers triumphs over every- 
 thing," said Lucien, lowering his eyes. 
 
 "You will forget us," said the fair Eve's timid 
 lover. 
 
 "On the other hand, it may be that I have sacri- 
 ficed my mistress to you," cried Lucien. 
 
 "What do you mean?" 
 
 "Despite my love, despite the divers motives 
 that impel me to frequent her house, 1 have told her 
 that I would never go there again, unless a man 
 whose talents are superior to mine, whose future is 
 certain to be glorious, unless David Sechard, my 
 brother, my friend, were made welcome there. I 
 expect to find an answer at home. But, although 
 all the aristocrats are invited there this evening to 
 hear me read poetry, if the answer is unfavorable, 
 I will never again set foot inside Madame de Bar- 
 geton's house." 
 
 David wiped his eyes and pressed Lucien's hand 
 fervently. Six o'clock struck. 
 
 "Eve will be anxious; adieu," said Lucien 
 
 abruptly. 
 
 » He fled, leaving David overwhelmed with the 
 
 J emotion that one never feels so completely as at that 
 
 \ age, especially in the situation of these two young
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 49 
 
 swans whose wings provincial life had not yet 
 clipped. 
 
 "Heart of gold!" cried David, looking after 
 Lucien as he passed through the workroom. 
 
 Lucien went down to L'Houmeau by the beautiful 
 Promenade de Beaulieu, Rue du Minage, and Porte 
 Saint-Pierre. His reason for taking the longest road 
 to his destination was that Madame de Bargeton's 
 house lay upon that road. He felt so much pleasure 
 in passing beneath that lady's windows, even with- 
 out her knowledge, that for two months past he had 
 not once returned to L'Houmeau by Porte Palet. 
 
 When he found himself under the trees of Beau- 
 lieu, he reflected upon the distance between An- 
 gouleme and L'Houmeau. The customs of the 
 province had raised barriers much more difficult to 
 pass than the steps by which Lucien descended. 
 The ambitious youth, who had made his way into 
 the Bargeton mansion, exhaling glory, like a flying 
 bridge between the town and the faubourg, was as 
 anxious concerning his mistress's decision as a 
 favorite who dreads disgrace after having attempted 
 to extend his power. These words may seem ob- 
 scure to those who have never remarked the pecu- 
 liar customs in vogue in towns that are divided into 
 an upper town and a lower town ; but it is the more 
 necessary at this point to set forth a few facts with 
 relation to Angouleme, because they will be of 
 assistance in understanding the character of Ma- 
 dame de Bargeton, one of the most important per- 
 sonages of this narrative. 
 4
 
 * 
 
 Angouleme is an ancient town built on the summit 
 of a rock, shaped like a loaf of sugar, which over- 
 looks the meadows through which the Charente 
 flows. This rock is the continuation of a long hill 
 which falls gradually toward Perigord, and which 
 it brings to an abrupt termination on the road from 
 Paris to Bordeaux, forming a sort of promontory- 
 bounded by three picturesque valleys. The impor- 
 tance of this town in the times of the religious wars 
 is attested by its ramparts, by its gates and by the 
 remains of a fortress perched on the apex of the 
 rock. Its situation made it in the old days a 
 strategic point of equal value to Catholics and Cal- 
 vinists; but its oldtime strength constitutes its 
 present weakness ; its ramparts and the extremely 
 steep slope of the rock have prevented it from 
 spreading out along the Charente and thus have con- 
 demned it to the most lamentable inactivity. About 
 the time when the events recorded in this narrative 
 took place, the government tried to extend the town 
 toward Perigord by building the palace of the pre- 
 fecture, a naval school and military establishments 
 along the hill, and laying out roads there. But 
 commerce had taken a start in another direction. 
 For a long time, the suburb of L'Houmeau had been 
 growing like a bed of mushrooms at the foot of the 
 
 (5i)
 
 52 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 cliff and along the shores of the river which the 
 great highroad from Paris to Bordeaux skirted. 
 Everyone is aware of the celebrity of the paper 
 manufactories of Angouleme, which were established 
 three centuries ago on the Charente and its affluents, 
 where falling water was found. The State had 
 founded its largest foundry for naval guns atRuelle. 
 Express offices, the post office, inns, wheelwrights, 
 public carriages, all the branches of industry which 
 depend for their maintenance on the road and river, 
 were grouped together at the feet of Angouleme, to 
 avoid the difficulties presented by its approaches. 
 Naturally the tanneries, laundries, all the trades in 
 which water was largely used, remained within call 
 of the Charente; the wine-shops too, the store- 
 houses for all raw materials carried on the river, 
 and lastly, all the warehouses for goods in bond, 
 lay along the river. Thus the suburb of L'Houmeau 
 became a thriving and wealthy town, a second An- 
 gouleme viewed with jealous eyes by the Upper 
 Town, where the government buildings, the bishop's 
 palace, the courts of law and the aristocracy still 
 remained. So that L'Houmeau, notwithstanding 
 its activity and its increasing power, was only an 
 annex of Angouleme. Above, the nobility and the 
 constituted authorities; below, commerce and 
 wealth; two social zones that are always at enmity 
 everywhere; and it is difficult to say which of the 
 two hated its rival the more bitterly. 
 
 For the past nine years the Restoration had ag- 
 gravated the condition of affairs, which were
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 53 
 
 reasonably tranquil under the Empire. The 
 majority of the houses in Upper Angouleme are 
 occupied either by noble families or by old bour- 
 geois families who live on their income and form 
 a sort of aboriginal nation into which strangers are 
 never admitted. Even after two hundred years of 
 residence and an alliance with one of the primordial 
 families, a family from some neighboring province 
 can only with difficulty make its way into the 
 charmed circle ; in the eyes of the natives it is con- 
 sidered to have come to the province only yesterday. 
 The prefects, the receivers-general, the successive 
 administrations of the past forty years, have tried to 
 civilize these old families, perched on their rock 
 like suspicious crows; the families have accepted 
 their parties and their dinners ; but, when it came 
 to admitting them to their houses, they persistently 
 refused. Scornful, disparaging, jealous, miserly, 
 these families intermarried, formed themselves into 
 a compact battalion so that no one could go out or 
 in. Of the inventions of modern luxury they 
 knew nothing; in their view, to send a child to 
 Paris was to seek his ruin. This prudence is 
 typical of the antiquated morals and customs of 
 those families, saturated with unintelligent royal- 
 ism, tainted with religion rather than religious, 
 who pass their lives as immovable as their town 
 and its rock. And yet Angouleme enjoys a great 
 reputation in the neighborhood for the education one 
 can obtain there. The neighboring towns send 
 their daughters to the boarding-schools and convents
 
 54 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 there. It is easy to imagine how great an influence 
 the spirit of caste has upon the feelings that divide 
 Angouleme and L'Houmeau. The merchants are 
 wealthy, the nobles are, generally speaking, poor. 
 Each takes its revenge upon the other in contempt 
 that is equal on both sides. The bourgeoisie of 
 Angouleme espouse the quarrel. The tradesman of 
 the Upper Town says of a tradesman of the suburb, 
 in an indescribable tone: "That's a man from 
 L'Houmeau!" 
 
 In marking out the position of the nobility in 
 France and giving it hopes which could not be 
 realized without a general upheaval, the Restoration 
 increased the moral distance which was even more 
 effectual than the physical distance in keeping An- 
 gouleme and L'Houmeau asunder. The social circle 
 of the nobles, at this time attached to the govern- 
 ment, became more exclusive there than in any 
 other part of France. The inhabitants of L'Hou- 
 meau were veritable pariahs. Hence the bitter and 
 deep-seated animosities which gave the Revolution 
 of 1830 its marvelous unanimity, and destroyed the 
 elements of a durable social structure in France. 
 The overbearing pride of the court nobility alienated 
 the provincial nobility from the throne as much as 
 the provincial nobility alienated the bourgeoisie 
 by wounding it in every tender spot. Therefore 
 the introduction of a man from L'Houmeau, the son 
 of a druggist, into Madame de Bargeton's salon 
 created a small-sized revolution. Who were respon- 
 sible for it? Lamartine and Victor Hugo, Casimir
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 55 
 
 Delavigne and Canalis, Beranger and Chateau- 
 briand, Villemain and Aignan, Soumet and Tissot, 
 Etienne and Davrigny, Benjamin Constant and 
 Lamennais, Cousin and Michaud, in a word, all the 
 literary celebrities, old and young, liberal and roy- 
 alist. Madame de Bargeton loved art and letters, an 
 extravagant taste, a mania deeply deplored in An- 
 gouleme, which it is necessary to justify by sketch- 
 ing the life of this woman, who was born to be 
 famous, but kept in obscurity by fatal circum- 
 stances, and whose influence determined Lucien's 
 destiny. 
 
 Monsieur de Bargeton was the great-grandson of 
 a former warden of Bordeaux, one Mirault, who was 
 ennobled under Louis XIII., as a reward for long 
 service in that office. Under Louis XIV., his son, 
 who was known as Mirault de Bargeton, was an 
 officer in the gardes de la porte, and made such a 
 great marriage, from a pecuniary standpoint, that 
 his son, under Louis XV. was called Monsieur de 
 Bargeton simply. This Monsieur de Bargeton, the 
 grandson of Monsieur Mirault the warden, was so 
 bent upon bearing himself as a perfect gentleman 
 that he ran through all the family property and 
 checked its rise in fortune. Two of his brothers, 
 great-uncles of the present Bargeton, returned to 
 trade, so that the name of Mirault appeared once 
 more in the commercial circles of Bordeaux. As 
 the estate of Bargeton, situated in Angoumois, hav- 
 ing been a dependency of the feudal estate of La 
 Rochefoucauld, was entailed, as was a house in
 
 56 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 Angoul£me called the Hotel de Bargeton, the grand- 
 son of Monsieur de Bargeton the Spendthrift inher- 
 ited those two properties. In 1789, he lost his 
 legal title and retained only the revenues of the 
 estate, which amounted to about ten thousand 
 francs a year. If his grandfather had followed the 
 glorious examples of Bargeton I. and Bargeton II., 
 Bargeton V., who may be called the Silent, would 
 have been Marquis de Bargeton ; he would have 
 married into some great family and would have be- 
 come a duke and peer, like so many others; 
 whereas, he was highly flattered, in 1805, to obtain 
 the hand of Mademoiselle Marie-Louise-Anais de 
 Negrepelisse, the daughter of a gentleman long 
 since forgotten in his little country-seat, although 
 he belonged to the younger branch of one of the 
 oldest families in the south of France. There 
 was a Negrepelisse among the hostages of Saint 
 Louis; but the head of the elder branch bears 
 the illustrious name of D'Espard, acquired under 
 Henri IV. by a marriage with the heiress of that 
 family. 
 
 This gentleman, the younger son of a younger 
 son, lived upon his wife's property, a small estate 
 near Barbezieux, which he cultivated with excellent 
 results, carrying his own wheat to market, burning 
 his wine himself, and snapping his fingers at 
 mockery, so long as he was able to heap up crowns 
 and to add to his domain from time to time. Cer- 
 tain circumstances of rare occurrence in the heart of 
 the provinces had aroused in Madame de Bargeton
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 57 
 
 a taste for music and literature. During the Rev- 
 olution one Abbe Niollant, Abbe Roze's best pupil, 
 sought shelter in the little castle of Escarbas, bring- 
 ing thither his stock in trade as a composer. He 
 repaid the old gentleman handsomely for his hospi- 
 tality by educating his daughter Anais, called Nais 
 for short, who, except for that lucky chance, would 
 have been left to her own devices or, and that 
 would have been even more unfortunate, to those of 
 some evil-minded lady's maid. Not only was the 
 abbe a musician, but he possessed an extensive 
 knowledge of literature, and was familiar with 
 Italian and German. He instructed Mademoiselle 
 de Negrepelisse in those two languages and in 
 counterpoint; he explained to her the great literary 
 works of France, Italy and Germany, and worked 
 with her upon the compositions of all the great 
 masters of music. Lastly, to combat the slothful 
 tendencies of the profound solitude to which the 
 course of political events condemned them, he 
 taught her Greek and Latin and gave her a smat- 
 tering of the natural sciences. The presence of a 
 mother did not modify the influence of this mascu- 
 line education upon a young woman already too 
 prone to assert her independence as a result of her 
 life in the open air. 
 
 Abbe Niollant, an enthusiastic, poetic creature, 
 was especially remarkable for the possession of the 
 wit that is the peculiar characteristic of artists, 
 that carries with it many estimable qualities, and 
 rises above bourgeois ideas by the freedom of its
 
 58 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 judgments and the extent of its perceptions. While, 
 in the world at large, that variety of wit earns for- 
 giveness for its audacity by its originality and 
 depth, it may seem harmful in private life because 
 of the lofty flights it inspires. The abbe did not 
 lack heart, so that his ideas were contagious to a 
 young girl in whom the natural exaltation of youth 
 was strengthened by the solitude of a country life. 
 Abbe Niollant imparted to his pupil his habit of bold 
 scrutiny and his faculty of forming prompt judg- 
 ments, not fe~flectingjthat thosecjualities, so neces- 
 sajxj 10 ,. 3 - man, become defects of character in a 
 woman destined" to fill the bjirnble sf^TlclTof~mother 
 of a family. I Although the abbe constantly enjoined 
 upon his pupil to be the more amiable and modest, 
 the more extensive her knowledge, Mademoiselle de 
 Negrepelisse conceived an excellent opinion of her- 
 self and a robust contempt for mankind in general. 
 Seeing about her none but inferiors and people 
 eager to obey her, she assumed the haughty manner 
 of great ladies, without their soft and courteous 
 hypocrisy. Flattered in all her vanities by a poor 
 abbe who admired himself in her, as an author ad- 
 mires himself in his work, she was so unfortunate 
 as to have no point of comparison by which to judge 
 herself. The lack of society is one of the greatest 
 drawbacks to life in the country. Having no occa- 
 sion to make for others the little sacrifices demanded 
 by the toilet and by the laws of courtesy, one loses 
 the habit of putting one's self out for others. There- 
 upon everything about us depreciates, manners as
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 59 
 
 well as mind. Being unrestrained by the shackles 
 of society, the boldness of Madame de Negrepelisse's 
 ideas passed into her manners and her expression; 
 she had that jaunty air which at first glance seems 
 original, but which is not becoming to women other 
 than those who lead adventurous lives. Thus her 
 education, whose asperities would have been worn 
 smooth in the higher social spheres, was calculated 
 to make her ridiculous at Angoule'me, whenever her 
 adorers should cease to worship her errors, fascinat- 
 ing only during youth. As for Monsieur de Ne- 
 grepelisse, he would have given all his daughter's 
 books to save a sick ox; for he was so miserly, that 
 he would never have allowed her one sou over and 
 above the income to which she was entitled, even 
 for the purpose of procuring a trifle that was most 
 essential to her education. 
 
 The abbe died in 1802, before his dear child's 
 marriage, which he would undoubtedly have dis- 
 couraged. The old gentleman found his hands full 
 with his daughter when the abbe died. He felt that 
 he was too weak to sustain the conflict that was 
 certain to break out between his avarice and the 
 independent spirit of his child, whose occupation 
 was gone. Like all young women who have devi- 
 ated from the traveled road that women are ex- 
 pected to follow, Nais had made up her mind on the 
 subject of marriage and cared but little about trying 
 it. She disliked the thought of submitting her in- 
 tellect and her person to the uninteresting men, 
 wholly lacking in personal grandeur, whom it had
 
 60 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 been her fortune to meet. She desired to command, 
 and it would be her duty to obey. If she had had 
 to choose between obeying the vulgar caprices of 
 minds that were without indulgence for her tastes, 
 and flying with a lover who caught her fancy, she 
 would not have hesitated an instant. 
 
 Monsieur de Negrepelisse was still enough of a 
 gentleman to dread a mesalliance. Like many 
 fathers, he determined to find a husband for his 
 daughter, less for her sake than in the interest of 
 his own tranquillity. He required a nobleman or 
 gentleman of little wit, unlikely to haggle over the 
 guardian's account which he intended to submit to 
 his daughter, sufficiently weak in mind and will to 
 allow Nais to behave as she chose, sufficiently dis- 
 interested to marry her without a marriage-portion. 
 But how to find a son-in-law who would meet the 
 views of both father and daughter? Such a man 
 was the phoenix of sons-in-law. With this twofold 
 object in mind, Monsieur de Negrepelisse looked 
 over the eligible men in the province, and Monsieur 
 de Bargeton seemed to be the only one who 
 answered all the requirements. Monsieur de 
 Bargeton, then about forty years old and consider- 
 ably the worse for the dissipated life he had led 
 during his youth, was accused of being extraordi- 
 narily feeble-minded ; but he retained just enough 
 common sense to manage his property and enough 
 good manners to live in Angouleme society without 
 committing any noticeably awkward or foolish ac- 
 tions. Monsieur de Negrepelisse set before his
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 6l 
 
 daughter without disguise the negative merit of the 
 model husband he proposed to her, and impressed 
 upon her all the advantage she might derive there- 
 from for her own happiness: she would marry a 
 coat of arms that was already two hundred years 
 old; the Bargetons quarter or three stags' heads 
 gules, two and one, alternating with three bulls' 
 frontals sable, one and two, fesse a%ure and argent 
 by six, with six shells or on the a^ure, three two 
 and one. Armed with a chaperon, she could 
 manage his fortune as she chose, sheltered behind 
 a social position, and with the assistance of the 
 connections her wit and beauty would procure for 
 her at Paris. Nais was fascinated by the prospect 
 of such liberty of action, Monsieur de Bargeton be- 
 lieved that he was making a brilliant match, con- 
 sidering that his father-in-law would before long 
 leave him the estate that he was rounding out so 
 fondly; but at that moment, Monsieur de Ne- 
 grepelisse seemed likely to write his son-in-law's 
 epitaph. 
 
 At that time, Madame de Bargeton was thirty-six 
 years old and her husband fifty-eight. This differ- 
 ence in their ages was the more annoying because 
 Monsieur de Bargeton seemed to be at least seventy, 
 while his wife could play the young girl with im- 
 punity, dress in pink or wear her hair like a child. 
 Although their fortune did not exceed twelve thou- 
 sand francs a year, it was classed among the six 
 most considerable fortunes of the old town, mer- 
 chants and administrative officers excepted. The
 
 62 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 necessity of cultivating their father, whose inherit- 
 ance Madame de Bargeton was awaiting in order to 
 go to Paris, and who made her wait so long that his 
 son-in-law eventually died before him, compelled 
 Monsieur and Madame de Bargeton to live at An- 
 gouleme, where the brilliant qualities of Nais's 
 mind and the unpolished jewels hidden in her heart, 
 bade fair to be wasted without profit, and to change 
 with time into causes of ridicule. In truth, our ab- 
 surdities are caused in great part by noble senti- 
 ments, by virtues or mental faculties carried to 
 extremes. The pride which is not humbled by con- 
 tact with the best society becomes stiffness when it 
 is displayed in connection with trifles, instead of 
 becoming ennobled in a circle of exalted sentiments. 
 Exaltation, that virtue within a virtue which gives 
 birth to saints, which inspires secret devotion and 
 outspoken poesy, becomes exaggeration when it is 
 expended upon the trifling concerns of the province. 
 Far from the centre where great minds shine, where 
 the air is laden with thoughts, where everything is 
 constantly changing, knowledge becomes stale, the 
 taste becomes vitiated like stagnant water. For 
 lack of exercise the passions demean themselves by 
 magnifying small things. Therein is the explana- 
 tion of the avarice and gossiping spirit that are the 
 pests of provincial life. Ere long the instinctive 
 imitation of narrow ideas and cringing manners 
 grows upon persons of the highest distinction. 
 Thus do men born to be great, sink into insignifi- 
 cance, as well as women who would have been
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 63 
 
 delightful had they been set right by knowledge 
 of the world and moulded by superior minds. 
 
 Madame de Bargeton took up her lyre on the 
 slightest provocation, without distinguishing per- 
 sonal poetic thoughts from poetic thoughts suited 
 for the public eye. For there are misinterpreted 
 sensations that one should keep to one's self. Be- 
 yond question a sunset is a grand poem, but does 
 not a woman make herself ridiculous by describing 
 it in high-sounding words before unspiritual peo- 
 ple? There are sensuous delights that can only be 
 enjoyed to the full by two congenial souls, poet to 
 poet, heart to heart. She had the fault of using 
 long sentences interlarded with emphatic words, 
 aptly called tartines in the vernacular of journalism, 
 which cuts some very indigestible ones every morn- 
 ing for its subscribers, who swallow them uncom- 
 plainingly. She was lavish beyond measure of 
 superlatives, and overburdened her conversation 
 with them, making the merest trifles assume gigan- 
 tic proportions. About this time, she began to 
 typify, individualize, syntheti^e, dramatize, supe- 
 riori^e, analyse, poetise, prosaici^e, colossify, angel- 
 ify, neologise and tragici^e everything; for we 
 must do violence to the language for a moment in 
 order to convey an idea of the novel freaks that 
 some women indulge in. Her mind took fire, too, as 
 readily as her language. The dithyramb was in 
 her heart and on her lips. Her heart beat fast, she 
 waxed enthusiastic and went into raptures over 
 every occurrence; the devotion of a Gray Sister
 
 64 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 and the execution of the Faucher brothers, Monsieur 
 d'Arlincourt's Ipsiboe no less than Lewis's Ana- 
 conda,the escape of La Valette and the heroism of 
 one of her friends who put robbers to flight by as- 
 suming a bass voice. To her everything was sub- 
 lime, extraordinary, strange, divine, marvelous. 
 She would become excited or indignant, recoil in 
 horror, rush forward, fall back, gaze at the sky or 
 the ground; her eyes would fill with tears. She 
 wore out her life in constant admiration and con- 
 sumed her strength in withering disdain. She 
 formed a mental image of the Pacha of Janina, she 
 would have liked to contend with him in his harem, 
 and she discovered something great in being sewn 
 into a sack and thrown into the water. She envied 
 Lady Esther Stanhope, the bluestocking of the desert. 
 She longed to become a sister of Sainte-Camille and 
 to go and face death from yellow fever at Barcelona, 
 nursing the sick : that was a great, a noble destiny ! 
 In short, she was athirst for everything that was 
 not the clear water of her life, hidden beneath its 
 weeds. She adored Lord Byron, Jean- Jacques 
 Rousseau and all poetic, dramatic existences. She 
 had tears to shed for all misfortunes and flourishes 
 of trumpets for every victory. She sympathized 
 with Napoleon vanquished, she sympathized with 
 Mehemet Ali, massacring the tyrants of Egypt. In 
 a word, she arrayed men of genius in a halo, and 
 thought that they could live upon incense and light. 
 To many persons she seemed a madwoman, whose 
 mania was harmless; but to some perspicacious
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 65 
 
 observers, these things would surely have seemed 
 to be the ruins of a magnificent passion that had 
 crumbled as soon as it was built, the remains of a 
 celestial Jerusalem, in a word, love without the 
 lover. And it was true. 
 
 The story of the first eighteen years of Madame 
 de Bargeton's married life can be written in a very 
 few words. She lived for some time upon her own 
 substance and far-off hopes. Then, having come to 
 realize that life in Paris, to which she aspired, was 
 out of the question on account of the mediocrity of 
 her fortune, she began to scrutinize the people by 
 whom she was surrounded and shuddered at her 
 solitude. There was no man in her circle who was 
 capable of inspiring one of those mad passions to 
 which women abandon themselves, impelled by the 
 despair consequent upon an objectless, uneventful, 
 uninteresting life. She could rely upon nothing, 
 not even upon chance, for there are some lives into 
 which chance does not enter. 
 
 In the days when the Empire was in its greatest 
 glory, at the time of Napoleon's march into Spain, 
 whither he sent the flower of his troops, Madame de 
 Bargeton's hopes, disappointed hitherto, awoke to 
 renewed life. Curiosity naturally led her to study 
 those heroes who conquered Europe at a word in- 
 serted in the order of the day, and who re-enacted 
 the fabulous exploits of the days of chivalry. The 
 most parsimonious and the most refractory towns 
 were compelled to make holiday for the Garde Im- 
 perial; the mayors and prefects went out to meet 
 5
 
 66 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 them, with harangues upon their lips, as if to do 
 honor to royalty. Madame de Bargeton, attending 
 a ridotto given by a certain regiment to the towns- 
 people, lost her heart to a gentleman, a simple sub- 
 lieutenant, to whom the crafty Napoleon had given 
 a glimpse of the baton of a marshal of France. 
 This restrained passion, a grand and noble passion 
 in striking contrast to the passions that were so 
 readily formed and abandoned in those days, was 
 consecrated by death. At Wagram a cannon-ball 
 shattered, upon the heart of the Marquis de Cante- 
 Croix, the only portrait that bore witness to Ma- 
 dame de Bargeton's beauty. She long mourned 
 the noble youth who had become a colonel in two 
 campaigns, inspired by glory and by love, and who 
 esteemed a letter from Nais above all tokens of im- 
 perial approbation. Sorrow cast a veil of sadness 
 over her face. That cloud was not dissipated until 
 she reached the redoubtable age at which a woman 
 begins to regret her happy past, although she has 
 never enjoyed it, at which she sees that her roses 
 are fading, while the longing for love is rekindled 
 with the desire to prolong the last smiles of youth. 
 All her superior qualities wounded her heart at the 
 moment that the chill of the province attacked it. 
 Like the ermine, she would have died of grief if 
 she had chanced to soil herself by contact with men 
 who think of nothing but playing cards for small 
 stakes in the evening, after a good dinner. Her 
 pride preserved her from the melancholy love-affairs 
 of the province. Between the stupid men who
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 67 
 
 surrounded her and nothing, a woman of such 
 superior mind would surely prefer nothing. Thus 
 marriage and society were to her a monastery. She 
 lived upon poetry, as the Carmelite lives upon re- 
 ligion. The works of the hitherto unknown illus- 
 trious foreigners, which were published from 181 5 
 to 1821, the great treatises of Monsieur de Bonald 
 and Monsieur de Maistre, those two profound 
 thinkers, and the less grandiose works of French 
 literature, which was then putting forth its first 
 shoots so vigorously, embellished her solitude, but 
 imparted no elasticity to her mind or her person. 
 She remained as straight and stiff as a tree that 
 has been struck by lightning and has not been felled 
 thereby. Her dignity overreached itself, her semi- 
 royalty made her finical and affected. Like all 
 those who allow themselves to be adored by cour- 
 tiers, whoever they may be, she played the queen 
 with all her faults.
 
 Such was Madame de Bargeton's past, a story 
 without interest, which it was necessary to tell in 
 order to properly understand her liaison with Lu- 
 cien, whose introduction to her came about in a 
 peculiar way. During the last winter a person had 
 arrived in the town who had imparted some ani- 
 mation to the monotonous life Madame de Bargeton 
 usually led. The post of superintendent of imposts 
 having fallen vacant, Monsieur de Barante sent 
 down to fill it a man whose adventurous career 
 pleaded so strongly in his favor that feminine curi- 
 osity served as his passport to the salon of the queen 
 of the province. 
 
 Monsieur du Chatelet, who came into the world 
 plain Sixte Chatelet, but who had the good sense 
 to assume a title in 1806, was one of those attrac- 
 tive young men who escaped all the conscriptions 
 under Napoleon by remaining near the imperial 
 sun. He had begun his career as secretary to an 
 imperial princess. Monsieur du Chatelet possessed 
 all the incapacities demanded by his place. A 
 shapely, well-fa vored man, a good dancer^ a skilful 
 billiard-player, proficient in all manly exercises, 
 a fair amateur_actpr, a singer o f loye ^sjmgs ^quick 
 Jo^appl aud bright rem arks, ready for everything, 
 pliant andjsjrvjous,TTeHkliew everything and noth- 
 Although he knew nothing of music, he would 
 (69)
 
 70 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 play an accompaniment with more or less success 
 for a woman who obligingly consented to sing a 
 romanza that she had been struggling to learn for a 
 month past. Although he was utterly incapable of 
 a true understanding of poetry, he would boldly ask 
 permission to leave the room for ten minutes to 
 dash off some impromptu verses, a quatrain flat as 
 the palm of your hand, in which ideas were replaced 
 by jingling rhymes. Monsieur du Chatelet was, 
 however, endowed with the talent of filling in a 
 piece of embroidery in which the flowers had been 
 begun by the princess; he held her skeins of silk 
 with exquisite grace while she wound them, telling 
 her idle stories in which the obscenity was hidden 
 beneath a veil with more or less holes in it. Although 
 he was ignorant of the art of painting, he knew how 
 to copy a landscape, draw a profile in crayon, sketch 
 a costume and color it. In short, he had all the 
 petty talents which were such great stepping-stones 
 to fortune at a time when women had more influ- 
 ence than is commonly supposed upon public affairs. 
 He claimed to be very strong in diplomacy, the 
 science of those who have none, and who are deep 
 by their very emptiness ; a very convenient science, 
 too, in the sense that it manifests itself simply by 
 undertaking exalted functions; that, having no use 
 for any but discreet men, it permits fools to say 
 nothing, to take refuge in mysterious shakings of 
 the head; and that the man who is most learned in 
 that science is the one who swims along keeping 
 his head above the flood of events, which he thus
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 71 
 
 seems to guide, thereby raising a question of specific 
 gravity. In diplomacy, as in art, you meet a thou- 
 sand mediocrities for every man of genius. 
 
 Despite his ordinary and extraordinary service 
 with her Imperial Highness, the influence of his 
 patroness was not sufficient to secure him a place 
 in the Council of State : not that he would not have 
 made a delightful master of requests, as many others 
 like him have done, but the princess considered 
 him more fitly employed in her service than else- 
 where. However, he was made a baron, went to 
 Cassel as envoy extraordinary, and did in truth 
 make a most extraordinary appearance there. In 
 other words, Napoleon made use of him at a critical 
 time as a diplomatic messenger. When the Empire 
 fell, the Baron du Chatelet had been promised the 
 appointment of minister to Jerome's court of West- 
 phalia. Having missed what he called a family 
 embassy, despair seized upon him; he took a trip 
 to Egypt with General Armand de Montriveau. 
 Separated from his companion by a sequence of 
 strange events, he wandered two years from desert 
 to desert, from tribe to tribe, a prisoner in the 
 hands of the Arabs, who sold him from one to 
 another, unable to derive the slightest benefit from 
 his talents. At last he reached the possessions of 
 the Iman of Mascate while Montriveau was on his 
 way to Tangier ; but he had the good fortune to 
 find an English ship at Mascate just about to make 
 sail, and returned to Paris a year before his travel- 
 ing companion. His recent misfortunes, some
 
 72 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 connections of ancient date, and services rendered 
 to personages then in favor led to his being recom- 
 mended to the President of the Council, who placed 
 him with Monsieur de Barante, awaiting the first 
 vacant post. The part played by Monsieur du 
 Chatelet in the service of the imperial princess, 
 his reputation as a man of gallantry, the strange 
 events of his voyage, his sufferings, all combined 
 to arouse the interest of the women of Angouleme. 
 Having made himself familiar with the manners 
 and customs of the Upper Town, Monsieur le Baron 
 Sixte du Chatelet conducted himself accordingly. 
 He played the invalid, the blase, disgusted man of 
 the world. 
 
 On every occasion, he would take his head in his 
 hands as if his suffering did not give him a 
 moment's respite, a little manoeuvre which recalled 
 his travels and made him interesting. He visited 
 the houses of the higher officials, the general, the 
 prefect, the receiver-general and the bishop; but 
 everywhere he exhibited the same polished, cold, 
 slightly disdainful bearing, like all men who are 
 not in their proper place and who expect favors 
 from the powers that be. He left his social talents 
 to be divined, for it was to their advantage not to 
 be known; then, after he had made himself popular, 
 after he had discovered the insignificance of the 
 men and had knowingly scrutinized the women for 
 several Sundays at the cathedral, he saw in Madame 
 de Bargeton the one person with whom he cared to 
 become intimate. He relied upon music to open to
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 73 
 
 him the door of that mansion which was pitilessly- 
 closed to strangers. He secretly procured a mass 
 by Miroir and practised it on the piano; and, one 
 fine Sunday, when all Angouleme was at mass, he 
 aroused the ecstatic enthusiasm of the ignorant by 
 performing it upon the organ, and rearoused the in- 
 terest that already attached to his person by causing 
 his name to be freely circulated by the lower clergy. 
 When the service was over, Madame de Bargeton 
 complimented him and expressed her regrets at 
 having had no opportunity to practise music with 
 him ; during this premeditated meeting he naturally 
 obtained the passport to her salon, which he would 
 not have obtained if he had asked for it. 
 
 The adroit baron called upon the queen of An- 
 gouleme and paid her compromising attentions. 
 The old beau — for he was forty-five — discovered in 
 this woman a whole youth to revivify, treasures to 
 bring to light, perhaps a widow, rich in hopes, to 
 marry; in a word, an alliance with the family of 
 Negrepelisse, which would give him access to the 
 Marquise d'Espard in Paris, whose influence was 
 sufficient to throw open to him a political career. 
 Despite the luxuriant but sombre-hued parasite 
 that disfigured that fine tree, he determined to cling 
 to it, to prune it, to cultivate it, and to obtain deli- 
 cious fruit from it. Noble Angouleme cried out 
 against the introduction of a giaour into the casbah, 
 for Madame de Bargeton's salon was the resort of a 
 social circle absolutely without alloy. The bishop 
 alone came there regularly, the prefect was received
 
 74 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 two or three times a year, the receiver-general 
 never entered the doors ; Madame de Bargeton went 
 to his evening parties and his concerts, but never 
 dined with him. Not to receive the receiver-gen- 
 eral and to harbor a simple superintendent of im- 
 posts — such a reversal of the hierarchical order 
 seemed inconceivable to the slighted functionaries. 
 Those whose minds are capable of descending to 
 such paltry matters, which, by the way, are to be 
 met with in every social sphere, will understand 
 how imposing the Hotel de Bargeton was to the 
 bourgeoisie of Angouleme. As for L'Houmeau, the 
 grandeurs of that Louvre on a small scale, the glory 
 of that Angoumois Hotel de Rambouillet, shone upon 
 the thriving suburb from a distance as great as the 
 sun's. All those who assembled there were the 
 most pitifully deficient creatures in intellectual 
 power, the weakest mortals to be found within a 
 radius of twenty leagues. Political subjects were 
 discussed in verbose, impassioned commonplaces; 
 La Qiwtidienne seemed lukewarm, Louis XVIII. 
 was treated as a Jacobin. As for the women, the 
 greater part of them were foolish and uninteresting, 
 dressed badly and all had some flaw which ruined 
 them; nothing about them was complete, neither 
 their conversation nor their toilets, neither the spirit 
 nor the flesh. Except for his designs upon Madame 
 de Bargeton, Chatelet would not have cared to be 
 admitted. Nevertheless, the manners and the 
 spirit of caste, the gentlemanly bearing, the pride 
 of the nobleman with his little castle and familiarity
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 75 
 
 with the laws of courtesy, covered the void. The 
 nobility of sentiment was much more real there 
 than in the sphere of Parisian grandeur; there were 
 manifestations of an attachment worthy of respect, 
 even if it were to the Bourbons. That society may 
 be compared, if the simile is admissible, to an old- 
 fashioned service of plate, black with age, but 
 heavy. The unchangeableness of its political 
 opinions resembled fidelity. The space between it 
 and the bourgeoisie, the difficulty of gaining ad- 
 mission to it, simulated a sort of superiority and 
 gave it a conventional value. Each of these nobles 
 had his value in the minds of the townspeople, just 
 as shells represent money among the negroes of 
 Bambara. 
 
 Several ladies, flattered by Monsieur du Chatelet, 
 and recognizing in him superior qualities which 
 were lacking in the men of their set, allayed the in- 
 surrection of wounded self-esteem: one and all 
 hoped to be honored with the succession to the im- 
 perial princess. The purists thought that the in- 
 truder would be seen at Madame de Bargeton's, but 
 that he would not be received in any other house. 
 Du Chatelet was subjected to divers impertinences, 
 but he maintained his position by cultivating the 
 clergy. Then too he flattered the faults which the 
 queen of Angouleme owed to her country bringing- 
 up, he brought her all the new books, he read the 
 new poems to her as they appeared. They went 
 into raptures together over the works of the younger 
 poets, she in good faith, and he, sadly bored but
 
 76 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 submitting patiently to the romantic poets, whom, 
 as a man of the imperial school, he hardly under- 
 stood. 
 
 Madame de Bargeton, in her enthusiasm for the 
 renaissance due to the influence of the lily, loved 
 Monsieur de Chateaubriand because he had called 
 Victor Hugo a sublime child. Depressed in spirit 
 because she had no acquaintance with genius except 
 from a distance, she sighed for Paris, where all the 
 great men lived. Thereupon Monsieur du Chatelet 
 believed that he was doing wonders in his own in- 
 terest by informing her that there was in Angouleme 
 another sublime child, a young poet who, unknown 
 to himself, surpassed in brilliancy the rising of the 
 Parisian constellations. A man destined to be great 
 had been born atL'Houmeau! The principal of the 
 college had shown the baron some admirable pieces 
 of verse. Poor and modest, the child was a Chat- 
 terton without political cowardice, without the 
 savage hatred of social grandeur that impelled the 
 English poet to write against his benefactors. 
 Among the five or six persons who shared her taste 
 for art and letters, this one because he could scrape 
 a fiddle, that one because he besmeared more or less 
 white paper with sepia, another in the capacity of 
 president of the Society of Agriculture, and another 
 by virtue of a bass voice which enabled him to sing 
 the Se fiato in corpo avete after the style of a view- 
 hallo; among those odd figures, Madame de Bargeton 
 had the feeling a half-famished man has before a 
 stage dinner, where all the dishes are of pasteboard.
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 77 
 
 And so it would be impossible to describe her joy 
 on hearing this news. She must see this poet, this 
 angel ! she became wildly enthusiastic on the sub- 
 ject, she talked about it for hours at a time. Two 
 days later, the former diplomatic messenger had 
 made arrangements through the principal for Lu- 
 cien's presentation to Madame de Bargeton. 
 
 You alone, poor provincial slaves, to whom.social 
 distances are longer to travel than to Parisians, in 
 whose eyes they grow shorter from day to day, you 
 who feel so keenly the weight of the bars through 
 which all the social strata in the world hurl curses 
 atone another and call one another: Racal — you 
 alone will understand the upheaval that took place 
 in the heart and brain of Lucien Chardon, when his 
 imposing principal informed him that the doors of 
 the Hotel de Bargeton were about to be thrown open 
 to him ! renown had forced them to turn upon their 
 hinges! he would be well received in that mansion, 
 whose venerable gables attracted his glance when 
 he walked at Beaulieu with David in the evening, 
 while they said to each other that their names would 
 probably never reach ears that were deaf to knowl- 
 edge when it proceeded from too low a point in the 
 social scale. Only his sister was admitted to the 
 secret. Like a good housekeeper, like a divine 
 seer, Eve took a few louis from the treasury and 
 went out to purchase some fine shoes for Lucien 
 from the best shoemaker in Angouleme and a new 
 suit from the most celebrated tailor. She embel- 
 lished his best shirt front with a frill which she
 
 78 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 laundered and plaited with her own hands. What 
 joy, when she saw him thus arrayed! how proud 
 she was of her brother! how many injunctions she 
 gave him! She detected a thousand little foolish 
 ways of his. Absorption in his meditations had 
 given Lucien the habit of putting his elbows on the 
 table as soon as he sat down ; and he would even go 
 so far as to pull a table toward him to lean upon; 
 Eve forbade him to indulge in such free-and-easy 
 perfomances in the aristocratic sanctuary. She 
 accompanied him as far as Porte Saint-Pierre, and 
 followed him to a point almost opposite the cathe- 
 dral, watching him as he walked along Rue de 
 Beaulieu to the Promenade, where Monsieur du 
 Chatelet was waiting for him. There the poor girl 
 remained, deeply moved, as if some great event had 
 taken place. Lucien at Madame de Bargeton's was 
 to Eve's mind the dawn of fortune. The saint-like 
 creature did not know that where ambition begins, 
 artless, sincere sentiments come to an end. 
 
 When they reached Rue de Minage, Lucien was 
 not awe-struck by the exterior aspect of affairs. 
 That Louvre, which had assumed such magnified 
 proportions in his mind, was a house built of a soft 
 stone peculiar to the province, and gilded by time. 
 Its appearance, gloomy enough upon the street, was 
 very simple within; there was the typical provin- 
 cial courtyard, bare and neat; simple, quasi-monas- 
 tic architecture, in excellent preservation. Lucien 
 went up an old staircase with chestnut banisters, 
 the stairs being of stone only to the first floor.
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 79 
 
 After passing through a reception-room of mean 
 aspect and a dimly-lighted large salon, he found the 
 sovereign in a small salon with carved wooden wain- 
 scoting in the style of the last century, and painted 
 gray. The upper part of the doors was painted in 
 monochrome. The panels were covered with old 
 red damask, badly matched. The stuffing of the 
 old-fashioned chairs was barely hidden beneath 
 covers of alternating red and white squares. The 
 poet discovered Madame de Bargeton sitting on a 
 couch with a little quilted cushion, beside a round 
 table covered with a green cloth and lighted by a 
 candlestick with two wax candles and a shade. 
 The queen did not rise, but turned gracefully on 
 her seat, smiling at the poet, who was deeply 
 moved by that serpentine movement, which seemed 
 to him very distinguished. Lucien's excessive 
 beauty, his timid manners, his voice, everything 
 about him made a deep impression on Madame de 
 Bargeton. The poet was in himself the personi- 
 fication of poetry. The young man glanced timidly 
 at this woman, who seemed to him to harmonize 
 with her reputation; she gave the lie to none of his 
 ideas of what a great lady should be. Madam e de 
 Bargeton wore a new style of slashed blacky velvet 
 cap. That style of headdress conveys a reminis- 
 cence of the Middle Ages which imposes on a young 
 man by amplifying the wearer, so to speak; some 
 stray locks of reddish hair escaped from beneath it, 
 shining like gold in the light and with a glint of 
 flame about the edges of the curls. The noble lady
 
 80 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 had the brilliant complexion with which a woman 
 redeems the alleged drawbacks of that tawny color. 
 Her gray eyes sparkled ; they were worthily crowned 
 by the white mass of her prominent, sharply defined 
 forehead, already wrinkled. Below them were 
 pearly circles, and two blue veins on each side of 
 the nose set off the whiteness of that delicate border. 
 The nose presented a Bourbonese curve which 
 added to the animation of her rather long face, 
 forming a salient point at which the royal vivacity 
 of the Condes made itself manifest. Her hair did 
 not entirely conceal her neck. Her dress, carelessly 
 secured, permitted glimpses of a snow-white throat, 
 beneath which the eye could divine a spotless, well 
 proportioned bust. With her tapering, well-kept 
 fingers, albeit a little dry, Madame de Bargeton 
 affably waved the young poet to a chair by her 
 side. Monsieur du Chatelet took an armchair. 
 
 Lucien saw that they were alone. Madame de 
 Bargeton's conversation intoxicated the poet from 
 L'Houmeau. The three hours he passed with her 
 were to Lucien one of those dreams one would like 
 to endure for ever. She seemed to him wasted 
 rather than thin, amorous without love, sickly de- 
 spite her strength; her failings, which her manners 
 exaggerated, pleased him, for young men begin by 
 loving exaggeration, the falsehood of noble hearts. 
 He did not notice the signs of decay or the pimples 
 on her cheeks, to which the ennui of her life and 
 ,some ill-health had given a sort of brick color. His 
 imagination was captured first of all by the eyes of
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 8l 
 
 fire, by the graceful curls in which the light was 
 reflected, by the dazzling whiteness of her forehead — 
 luminous points by which he was attracted as a moth 
 is by the candle. And then her heart spoke too 
 eloquently to his to allow him to pass judgment on 
 the woman. The enthusiasm of her exalted mood, 
 the fervor of the somewhat timeworn phrases, 
 which Madame de Bargeton had long been repeating 
 but which seemed new to him, fascinated him the 
 more readily because he desired to find everything 
 as it should be. He had brought no poetry to read 
 to her; but the subject was not mentioned: he had 
 forgotten his verses purposely, in order to have an 
 excuse for coming again; Madame de Bargeton had 
 omitted to speak of them in order to ask him to 
 read to her some other day. Was not this a fair 
 beginning of an understanding between them? 
 Monsieur Sixte du Chatelet was ill pleased with 
 the reception accorded Lucien. He discovered 
 somewhat tardily a rival in the comely youth, 
 whom he escorted on his homeward way as far as 
 the turn in the first flight of steps below Beaulieu, 
 with the design of making him a victim of his 
 diplomacy. Lucien was astonished beyond measure 
 to hear the superintendent of imposts boast of hav- 
 ing introduced him, and thereupon assume the right 
 to give him advice. 
 
 "God grant you will be better treated than I have 
 
 been," said Monsieur du Chatelet. "The court is 
 
 less impertinent than this coterie of noodles. A 
 
 man receives mortal wounds here, and has to put 
 
 6
 
 82 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 up with the most maddening contempt The Rev- 
 olution of 1789 will begin again if these people 
 don't mend their ways. For my part, my only 
 reason for continuing to go to that house is my lik- 
 ing for Madame de Bargeton, the only passably 
 decent woman in all Angouleme. I have been pay- 
 ing court to her for lack of anything better to do, 
 and I have fallen madly in love with her." He 
 went on to say that he should soon possess her, 
 that everything led him to think that she loved 
 him. That haughty queen's submission would be 
 the only vengeance he could wreak upon that idiotic 
 crew of clodhoppers. 
 
 Chatelet dilated upon his passion like a man who 
 was quite capable of slaughtering a rival, if he 
 should fall in with one. The old imperial butterfly 
 fell with his whole weight on the poor poet, trying 
 to crush him under his dignity, and to intimidate 
 him. He increased in stature as he described in 
 exaggerated terms the perils of his journey; but, 
 although he may have impressed the imagination of 
 the poet, he did not terrify the lover. 
 
 After that evening, in spite of the old dandy, in 
 spite of his threats and his scowling face, like that 
 of a bourgeois bravo, Lucien returned to Madame 
 de Bargeton's, at first with the discretion of a man 
 from L'Houmeau; but he soon became accustomed 
 to what seemed to him at first to be an enormous 
 favor, and he called upon her more and more fre- 
 quently. The son of a pharmacist was considered 
 by the members of this coterie as being of little
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 83 
 
 consequence. In the beginning, if any gentlemen 
 or ladies who were calling upon Na!s met Lucien 
 there, they treated him with the crushing courtesy 
 which fashionable people adopt with their inferiors. 
 At first Lucien found them very affable; but event- 
 ually he fathomed the feeling to which this deceptive 
 esteem was due. Soon he detected patronizing airs 
 which stirred his bile and confirmed him in the de- 
 testable republican notions with which many future 
 patricians begin their acquaintance with good so- 
 ciety. But how great suffering would he not have 
 endured for Nais, whom he heard people call by 
 that name, for the elect of that clan, like the Spanish 
 grandees and the crime de la crime at Vienna, call 
 one another, men and women alike, by their pet 
 names, the last subtle distinction invented to sub- 
 divide the heart of the Angouleme aristocracy. 
 
 Nais was beloved as every young man loves the 
 first woman who flatters him, for Nais prophesied a 
 great future, unbounded glory, for Lucien. She 
 put forth all her address to install the poet in her 
 salon: not only did she praise him beyond all 
 measure, but she represented him as a youth with- 
 out resources for whom she wished to find a place; 
 she belittled him in order to keep him; she made 
 him her reader, her secretary; but she loved him 
 more than she thought she could love after the ter- 
 rible disaster that had befallen her. She was very 
 severe upon herself inwardly, she said to herself 
 that it would be downright madness to fall in love 
 with a young man of twenty, who was already so
 
 84 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 far removed from her in social position. Her 
 familiarity was capriciously contradicted by the 
 haughty airs inspired by her scruples. She was by 
 turns arrogant and patronizing, affectionate and 
 flattering. Intimidated at first by her exalted rank, 
 Lucien had all the fears, all the hopes and all the 
 despair that torment a first love and cause it to so 
 monopolize the heart by alternate blows upon the 
 chords of suffering and of pleasure. For two months 
 he saw in her a benefactress who proposed to take 
 a material interest in him. But confidences began. 
 Madame de Bargeton called her poet "Dear Lucien ;" 
 then, plain "dear." The poet, emboldened, called 
 the great lady Nais. When he first called her by 
 that name she was angry after the fashion that is 
 always fascinating to a child; she reproached him 
 for taking the name by which everybody called her. 
 The proud and noble Negrepelisse offered the angelic 
 creature that one of her names that was still un- 
 worn; she chose to be Louise to him. Lucien 
 reached the third heaven of love. 
 
 One evening, having entered the room while 
 Louise was gazing at a portrait, which she hastily 
 concealed, Lucien insisted upon seeing it. To allay 
 the despair of the first paroxysm of jealousy, Louise 
 showed him the portrait of young Cante-Croix, and 
 told, not without tears, the sad history of her pure 
 but cruelly disappointed love. Was she trying to 
 decide to be unfaithful to her dead lover, or had she 
 conceived the idea of giving Lucien a rival in the 
 portrait? Lucien was too young to analyze his
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 85 
 
 mistress ; he artlessly manifested his despair, for she 
 opened the campaign, during which women demolish 
 scruples more or less ingeniously fortified. Their 
 discussions concerning duty, propriety and religion 
 are like strong places which they like to see taken 
 by assault. The innocent Lucien did not need such 
 coquetries: he would have fought quite naturally. 
 
 "I will not die, I will live for you," he said 
 audaciously one evening, determined to have done 
 with Monsieur de Cante-Croix; and he looked at 
 Louise with an expression indicating a passion that 
 had reached its limit. 
 
 Terrified at the progress this new love was mak- 
 ing in her own heart and in her poet's, she asked him 
 for the verses he had promised her for the first page 
 of her album, seeking a pretext for a quarrel in his 
 delay in writing them. What were her sensations 
 when she read the two stanzas following, which, 
 of course, seemed to her more beautiful than the 
 choicest productions of the aristocratic poet,Canalis ? 
 
 The magic brush, the muses insincere 
 Will not for aye adorn the faithful sheet 
 
 Whereon I write. 
 And the shy pencil of my mistress fair 
 Will oft to me confide her secret joy 
 
 Or her dumb grief. 
 
 Ah ! when from this faded page her fingers stern 
 Shall seek accounting of the glorious lot 
 
 Her future now doth promise, 
 Then, may Love grant that of this happy voyage 
 
 The teeming memento 
 May be as sweet to think on as a cloudless sky !
 
 86 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 "Was it really I who inspired them?" she said. 
 
 This suspicion, suggested by the coquettish in- 
 stinct of a woman who liked to play with fire, 
 brought a tear to Lucien's eye; she soothed him by 
 kissing him on the forehead for the first time. Lu- 
 cien was decidedly a great man, whom she proposed 
 to mould; she conceived the project of teaching him 
 Italian and German and perfecting his manners; 
 therein she found pretexts for having him constantly 
 with her, in the face of her wearisome courtiers. 
 What renewed interest it gave to her life! She 
 took up music again for her poet's sake, and threw 
 open to him the doors of the world of music; she 
 played some lovely bits of Beethoven and enchanted 
 him; happy in his delight, she said to him hypo- 
 critically, seeing that he was half-fainting with 
 rapture : 
 
 "Can you not be content with such happiness as 
 this?" 
 
 The poor poet was stupid enough to answer : 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 At last matters reached such a point that Louise 
 had invited Lucien to dine with herself and Mon- 
 sieur de Bargeton, the preceding week. Despite 
 the precaution of having her husband present, the 
 whole town knew of the fact and considered it so 
 outrageous that everyone asked everyone else if it 
 could be true. It was a shocking rumor. To some 
 people, society seemed on the verge of a revolution. 
 Others cried: 
 
 "This is the fruit of liberal doctrines!"
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 87 
 
 The jealous Du Chatelet discovered that Madame 
 Charlotte, who attended women in childbed, was 
 Madame Chardon, mother of the Chateaubriand of 
 L'Houmeau, he said. This expression was es- 
 teemed a bon mot. Madame de Chandour was the 
 first to hurry to Madame de Bargeton's. 
 
 "Do you know what all Angouleme is talking 
 about, my dear Nais?" she said; "that wretched 
 little poet's mother is Madame Charlotte, who took 
 care of my sister-in-law when her child was born 
 two months ago." 
 
 "My dear," said Madame de Bargeton, assuming 
 a queenly air, "what is there extraordinary in that? 
 isn't she an apothecary's widow? a poor lot for a 
 De Rubempre! Suppose that we hadn't a sou — 
 what should we do for a living, you and I? how 
 would you support your children?" 
 
 Madame de Bargeton's sang-froid silenced the 
 lamentations of the nobility. Great minds are 
 always disposed to make a virtue of misfortune. 
 Moreover, there is an invincible attraction in per- 
 sisting in the doing of a good deed which others 
 blame: innocence has the piquant relish of vice. 
 In the evening, Madame de Bargeton's salon was 
 filled with her friends, who came to remonstrate 
 with her. She gave free rein to her caustic wit; 
 she said that, if gentlemen could not be Molieres or 
 Racines or Rousseaus or Voltaires or Massillons or 
 Beaumarchaises or Diderots, we must put up with 
 upholsterers, clockmakers, cutlers, whose children 
 might become great men. 'She said that genius was
 
 88 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 always of gentle birth. She reviled the clodhoppers 
 for having so little appreciation of their real inter- 
 ests. In fact, she said many absurd things which 
 would have enlightened less stupid people, but they 
 complimented her on her originality. Thus she 
 averted the storm by firing heavy guns. 
 
 When Lucien, at her summons, entered for the 
 first time the old faded salon where four whist tables 
 were in full blast, she received him affably, and 
 presented him to her guests with the air of a queen 
 who proposes to be obeyed. She called the super- 
 intendent of imposts Monsieur Chatelet, and turned 
 him to stone by giving him to understand that she 
 was aware of his illegal assumption of the particle 
 du. On that evening Lucien was forcibly thrust 
 into Madame de Bargeton's social circle; but he 
 was accepted there as a poisonous substance which 
 everyone made a mental vow to expel by sub- 
 mitting it to the reactive agency of impertinence. 
 Despite this triumph, Na'is lost her empire: there 
 were dissidents among her subjects, who tempted 
 her to emigrate. By Monsieur Chatelet's advice, 
 Amelie, who was Madame de Chandour, resolved to 
 erect a rival altar by receiving on Wednesdays. 
 Madame de Bargeton opened her salon every even- 
 ing, and the people who frequented it were such 
 slaves of routine, so thoroughly accustomed to walk 
 upon the same carpets, to play on the same back- 
 gammon boards, to see the same people and the 
 same candlesticks, to put on their cloaks and double- 
 soled shoes and hats in the same hall, that they loved
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 89 
 
 the very stairs as dearly as they did the mistress of 
 the house. "They all resigned themselves to put 
 up with the gold-finch* of the sacred grove," said 
 Alexandre de Brebian ; — another bon mot. The 
 president of the Society of Agriculture finally ap- 
 peased the sedition by a magisterial observation. 
 
 "Before the Revolution," he said, "the greatest 
 noblemen received Duclos, Grimm, Crebillon — all 
 of whom were men of humble station like this little 
 poet from L'Houmeau; but they did not admit tax- 
 collectors, and that's what Chatelet is, after all." 
 
 Du Chatelet paid dear for his introduction of 
 Chardon, for everyone turned a cold shoulder on 
 him. When he found that he was attacked, the 
 superintendent of imposts, who, from the moment 
 that Madame de Bargeton called him Chatelet, had 
 sworn that she should be his, at once adopted the 
 views of the mistress of the house; he upheld the 
 young poet and declared himself his friend. This 
 great diplomatist, whose services the Emperor had 
 so ill-advisedly dispensed with, made much of Lu- 
 cien and told him that he was his friend. To 
 launch the poet in society, he gave a dinner-party 
 at which all the high government officials were 
 present — the prefect, the receiver-general, the col- 
 onel of the regiment in garrison, the superintendent 
 of the naval school and the president of the tribunal. 
 The poor poet was flattered so extravagantly that 
 any other than a young man of twenty-two would 
 have strongly suspected some fraud in the praise 
 
 * Cbardonneret.
 
 90 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 with which they mocked him. At dessert, Chatelet 
 asked his rival to recite an ode entitled Sardanapale 
 monrant, the masterpiece of the moment. The 
 principal of the college, a phlegmatic man, ap- 
 plauded him loudly, saying that Jean-Baptiste 
 Rousseau had done no better. Baron Sixte Chate- 
 let thought that the little rhymer would burst sooner 
 or later in the hothouse of praise, or that, in the 
 intoxication of his anticipated glory, he would per- 
 mit himself some impertinence which would cause 
 him to be relegated to his primitive obscurity. 
 Awaiting the demise of this genius, he seemed to 
 immolate his pretensions at Madame de Bargeton's 
 feet; but, with the shrewdness of roues, he had de- 
 cided upon his plan of operations, and followed with 
 strategic attention the steps of the two lovers, 
 awaiting an opportunity to exterminate Lucien. 
 
 Thereupon there arose in Angouleme and its 
 neighborhood a dull, rumbling sound that proclaimed 
 the existence of a great man in Angoumois. Ma- 
 dame de Bargeton was generally applauded for the 
 attentions she lavished upon this young eagle. 
 Once her conduct was approved, she was determined 
 to obtain general sanction. She announced through- 
 out the department with trumpet and drum an even- 
 ing party with ices, cake and tea, a great innovation 
 in a town where tea was still sold by the apothe- 
 caries as a drug useful in cases of indigestion. The 
 flower of the aristocracy was invited to hear a great 
 work which Lucien was to read. Louise concealed 
 from her friend the obstacles she had had to
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 91 
 
 overcome, but she did say a few words to him on 
 the subject of the conspiracy formed against him by 
 society; for she did not choose to leave him in 
 ignorance of the perils of the career men of genius 
 should follow, a career that bristles with obstacles 
 insurmountable by merely mediocre courage. She 
 used her victory as a means of inculcating a useful 
 lesson. With her white hands she pointed to re- 
 nown as a treasure to be purchased by constant 
 suffering; she spoke of the tortures of martyrs to 
 be endured at the stake, she buttered for him her 
 finest tartines and garnished them with her most 
 pompous expressions. It was a sort of counterfeit 
 of the improvisations that disfigure the novel Co- 
 rinne. Louise deemed herself so great in her elo- 
 quence, that she loved the Benjamin who inspired 
 it all the more; she advised him to repudiate his 
 father boldly, by assuming the noble name of 
 Rubempre, heedless of the outcry occasioned by an 
 exchange which the king would legitimize. Being 
 connected with the Marquise d'Espard, a De Bla- 
 mont-Chauvry, who was high in favor at court, she 
 would undertake to obtain that favor. At those 
 words — the king, the Marquise d'Espard, the court, 
 — Lucien's eyes were dazzled as by a display of 
 fireworks, and the necessity of that rechristening 
 was fully demonstrated. 
 
 "Dear boy," said Louise, in a tone of affectionate 
 raillery, "the sooner it is done, the sooner it will 
 be ratified." 
 
 She raised one after another the successive strata
 
 92 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 of the social structure, and let the poet count the 
 rungs of the ladder which he could ascend at one 
 bound by virtue of this judicious decision. In an 
 instant she made Lucien renounce his plebeian 
 ideas concerning the chimerical equality of 1793, 
 she aroused in him the thirst for social distinction 
 which David's cold reasoning had allayed, she 
 pointed to the higher levels of society as the only 
 stage which was suited to his talents. The scorn- 
 ful liberal became a monarchist in petto. Lucien 
 bit at the apple of aristocratic luxury and renown. 
 He swore to lay a crown at his lady's feet, even 
 though it were stained with blood; he would win 
 it at any price, quibuscumque viis. To prove his 
 courage, he described his present misery, which he 
 had concealed from Louise, taking counsel of that 
 indefinable modesty characteristic of first loves, 
 which forbids a young man to display his great 
 qualities, he takes such keen delight in having his 
 heart appreciated, even in its disguise. He de- 
 scribed the troubles of poverty, endured with pride, 
 his employment with David and his nights passed in 
 study. This youthful ardor reminded Madame de 
 Bargeton of the young colonel of twenty-six, and 
 her expression softened. When he saw that his 
 imposing mistress was moved, Lucien seized a hand 
 that was abandoned to him and kissed it with the 
 frenzy of a boy, a poet, a lover. Louise went so far 
 as to allow the apothecary's son to reach her brow 
 and to press his burning lips upon it. 
 
 "Child! child! if anyone should see us, I should
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 93 
 
 make a very ridiculous appearance," she said, 
 rousing herself from an ecstatic torpor. 
 
 During that evening, Madame de Bargeton's wit 
 wrought great havoc among what she called Lucien's 
 prejudices. To hear her, you would have said that 
 men of genius had neither brothers nor sisters, 
 fathers nor mothers; the great works they were 
 destined to build required them to be selfish in ap- 
 pearance, by compelling them to sacrifice every- 
 thing to their own grandeur. If the family suffered 
 at first from the pitiless exactions enforced by a 
 gigantic brain, later it would recover a hundredfold 
 the value of the sacrifices of every nature demanded 
 by the first conflicts of a disputed royalty, by shar- 
 ing the fruits of victory. Genius depended only 
 upon itself; it was the sole judge of its resources, 
 for it alone knew the goal to be reached : he ought 
 therefore to place himself above the laws, being 
 called upon as he was to revise them ; moreover, 
 the man who fixes his grasp upon his epoch can 
 take everything, risk everything, for everything is 
 his. She referred to the early life of Bernard 
 Palissy, Louis XL, Fox, Napoleon, Christopher 
 Columbus and Csesar, of all the illustrious gamblers, 
 who were at first crushed by debt, or poor, unappre- 
 ciated, looked upon as madmen, bad fathers, bad 
 sons, bad brothers, but who subsequently became 
 the pride of their families, of their countries, of the 
 world. 
 
 These arguments harmonized with Lucien's secret 
 vices and hastened the corruption of his heart; for,
 
 94 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 in the ardor of his desires, he admitted a priori 
 methods. But not to'succeed constitutes the crime 
 of social llse-majeste. Does not one who fails, 
 destroy all the bourgeois virtues that form the basis 
 of society, which expels with horror the Mariuses 
 seated before its ruins? Lucien, who did not 
 recognize himself between the infamy of the 
 galleys and the laurel wreaths of genius, hovered 
 above the Sinai of the prophets without seeing be- 
 neath him the Dead Sea, the ghastly shroud of 
 Gomorrha. 
 
 Louise so completely freed her poet's mind and 
 heart from the swaddling-clothes in which his life 
 in the provinces had enveloped them, that Lucien 
 determined to put her to the test, in order to ascer- 
 tain whether he could conquer that queenly quarry, 
 without having to undergo the mortification of a re- 
 fusal. The projected evening party gave him an 
 opportunity to make the test. Ambition was min- 
 gled with his love. He loved and he wished to rise, 
 a twofold sentiment very natural in young men 
 who have a heart to satisfy and poverty to struggle 
 against. By inviting all its children to one great 
 festival, society awakens their ambitions in the 
 morning of life. It strips youth of its charms and 
 vitiates most of its generous sentiments by mingling 
 worldly scheming with them. Poesy would have 
 it otherwise; but fact too often gives the lie to the 
 fiction one would like to believe, to justify us in rep- 
 resenting young men as other than they are in the 
 nineteenth century. Lucien's scheming seemed
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 95 
 
 to him to have no other object than the promo- 
 tion of an estimable sentiment, his affection for 
 David. 
 
 He wrote a long letter to his Louise, for he found 
 that he was bolder with a pen in his hand than 
 with words in his mouth. In a dozen sheets, three 
 times rewritten, he told of his father's genius, his 
 disappointed hopes, and the horrible poverty that 
 weighed upon him. He described his dear sister 
 as an angel, David as a future Cuvier, who, besides 
 being a great man, was a father, a brother, a friend 
 to him; he should deem himself unworthy of his 
 Louise's love, his first glory, if he did not ask her 
 to do for David what she did for him. He would 
 renounce her forever rather than be false to David 
 Sechard; he desired that David should witness his 
 triumph. He wrote one of those wild letters in 
 which young men threaten pistols in case of a re- 
 fusal, letters filled with the casuistry of childhood, 
 with the unreasoning logic of noble minds, fascinat- 
 ing verbosity, embellished with those artless de- 
 clarations that escape from the heart unknown to 
 the writer, and that women like so well. After he 
 had handed the letter to the maid, Lucien went to 
 the office to pass the day correcting proofs, superin- 
 tending some work that was in progress and arrang- 
 ing a few small matters that needed attention, 
 without saying a word to David. When the heart 
 is still in its infancy, young men sometimes display 
 such sublime reserve. Perhaps, too, Lucien was 
 beginning to dread the axe of Phocion, which David
 
 96 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 could handle so well ; perhaps he feared a penetrat- 
 ing glance that would reach the very bottom of his 
 heart. After reading Chenier, his secret had passed 
 from his heart to his lips, surprised by a reproach 
 which he felt like the finger the surgeon lays upon 
 a wound.
 
 Now, imagine, if you can, the thoughts that 
 thronged Lucien's mind as he went down from An- 
 gouleme to L'Houmeau. Was the great lady angry ? 
 would she receive David at her house? would not 
 he, ambitious wight, be hurled back into his hole at 
 L'Houmeau? Although, before he kissed Louise on 
 the forehead, Lucien had been able to measure the 
 distance that separates a queen from her favorite, 
 he did not say to himself that David could not cover, 
 in the twinkling of an eye, the space it had taken 
 him five months to travel. Not knowing how ab- 
 solute was the decree of ostracism pronounced 
 against people of humble extraction, he did not 
 know that a second experiment of the kind would be 
 Madame de Bargeton's ruin. Accused and convicted 
 of having kept low company, Louise would be 
 obliged to leave the town, while her caste would 
 shun her as a leper was shunned in the Middle 
 Ages. The superfine aristocratic clan, and the 
 clergy too, would defend Na'is against all comers, in 
 case she should allow herself to commit a sin; but 
 the crime of consorting with bad company would 
 never be overlooked; for, if we excuse the sins of 
 the ruling powers, we condemn them after their 
 abdication. And would not receiving David be 
 equivalent to abdication? Even if Lucien did not 
 7 (97)
 
 98 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 grasp that side of the question, his aristocratic in- 
 stinct gave him a premonition of many other diffi- 
 culties, which filled him with dismay. Nobility of 
 sentiment does not invariably impart nobility of 
 manners. Although Racine had the air of the 
 noblest of courtiers, Corneille strongly resembled a 
 cattle dealer. Descartes had the appearance of a 
 respectable Dutch tradesman. Visitors at Breda, 
 meeting Montesquieu with his rake over his shoulder 
 and his nightcap on his head, often took him for a 
 common gardener. Social polish, when it is not a 
 gift of noble birth, an accomplishment imbibed with 
 the mother's milk or transmitted in the blood, con- 
 stitutes an education in itself, which chance should 
 second by some grace of figure, by some distinction 
 of feature, or by an intonation of the voice. 
 
 All these great little things were wanting in 
 David, while nature had plentifully endowed his 
 friend with them. Of gentle birth on his mother's 
 side, Lucien had everything even to the curved 
 instep of the Frank, while David Sechard had the 
 flat foot of the Goth and the chest and shoulders of 
 his father the pressman. Lucien realized how the 
 satirical remarks would rain upon David, he could 
 almost see the smile Madame de Bargeton would 
 repress. In fact, without being precisely ashamed 
 of his brother, he promised himself that he would 
 not again listen to his first impulse, but would re- 
 flect more fully in the future. Then, after the hour 
 of poetry and devotion, after reading works that 
 showed the two friends the vast field of literature
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 99 
 
 illumined by a new sun, the hour of policy and 
 scheming struck for Lucien. Upon returning to 
 L'Houmeau, he repented of his letter and would 
 have liked to recall it; for he saw as through a vista, 
 the pitiless laws of society. Divining how power- 
 fully acquired fortune would assist ambition, it cost 
 him dear to withdraw his foot from the first rung of 
 the ladder by which he was to mount to the assault 
 upon worldly grandeur. Then the images of his 
 simple, tranquil life, adorned with the brightest 
 flowers of sentiment; David, a veritable genius, 
 who had so nobly assisted him, who would give his 
 life for him if need were; his mother, so great 
 a lady in her humble station, who believed him 
 to be as good as he was clever; his sister, so 
 charming in her resignation, his pure childhood and 
 his still unsullied conscience; his hopes, from which 
 no blast of the north wind had yet stripped their 
 leaves, — everything bloomed anew in his memory. 
 Thereupon he said to himself that it was far better 
 to pierce the dense battalions of the aristocratic or 
 bourgeois multitude by the vigorous blows of 
 merited triumph than to succeed by the favors of a 
 woman. His genius would shine forth sooner or 
 later, like that of so many men, his predecessors, 
 who had conquered society; and then women would 
 love him ! The example of Napoleon, so disastrous 
 to the nineteenth century by reason of the preten- 
 sions inspired in so many men of moderate capaci- 
 ties, appeared to Lucien, and he cast his selfish 
 scheming to the winds, rebuking himself for it. So
 
 IOO LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 Lucien was constituted : he veered from bad to good, 
 from good to bad, with equal facility. 
 
 Instead of the love that the scholar carries with 
 him into retirement, Lucien had been conscious for 
 a month past of a sort of shame when he saw the 
 shop, with the following sign, in yellow letters on 
 a green background, over the door : 
 
 postel, Druggist, Successor to Chardon. 
 
 His father's name, displayed thus in a street 
 through which all the vehicles passed, wounded his 
 eyes. In the evening, when he passed out through 
 the door, embellished with a small grated wicket in 
 wretched taste, on his way to Beaulieu, to walk 
 among the most fashionable young people of the 
 Upper Town, with Madame de Bargeton on his arm, 
 he bitterly deplored the lack of harmony between 
 that abode and his good fortune. 
 
 "To love Madame de Bargeton, perhaps to possess 
 her soon, and to live in this rat's nest!" he said to 
 himself as he walked through the passageway into 
 the little courtyard where several bundles of boiled 
 herbs were spread out along the wall, where the 
 apprentice was scouring the retorts from the labo- 
 ratory, and where Monsieur Postel, in his working 
 apron, retort in hand, was scrutinizing a chemical 
 product and glancing now and again into the shop; 
 if he watched his drug too attentively, he kept his 
 ear on the bell. 
 
 The odor of camomile, mint and divers distilled
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 101 
 
 plants filled the courtyard and the modest apartment 
 reached by one of the steep stairways called millers' 
 stairways, with no other railing than two cords. 
 Above was the only attic chamber, in which Lucien 
 lived. 
 
 "Good-day, my boy," said Monsieur Postel, a 
 perfect type of the provincial shopkeeper. "How 
 goes our little health? I've just been making an ex- 
 periment on treacle, but it would take your father 
 to find what I'm looking for. He was a famous 
 fellow, he was! If I had known his secret remedy 
 for the gout, we would both be riding in our car- 
 riages to-day!" 
 
 Not a week passed that the druggist, who was as 
 stupid as he was kind, did not stab Lucien to the 
 heart by talking about his father's unfortunate re- 
 serve concerning his discovery. 
 
 "It's a great misfortune," Lucien replied briefly, 
 beginning to find his father's pupil exceedingly 
 vulgar, after having blessed him many a time: for 
 honest Postel had assisted his master's widow and 
 children more than once. 
 
 "Why, what's the matter?" asked Monsieur 
 Postel, laying his test tube on the laboratory table. 
 
 "Has any letter come for me?" 
 
 "Yes, one that smells like balsam! it's on the 
 counter by my desk." 
 
 Madame de Bargeton's letter lying among the 
 bottles of a pharmacy ! Lucien darted into the shop. 
 
 "Make haste, Lucien! your dinner's been wait- 
 ing for you an hour, it will be cold," cried a sweet
 
 102 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 voice through an open window; but Lucien did not 
 hear. 
 
 "Your brother's daft, mademoiselle," said Postel 
 with a sniff. 
 
 This old bachelor, who much resembled a small 
 cask of eau-de-vie upon which a painter's fancy had 
 drawn a coarse, rubicund face, pitted with the small- 
 pox, assumed as he looked at Eve a ceremonious and 
 at the same time a seductive air, which proved that 
 he was thinking of marrying his predecessor's 
 daughter, but could not put an end to the conflict 
 between love and self-interest in his heart. And 
 he often said to Lucien, with a smile, the words 
 which he now repeated when the young man again 
 passed him : 
 
 "Your sister's famously pretty! You're not bad 
 either! Your father did everything well." 
 
 Eve was a tall brunette, with black hair and blue 
 eyes. Although she showed symptoms of possess- 
 ing a virile character, she was sweet, affectionate 
 and devoted. Her innocence, her artlessness, her 
 tranquil resignation to a life of hard work, her vir- 
 tue, which no slanderous tongue assailed, were well 
 calculated to attract David Sechard. So it was, 
 that, from their first meeting, a quiet, simple pas- 
 sion, of the German sort, had stirred both their 
 hearts, unattended by noisy demonstrations or hasty 
 declarations. Each of them had thought secretly of 
 the other, as if they were kept asunder by some 
 jealous husband, whom that sentiment would have 
 offended. Both hid their feelings from Lucien,
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 103 
 
 whose prospects they may perhaps have thought 
 they were likely to injure. David was afraid of not 
 pleasing Eve, who, on her side, was influenced by 
 the timidity natural to poverty. A real working- 
 girl would have been bold, but a well-bred girl, who 
 has fallen upon evil days, adapts herself to her hard 
 lot. Modest in appearance, proud in reality, Eve 
 did not choose to run after the son of a man who 
 was supposed to be wealthy. At that moment, 
 those people who were familiar with the increasing 
 value of real estate estimated the estate at Marsac 
 at more than eighty thousand francs, without count- 
 ing the outlying territory that old Sechard, with his 
 accumulated savings, always lucky in his crops and 
 a shrewd hand at selling them, was certain to add 
 to it as occasion offered. David was perhaps the 
 only person who knew nothing of his father's for- 
 tune. To him, Marsac was a hovel purchased in 
 1810 for fifteen or sixteen thousand francs, to which 
 he went once a year at harvest time, and where his 
 father walked him about among the vines, boasting 
 of crops that the printer never saw and that he 
 cared very little about. 
 
 The love of a student, accustomed to solitude and 
 inclined to magnify his sentiments while exaggerat- 
 ing difficulties, required to be encouraged; for, to 
 David, Eve was more imposing than a great lady 
 is to a simple clerk. Awkward and ill at ease in 
 his idol's presence, in as great haste to depart as to 
 arrive, the printer restrained his passion instead of 
 expressing it. Often, in the evening, he would
 
 104 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 invent some pretext for consulting Lucien and would 
 go down from Place du Murier to L'Houmeau, by 
 way of Porte Palet; but, as he drew near the green 
 door with the iron grating, he would turn and fly, 
 fearing that he might be too late, or that he would 
 seem importunate to Eve, who was doubtless in 
 bed. Although this great love manifested itself 
 only in small things, Eve fully understood it; she 
 was flattered, without pride, to find herself the 
 object of the profound respect expressed in David's 
 glances, his words and his manner ; but the printer's 
 greatest charm was his fanatical adoration of Lu- 
 cien: he had divined the surest way to gratify Eve. 
 In order to make clear in what respect the silent 
 pleasures of their love differed from more tumul- 
 tuous passions, we must compare it to the wild 
 flowers as opposed to the brilliant products of the 
 flower-garden. There were glances as soft and 
 delicate as the blue lotus that floats upon the water, 
 expressions as fleeting as the faint perfume of the 
 eglantine, as melancholy and tender as the velvety 
 moss: flowers of two lovely hearts blooming in rich, 
 fruitful, unchanging soil. Several times Eve had 
 caught glimpses of the strength hidden beneath that 
 weakness ; she was so grateful to David for all he 
 did not dare, that the most trivial incident was 
 likely to lead to a closer union of their hearts. 
 
 Lucien found the door opened by Eve and took 
 his seat, without speaking, at a small table, con- 
 sisting of a board placed upon a stool, with notable- 
 cloth, on which his cover was laid. The poor little
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 105 
 
 household possessed but three silver covers, and 
 Eve used them all for her darling brother. 
 
 "What's that you are reading?" she said, after 
 she had placed upon the table a plate that she 
 took from the fire, and had extinguished the flame 
 in her movable stove by covering it with the 
 snuffers. 
 
 Lucien did not reply. Eve took a small plate on 
 which some vine-leaves were tastefully arranged 
 and put it on the table with a small jug of cream. 
 
 "See, Lucien, I have some strawberries for you." 
 
 Lucien was paying such close attention to his 
 reading that he did not hear. Eve thereupon took 
 a seat beside him, without a murmur; for a 
 sister's feeling for her brother is such that she 
 takes a vast amount of pleasure in having him treat 
 her without ceremony. 
 
 "Why, what is the matter with you?" she cried, 
 as she saw tears glistening in her brother's eyes. 
 
 "Nothing, nothing, Eve," he said, taking her by 
 the waist, drawing her to him and kissing her on 
 the forehead and the hair and the neck with aston- 
 ishing effusiveness. 
 
 "You are hiding something from me?" 
 
 "Well, yes, she loves me!" 
 
 "I knew very well that it wasn't I you were 
 kissing," said the poor sister in a pouting tone, 
 and blushing. 
 
 "We shall all be happy," cried Lucien, gulping 
 down his soup in great spoonfuls. 
 
 "We?" Eve repeated.
 
 106 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 Inspired by the same presentiment that had seized 
 upon David, she added: 
 
 "You will care less for us!" 
 
 "How can you think that, if you know me?" 
 
 Eve put out her hand to press his; then she took 
 away the empty plate and the brown earthenware 
 soup tureen, and produced the dish she had pre- 
 pared. Instead of eating, Lucien reread Madame 
 de Bargeton's letter which the discreet Eve did not 
 ask to see, so much respect had she for her brother : 
 if he chose to tell her about it, she was willing to 
 wait; if he did not choose to, could she demand it? 
 She waited. The letter was as follows: 
 
 " My friend, why should I refuse to your brother in knowl- 
 edge the support I have given you? In my eyes, all talents 
 have equal rights ; but you do not know the prejudices of 
 the persons who belong to my social circle. We cannot 
 make those who compose the aristocracy of ignorance recog- 
 nize nobility of mind. If I am not sufficiently powerful to 
 force Monsieur David Sechard upon them, I will willingly 
 sacrifice those poor people to you. That will be an old-fash- 
 ioned hecatomb. But, my dear friend, of course you do not 
 wish to force me to accept the society of a person whose 
 mind or whose manners may not please me. Your flattery 
 has taught me how easily friendship is blinded ! Will you 
 take it ill of me, if I place a restriction upon my consent? I 
 wish to see your friend, to make up my mind about him, to 
 ascertain for myself, in the interest of your future, if you are 
 not deceiving yourself. Is this not one of the motherly duties 
 which should be undertaken, my dear poet, by 
 
 "LOUISE DE NEGREPELISSE?" 
 
 Lucien did not know how artfully the yes is used
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 107 
 
 in the best society to lead up to a no, and the no to 
 lead up to a yes. This letter was in his eyes a 
 triumph. David would go to Madame de Bargeton's 
 and would shine there in all the majesty of genius. 
 In the intoxication caused by a victory which led 
 him to believe in the power of his ascendancy over 
 mankind, he assumed such a proud attitude, such 
 a world of hope was reflected upon his face in the 
 radiant expression it wore, that his sister could not 
 refrain from telling him that he was handsome. 
 
 "If that woman has any wit at all, she must love 
 you dearly ! And how unhappy she will be to-night, 
 for all the ladies will be making eyes at you. You 
 will look very handsome reading your Saint Jean 
 dansPathmos! I wish I were a mouse and could 
 slip into the room! Come, I have got your clothes 
 ready in mother's room." 
 
 The room in question denoted respectable poverty. 
 There was a walnut bedstead with white curtains, 
 and at the foot a narrow strip of green carpet. A 
 commode with a wooden top, with a mirror, and 
 some walnut chairs completed the furniture. A 
 clock on the mantelpiece was reminiscent of bygone 
 affluence. There were white curtains at the win- 
 dow. The walls were hung with a gray flowered 
 paper. The painted floor was scrubbed by Eve and 
 fairly shone with cleanliness. In the centre of the 
 room was a small table upon which were three cups 
 and a sugar-bowl of Limoges porcelain on a red 
 plate with a gilt border. Eve slept in a closet ad- 
 joining, which contained a narrow bed, an old couch
 
 108 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 and a work-table by the window. The small 
 dimensions of this seaman's cabin made it neces- 
 sary that the glazed door should be always left 
 open, to admit fresh air. Despite the straitened 
 circumstances which these articles revealed, the 
 modesty of a studious life breathed there. To those 
 who knew the mother and her children, the sight 
 was affecting yet harmonious. 
 
 Lucien was tying his cravat when David's step 
 was heard in the little courtyard, and the printer 
 appeared at once with the gait and manner of a man 
 in a hurry. 
 
 "Well, David," cried his ambitious friend, "we 
 triumph! she loves me! you are to go." 
 
 "No," said the printer with some embarrassment; 
 "I have come to thank you for this proof of your 
 affection, which has caused me to reflect very seri- 
 ously. My life, Lucien, is marked out for me. 1 
 am David Sechard, the king's printer at Angouleme, 
 whose name is to be read on all the blank walls, at 
 the foot of the posters. In the eyes of people of 
 that caste, I am a mechanic, a tradesman, if you 
 choose, but a man in business with a shop, on Rue 
 de Beaulieu, corner of Place du Murier. I have 
 neither the fortune of a Keller, nor the renown of a 
 Desplein, two varieties of power which the nobility 
 are still trying to deny, but which — I agree with 
 them in this — amount to nothing without the tact 
 and manners of the gentleman. In what way can 
 1 justify this sudden elevation? I should make 
 myself a laughing-stock to the bourgeois as well as
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 109 
 
 to the nobles. You are in a different position. A 
 proof-reader is bound to nothing. You are working 
 to acquire certain knowledge that is indispensable 
 to success, you can explain your present occupation 
 by your future. Besides, you can take up some- 
 thing else to-morrow, study law or diplomacy, or 
 enter the government employ. In short, you are 
 neither numbered nor boxed up. Make the most of 
 your social virginity, walk alone and put your hand 
 upon the honors that are within your reach! Enjoy 
 to the full all kinds of pleasure, even those that are 
 due to vanity. Be happy; I shall rejoice in your 
 success; you will be a second myself. Yes, my 
 thoughts will enable me to live your life. Yours be 
 the fe'tes, the excitement of society and the swift 
 movement of its intrigues. Mine the sober, labo- 
 rious life of the man of business and the slow occu- 
 pations of science. You will be our aristocracy," 
 he said, glancing at Eve. "If you fall, you will 
 find my arm ready to support you. If you have 
 reason to complain of treachery, you can take 
 refuge in our hearts, there you will find unalterable 
 love. Patronage, favor, good-will, divided between 
 two, might become weary, we should mutually in- 
 jure each other ; go forward, you can tow me behind, 
 if need be. Far from envying you, I devote myself 
 to you. What you have done for me, running the 
 risk of losing your benefactress, your mistress per- 
 haps, rather than abandon me or deny me, that 
 simple, yet grand thing, Lucien, would bind me to 
 you forever, if we were not already brothers. Have
 
 HO LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 no remorse or anxiety because you seem to take 
 the more important part. This division a la Mont- 
 gomery is to my taste. Indeed, even if you should 
 cause me some suffering, who knows if I should not 
 still be your debtor?" 
 
 As he spoke, he cast the most timid of glances 
 toward Eve, whose eyes were filled with tears, for 
 she had guessed everything. 
 
 "At all events," he continued, still addressing 
 the wondering Lucien, "you have done well, you 
 have a pretty figure, you wear your clothes grace- 
 fully, you look like a gentleman in your blue coat 
 with yellow buttons, and your plain nankeen trou- 
 sers; but I should look like a workingman among 
 all those people; I should be awkward and embar- 
 rassed and should either say something foolish or 
 else say nothing at all; you can satisfy all preju- 
 dices on the subject of names by taking your 
 mother's name and calling yourself Lucien de 
 Rubempre; but I am and shall always be David 
 Sechard. Everything would tend to serve you and 
 to injure me in the social circle you are about to 
 enter. You are made to succeed there. The women 
 will adore your angel's face; won't they, Eve?" 
 
 Lucien threw his arms about David's neck and 
 kissed him. This modesty put an end at once to 
 many doubts, many difficulties. How could he 
 have failed to feel redoubled affection for a man 
 whose friendship had led him to make the same re- 
 flections that his own ambition had suggested to 
 him ? The path of the ambitious man and lover
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS III 
 
 was made smooth, the heart of the young man and 
 friend overflowed. It was one of those rare 
 moments when all the fibres are gently drawn 
 tight, when all the chords vibrate and give forth 
 a full volume of sound. But this manifestation of 
 the wisdom of a noble soul aroused in Lucien the 
 tendency that leads a man to refer everything to 
 himself. All of us say, more or less, like Louis 
 XIV. : "I am the State !" The undivided affection 
 of his mother and sister, the devotion of David, the 
 habit of seeing the secret efforts of those three 
 always expended for his benefit, had given him the 
 vices of a spoiled child, and engendered in him the 
 selfishness which devours noble impulses, and 
 which Madame de Bargeton encouraged by inciting 
 him to forget his obligations to his mother and sister 
 and to David. Nothing of the sort had happened 
 yet ; but was there not reason to fear that, in draw- 
 ing the circle of his ambition about him, he would 
 be compelled to think only of himself, in order to 
 maintain himself therein? 
 
 This effusion of sentiment having passed, David 
 suggested to Lucien that his poem of Saint Jean 
 dans Pathmos was perhaps too biblical to be read 
 before an assemblage to whom the apocalyptic poesy 
 was likely to be unfamiliar. Lucien, who was 
 about to appear before the most censorious audience 
 in the department of the Charente, seemed dis- 
 turbed. David advised him to take Andre de 
 Chenier in his pocket and to substitute a certain 
 for an uncertain pleasure. Lucien read perfectly,
 
 112 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 he must necessarily please his hearers, and his 
 modesty would undoubtedly be of service to him. 
 Like most young people, they attributed their own 
 intelligence and their own virtues to people in so- 
 ciety. 
 
 If youth which has not yet failed is unindul- 
 gent to the mistakes of others, it also attributes 
 to them its magnificent beliefs. Indeed, one must 
 have had a thorough experience of life before real- 
 izing that, as Raphael has well said, to understand 
 is to equal. Generally speaking, the quality of 
 mind that is essential to the true understanding of 
 poetry is rare in France, where wit soon dries up 
 the source of the blessed tears of ecstasy, where no 
 one cares to take the pains to decipher the sublime, 
 or to probe it in order to measure its infinite depth. 
 Lucien was about to undergo his first experience of 
 worldly ignorance and indifference! He went to 
 David's house to get the volume of poems. 
 
 When the two lovers were left alone, David was 
 more embarrassed than he had ever been in his 
 life. A prey to innumerable fears, he craved and 
 dreaded words of praise, he longed to escape, for 
 modesty too has its coquetry! The poor fellow 
 dared not say a word which would seem like 
 angling for thanks; every word that came to his 
 lips seemed compromising, and so he held his peace, 
 maintaining the attitude of a convicted criminal. 
 Eve, divining the torments of his modesty, chose to 
 enjoy the silence; but when David began twisting 
 his hat, as if to take his leave, she smiled.
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 113 
 
 "Monsieur David," said she, "if you do not pass 
 the evening at Madame de Bargeton's, we can pass 
 it together. The weather is fine, would you like to 
 walk along the river ? We will talk about Lucien. " 
 
 David longed to throw himself on his face at the 
 lovely creature's feet The sound of Eve's voice 
 contained an unhoped-for reward; by the softness 
 of her accent, she had swept away all the difficulties 
 of the situation ; her suggestion was more than 
 praise, it was the first favor granted by love. 
 
 "Give me a few moments to dress," she said, in 
 response to a gesture from David. 
 
 David, who had never, in the whole course of his 
 life, known what a tune was, went out humming, 
 to the amazement of honest Postel, who at once con- 
 ceived strong suspicions as to the relations between 
 Eve and the printer.
 
 The most trivial incidents of that evening had a 
 great effect upon Lucien, whose nature made him 
 prone to listen to first impressions. 
 
 Like all inexperienced lovers, he arrived so early 
 that Louise was not yet in the salon. Monsieur de 
 Bargeton was there alone. Lucien had already 
 entered upon his apprenticeship in the petty mean- 
 nesses by which a married woman's lover purchases 
 his good fortune, and which afford the woman a 
 means of measuring what she can exact; but he had 
 never yet found himself face to face with Monsieur 
 de Bargeton. 
 
 That gentleman was one of those shallow-brained 
 creatures who occupy a middle position between 
 the inoffensive nullity which still has a glimmer of 
 understanding, and the haughty stupidity which 
 will neither give nor accept anything. Deeply 
 impressed with his duties toward society and over- 
 anxious to make himself agreeable, he had adopted 
 the stereotyped smile of the ballet-dancer as his 
 only language. Whether he was pleased or dis- 
 pleased, he smiled. He smiled at the receipt of 
 disastrous news as well as when informed of some 
 fortunate occurrence. His smile answered all pur- 
 poses by virtue of the different expressions he gave 
 it. If direct approbation were absolutely necessary, 
 he reinforced his smile by a condescending laugh, 
 
 (115)
 
 Il6 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 never uttering a word except in the last extremity. 
 A tete-a-t£te caused him the only embarrassment 
 that disturbed his vegetative life; he was then 
 obliged to look for something in the vast void 
 within. Generally he avoided the difficulty by re- 
 curring to the artless customs of his childhood; he 
 thought aloud, he initiated you into the most trivial 
 details of his life; he told you of his needs, his 
 petty sensations, which, to him, resembled ideas. 
 He never talked about the rain or the fine weather; 
 he did not resort to the commonplaces of conversa- 
 tion by which fools escape; he addressed his re- 
 marks to the most secret concerns of life. 
 
 "To oblige Madame de Bargeton, who is very 
 fond of veal, I ate some this morning," he would 
 say, "and my stomach is troubling me terribly. 
 I knew it would, it always does; explain it to me!" 
 
 Or else: 
 
 "1 am going to ring for a glass of eau sucr'ee ; 
 will you have one at the same time?" 
 
 Or else: 
 
 "To-morrow I am going to ride out and see my 
 father-in-law." 
 
 These brief sentences, which called for no discus- 
 sion, simply extracted a yes or a no from his inter- 
 locutor, and then the conversation would fall flat. 
 Thereupon Monsieur de Bargeton would beg his 
 visitor's assistance by elevating his asthmatic pug 
 dog nose toward the west and looking at him with 
 his great colorless eyes as if to ask: You were 
 saying? He doted upon the tiresome creatures
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 117 
 
 who were always eager to talk of themselves ; he 
 listened to them with unfeigned, courteous attention 
 which made him so dear to their hearts, that the 
 chattering fools of Angouleme gave him credit for 
 a sly sort of intelligence and claimed that he was 
 misjudged. So, when nobody else would listen to 
 them, these people would come and pour the con- 
 clusion of their stories or their arguments into Mon- 
 sieur de Bargeton's ears, sure of finding his 
 approving smile at their service. 
 
 As his wife's salon was always full, he was gen- 
 erally at ease there. He busied himself with the 
 most trivial details; he watched for newcomers, 
 saluted them with a smile and escorted them to his 
 wife; he watched those who left and escorted them 
 to the door, receiving their adieus with his ever- 
 lasting smile. When the party was an animated 
 one, and he saw that everyone was busily employed 
 for the moment, the fortunate mute would plant 
 himself on his two long legs like a stork, as if he 
 were listening to a political conversation; or he 
 would go and scrutinize the hand of some card- 
 player, understanding nothing of what he saw, for 
 he knew no game; or he would walk about, taking 
 snuff and patting his stomach. Anaiis was the 
 beautiful side of his life; she afforded him infinite 
 pleasure. When she was playing her part as mis- 
 tress of the house, he would stretch himself out 
 upon a couch and gaze admiringly at her; for she 
 talked for him; again, he took delight in trying to 
 fathom the meaning of her remarks; and, as he
 
 Il8 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 frequently did not understand them until long after 
 they were made, he indulged in smiles that went 
 off like buried shells, suddenly exploded. His re- 
 spect for her amounted to adoration. An adoration of 
 some sort is sufficient to make one's life happy, is 
 it not ? Like the clever and generous creature she 
 was, Ana'is did not abuse her opportunities when 
 she discovered that her husband possessed the facile 
 nature of a child, who asks no better fate than to 
 be governed. She had taken care of him as one 
 takes care of a cloak; she kept him clean, brushed 
 him, put him away, used him carefully; and Mon- 
 sieur de Bargeton, feeling that he was brushed and 
 tended and used with care, contracted a dog-like 
 affection for his wife. It is so easy to bestow hap- 
 piness that costs nothing! Madame de Bargeton, 
 unaware that her husband cared for anything in the 
 world except good cheer, gave him excellent din- 
 ners; she took pity upon him; she never com- 
 plained; and some people, not understanding that 
 pride kept her silent, attributed invisible virtues 
 to her husband. She had, moreover, subjected him 
 to a sort of military discipline and he obeyed his 
 wife's desires passively in everything. She would 
 say to him: "Call upon Monsieur This or Madame 
 That," and he would go as a soldier goes to take 
 his turn at sentry duty. In her presence he as- 
 sumed the attitude of a soldier carrying arms, 
 motionless. 
 
 At this time there was some talk of electing this 
 dumb man to the office of deputy. Lucien had not
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 119 
 
 been a favored guest at the house for a sufficiently 
 long time to have lifted the veil behind which that 
 enigmatical character kept itself hidden. Monsieur 
 de Bargeton, buried in his lounging chair, seeming 
 to see and to understand everything, imparting to 
 his silence an attribute of dignity, was to him a 
 prodigiously imposing figure. Instead of taking 
 him for a granite post, Lucien looked upon him as a 
 redoubtable sphinx, by virtue of the natural impulse 
 of imaginative men to magnify everything and to 
 endow with a soul everything that has shape; and 
 he deemed it advisable to flatter him. 
 
 "1 am the first to arrive," he said, saluting him 
 with a little more respect than was commonly ac- 
 corded the goodman. 
 
 "That is very natural," Monsieur de Bargeton 
 replied. 
 
 Lucien took that remark for the epigrammatic 
 retort of a jealous husband; he blushed and looked 
 at himself in the mirror, trying to maintain his 
 self-possession. 
 
 "You live at L'Houmeau," added Monsieur de 
 Bargeton; "people who live at a distance always 
 arrive earlier than those who live near." 
 
 "Why is that?" said Lucien, assuming a concil- 
 iatory air. 
 
 "1 don't know," Monsieur de Bargeton replied, 
 relapsing into immobility. 
 
 "You have not tried to find out," continued Lu- 
 cien. "A man capable of noticing the fact can dis- 
 cover its cause."
 
 120 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 "Ah!" said Monsieur de Bargeton, "final causes! 
 Ha! ha!" 
 
 Lucien cudgeled his brains for material with 
 which to rekindle the conversation which expired 
 at that point. 
 
 "Madame de Bargeton is dressing, I presume?" 
 he said, shuddering at the absurdity of the question. 
 
 "Yes, she is dressing," replied the husband 
 simply. 
 
 Lucien looked up at the two exposed rafters, 
 painted gray, with plastered spaces between, but 
 could think of nothing further to say; he noticed, 
 however, with dismay, that the little chandelier 
 with old crystal pendants had been stripped of its 
 gauze covering and supplied with candles. The 
 covers of the furniture had been removed and the 
 red damask displayed its faded flowers. These 
 preparations indicated an extraordinary occasion. 
 The poet was disturbed by doubts as to the pro- 
 priety of his costume, for he was in boots. He 
 went and gazed in a stupor of apprehension at a 
 Japanese vase that stood upon a garlanded console 
 of the time of Louis XV. ; then he feared that he 
 might displease the husband by not paying court 
 to him, and he determined to try and discover 
 whether the goodman had a hobby that he could 
 flatter. 
 
 "You rarely leave the town, monsieur?" he said, 
 walking back toward Monsieur de Bargeton. 
 
 "Rarely." 
 
 Silence again. Monsieur de Bargeton watched,
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 121 
 
 like a suspicious cat, the slightest movements of 
 Lucien, who disturbed his repose. Each of them 
 was afraid of the other. 
 
 "Can he have become suspicious of my constant 
 attentions?" thought Lucien, "for he seems to be 
 very hostile to me!" 
 
 Luckily for Lucien, who was sorely embarrassed 
 by the uneasy glances with which Monsieur de 
 Bargeton eyed him as he went back and forth, the 
 old manservant, who had donned livery for the oc- 
 casion, announced Du Chatelet. The baron entered 
 the room with perfect ease of manner, saluted his 
 friend Bargeton, and bestowed upon Lucien a slight 
 inclination of the head which was much in vogue 
 in those days, but which seemed to Lucien brim- 
 ming over with purse-proud impertinence. Sixte 
 du Chatelet wore trousers of dazzling whiteness, 
 with inside straps that kept them in place. He had 
 dainty shoes and Scotch thread stockings. Over his 
 white waistcoat floated the black ribbon of his eye- 
 glass. His black coat was noticeable for its Paris- 
 ian cut and shape. He was in very truth the 
 doughty beau that his past life pronounced him to 
 be; but age had already endowed him with a little 
 round paunch not easily confined within elegant 
 limits. His hair and whiskers, which were 
 whitened by the trials he had undergone on his 
 travels, were dyed, giving his features a harsh 
 expression. His complexion, formerly very deli- 
 cate, had taken on the coppery tinge common to 
 those who return from the Indies; but his general
 
 122 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 bearing, although rendered ridiculous by the preten- 
 sions to which he still clung, revealed none the less 
 the attractive secretary of despatches of an imperial 
 princess. He took his monocle, gazed at Lucien's 
 nankeen trousers, his boots, his waistcoat and his 
 blue coat of Angouleme manufacture — eyed his 
 rival from head to foot in fact; then coolly replaced 
 his monocle in his waistcoat pocket, as if he had 
 said: "I am content" 
 
 Overwhelmed by the elegance of the financier, 
 Lucien thought that he would have his revenge 
 when he should show his face, illumined by the fire 
 of poesy, to the assembled guests; but he felt 
 none the less a sharp pang, which renewed the in- 
 ternal distress that Monsieur de Bargeton's supposed 
 hostility had already caused him. The baron 
 seemed to bear down upon Lucien with the full 
 weight of his fortune in order to humble him the 
 more. Monsieur de Bargeton, who expected that 
 he would have no further occasion to speak, was 
 alarmed by the silence of the two rivals as they 
 looked each other over ; but there was one question 
 which he held in reserve, — as one keeps a pear for a 
 possible thirst, — for use when he had exhausted his 
 resources, and he deemed it necessary to dis- 
 charge it. 
 
 "Well, monsieur, what is there new?" he said 
 to Chatelet, with a business-like air. "Do you 
 hear anything?" 
 
 "Why, Monsieur Chardon is the novelty," re- 
 plied the superintendent of imposts maliciously.
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 123 
 
 "Apply to him. Have you brought us some pretty 
 little poem," queried the sprightly baron, rearrang- 
 ing the upper curl on one side of his head, which 
 he fancied was out of place. 
 
 "I must consult you to find out whether I have 
 succeeded," said Lucien. "You tried your hand 
 at poetry before I did." 
 
 "Bah! a lively vaudeville or two written as a 
 favor, occasional ballads, romanzas that owe their 
 success to the music, my great epistle to a sister of 
 Bonaparte — the ingrate! — give me no claim to the 
 admiration of posterity!" 
 
 At that moment Madame de Bargeton made her 
 appearance in all the splendor of a carefully studied 
 toilet. She wore a Jewish turban embellished 
 with an oriental clasp. A gauze scarf, beneath 
 which glistened the cameos of a necklace, was 
 gracefully twined about her neck. Her dress of 
 colored muslin, with short sleeves, allowed her to 
 show several rows of bracelets on her lovely white 
 arms. This theatrical garb fascinated Lucien. 
 Monsieur du Chatelet gallantly lavished nauseating 
 compliments upon the queen, which made her smile 
 with pleasure, she was so happy to be praised be- 
 fore Lucien. She exchanged but one glance with 
 her dear poet, and answered the superintendent of 
 imposts with a formal courtesy that mortified him 
 because it expressly excluded him from any claim 
 to intimacy. 
 
 Meanwhile, the invited guests were beginning 
 to arrive. In the first place, came the bishop and
 
 124 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 his grand-vicar, two dignified and solemn figures, 
 but in striking contrast to each other. Monseigneur 
 was tall and thin; his acolyte was short and stout. 
 Both had bright eyes, but the bishop was pale, 
 while his vicar's face wore the purple flush of most 
 robust health. Both were sparing of their gestures 
 and were rarely moved to animation. Both seemed 
 sagacious; their reserve and their silence awed the 
 beholder, and they were supposed to have great 
 minds. 
 
 The two priests were followed by Madame de 
 Chandour and her husband, extraordinary individ- 
 uals, whom those people who know nothing of the 
 provinces, would be tempted to believe a creation 
 of the fancy. Monsieur de Chandour, whose bap- 
 tismal name was Stanislas, the husband of Amelie, 
 the woman who posed as Madame de Bargeton's 
 rival, was a ci-devant young man, still slender at 
 forty-five, with a face that resembled a sieve. His 
 cravat was always tied in such a way as to present 
 two threatening points, one at the level of the right 
 ear, the other depressed toward the red ribbon 
 attached to his Cross. The skirts of his coat were 
 sharply cut away. His low-cut waistcoat disclosed 
 a wealth of swelling, starched shirt front, secured 
 by pins overburdened with precious stones. In 
 short, all his clothing was characterized by a sort of 
 exaggeration that gave him so marked a resemblance 
 to caricatures, that strangers who met him could 
 not repress a smile. 
 
 Stanislas constantly looked himself over from
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 125 
 
 head to foot, with a sort of smug satisfaction, veri- 
 fying the number of buttons on his waistcoat, fol- 
 lowing the wavy lines of his close-fitting trousers, 
 and caressing his legs with a glance that paused at 
 the toes of his boots and rested lovingly upon them. 
 When he ceased to examine himself thus, his eyes 
 would seek a mirror and he would look to see if his 
 hair kept its curl ; he questioned the ladies with a 
 jovial eye, putting one of his fingers in his waistcoat 
 pocket, throwing back his shoulders and posing 
 three-fourths profile, — chanticleer-like antics that 
 stood him in good stead in the aristocratic society 
 of which he was the beau. Most of the time his 
 conversation consisted of broad remarks such as 
 were in vogue in the eighteenth century. That 
 detestable style of conversation procured him some 
 favor among women, for he made them laugh. Mon- 
 sieur Chatelet was beginning to cause him some 
 uneasiness. In fact, the ladies, perplexed by the 
 disdain of the dandy of the impost office, spurred 
 on by his affectation in pretending that it was im- 
 possible to lift him out of the slough into which he 
 had fallen, and piqued by his manner, as of a blase 
 sultan, the ladies, we say, sought his society more 
 eagerly than when he first arrived, after Madame 
 de Bargeton fell in love with the Byron of An- 
 gouleme. 
 
 Amelie was a woman of small stature, awkwardly 
 affected, plump and fair, with black hair, carrying 
 everything to excess, always talking in a loud tone, \ 
 strutting about with her head laden with feathers
 
 126 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 in summer and with flowers in winter; a fluent 
 talker, but never able to finish her sentence with- 
 out the accompaniment of the hoarse breathing of 
 unacknowledged asthma. 
 
 Monsieur de Saintot, Astolphe by baptism, presi- 
 dent of the Society of Agriculture, a tall, heavy 
 man, with a high color, appeared in tow of his wife, 
 in figure resembling a dried fern and familiarly 
 called Lili, an abbreviation of Elisa. This pet 
 name, which implied something infantile in the 
 person on whom it was bestowed, was at odds with 
 the character and manners of Madame de Saintot, a 
 solemn, extremely pious woman, and an ill-natured, 
 fault-finding card-player. Astolphe was supposed to 
 be a scientist of the first order. Although as 
 ignorant as a carp, he had nevertheless written the 
 articles on Sugar and Eau-de-vie in a dictionary of 
 agriculture, two productions plagiarized outright 
 from newspaper articles and ancient works in which 
 those two products were treated. The whole de- 
 partment believed him to be busily employed on a 
 treatise upon modern methods of cultivation. 
 Although he regularly shut himself up all the morn- 
 ing in his study, he had not written two pages in 
 twelve years. If anyone came to see him, he would 
 be taken by surprise fumbling among his papers, 
 looking for a note he had lost, or cutting his quill; 
 but he employed all the time he remained in his 
 study in profitless pursuits : he would read the news- 
 paper at great length, carve corks with his pen- 
 knife, draw fanciful designs on his blotter, turn the
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 127 
 
 leaves of a volume of Cicero, to catch on the wing a 
 phrase or a passage, whose meaning might be ap- 
 plied to current events; then, in the evening, he 
 would exert himself to lead the conversation around 
 to some subject which would enable him to say: 
 "There's a passage in Cicero that seems to have 
 been written to fit what is happening nowadays." 
 With that he would repeat the passage, to the vast 
 amazement of his auditors, who would say to one 
 another: "Really, Astolphe is a perfect wellspring 
 of knowledge." The interesting incident would 
 be told all over the town and would confirm the 
 prevalent flattering opinion of Monsieur de Saintot. 
 After this couple, came Monsieur de Bartas, 
 Adrien by name, the man who sang baritone airs 
 and had enormous pretensions in music. Self- 
 esteem had seated him astride the solfeggio; he 
 had begun by admiring his own singing, from that 
 he had passed to talking about music and had ended 
 by devoting himself exclusively to it. The musical 
 art had become a sort of monomania with him ; he 
 never showed any animation except when talking of 
 music, and he suffered agony at an evening party 
 until he was asked to sing. Once he had bellowed 
 one of his airs, life began for him; he posed, he 
 stood on his heels when receiving compliments, he 
 played the modest man; but he went, nevertheless, 
 from group to group culling words of praise; and 
 when everything was said he would return to the 
 piano, and start a discussion about the difficulties 
 of his song, or vaunt the talent of the composer.
 
 128 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 Monsieur Alexandre de Brebian, the hero of the 
 crayon, the artist who flooded his friends' rooms 
 with absurd productions and spoiled all the albums 
 in the department, accompanied Monsieur de Bartas. 
 Each of them had the other's wife upon his arm. 
 If the chronique scandaleuse were to be believed, 
 the exchange was complete. The two ladies, 
 Lolotte — Madame Charlotte de Brebian — and Fifine 
 — Madame Josephine de Bartas, — equally absorbed 
 in fichus,lace trimmings and arranging combinations 
 of heterogeneous colors, were consumed by the de- 
 sire to appear like Parisians, and neglected their 
 households, where everything went wrong. While 
 the two women, squeezed like dolls in dresses cut 
 with great regard to economy of material, presented 
 upon their persons an exhibition of outrageously 
 eccentric coloring, the husbands, in their quality 
 of artists, allowed themselves a truly provincial 
 negligence in the matter of costume, which made 
 them curious spectacles. Their threadbare clothes 
 made them look like the supernumeraries who rep- 
 resent the aristocratic wedding guests at small 
 theatres. 
 
 Among the figures that cast anchor in the salon, 
 one of the most original was that of Monsieur le 
 Comte de Senonches, who bore the aristocratic 
 name of Jacques; a great hunter, haughty, reserved, 
 with sunburned face, amiable as a wild boar, sus- 
 picious as a Venetian, jealous as a Moor, and on the 
 best of terms with Monsieur du Hautoy, otherwise 
 called Francis, the friend of the family.
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 129 
 
 Madame de Senonches — Zephirine — was tall and 
 beautiful, but with some pimples on her face due 
 to an affection of the liver, which gave her the rep- 
 utation of an exacting wife. Her slender figure, 
 her delicate proportions,justified a languorous man- 
 ner which savored of affectation, but which indi- 
 cated the unfailing gratification of the passion and 
 caprices of a dearly loved woman. 
 
 Francis was a man of considerable distinction, 
 who had abandoned the consulate at Valentia and 
 his hopes in diplomacy to come to Angouleme and 
 live near Zephirine, also called Zizine. The former 
 consul looked after the housekeeping, attended to 
 the education of the children, taught them foreign 
 languages and managed the property of Monsieur 
 and Madame de Senonches with whole-souled de- 
 votion. Noble Angouleme, official Angouleme, bour- 
 geois Angouleme, had long commented on the per- 
 fect unity that prevailed in this household of three 
 persons; but the mystery of conjugal trinity seemed 
 so rare and so attractive that Monsieur du Hautoy 
 would have seemed prodigiously immoral if he had 
 showed any symptoms of marrying. Moreover, 
 people were beginning to suspect the existence 
 of disquieting mysteries in the excessive attach- 
 ment of Madame de Senonches for a goddaughter, 
 one Mademoiselle delaHaye, who acted as her com- 
 panion; and notwithstanding some apparent impos- 
 sibilities connected with dates, a striking resem- 
 blance was detected between Francoise de la Haye 
 and Francis du Hautoy. When Jacques was hunting 
 9
 
 130 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 in the neighborhood, everyone would ask him 
 about Francis, and he would describe the trifling 
 indispositions of his self-willed intendant, giving 
 him precedence over his wife. This blindness 
 seemed so strange in a jealous man that his best 
 friends amused themselves by bringing it out, and 
 described it to those who did not know the mystery, 
 in order to entertain them. 
 
 Monsieur du Hautoy was a precious dandy, whose 
 solicitude in small matters had developed into fin- 
 icalness and childishness. He worried about his 
 cough, his sleep, his digestion and his diet. Ze- 
 phirine had led her factotum to play the man with 
 delicate health: she wadded his clothes and muffled 
 him up and dosed him; she tempted him with choice 
 dishes like a marchioness's poodle; she ordered or 
 forbade him to eat this or that article of food ; she 
 embroidered waistcoats for him and cravat ends and 
 handkerchiefs; she had accustomed him finally to 
 wearing such pretty things, that she metamorphosed 
 him into a sort of Japanese idol. Their under- 
 standing was perfect; Zizine looked at Francis on 
 every occasion, and Francis seemed to take his ideas 
 from Zizine's eyes. They blamed and praised to- 
 gether and seemed to consult before uttering the 
 simplest form of greeting. 
 
 The wealthiest landowner in the neighborhood, 
 the man who was envied above all others, Monsieur 
 le Marquis de Pimentel, and his wife, who had 
 forty thousand francs a year between them, and 
 who passed their winters in Paris, came from the
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 1 31 
 
 country in a caleche with their neighbors Monsieur 
 Ie Baron and Madame la Baronne de Rastignac, ac- 
 companied by the baroness's aunt and by their 
 daughters, two charming young ladies, well-bred, 
 poor, but dressed with that simplicity which does 
 so much to set off natural beauty. This party, 
 which certainly composed the elite of the company, 
 were received with a cold silence and respect full 
 of jealousy, especially when everyone noticed the 
 marked distinction with which Madame de Bargeton 
 received them. These two families were of the 
 small number of people who, in the provinces, hold 
 themselves above idle gossip, take part with no 
 clique, live quietly in retirement and maintain an 
 imposing dignity. Monsieur de Pimentel and Mon- 
 sieur de Rastignac were called by their titles; there 
 was no familiarity between their wives or their 
 daughters and the select society of Angouleme; 
 they were too closely connected with the court 
 nobility to compromise themselves with the absurd- 
 ities of the province. 
 
 The prefect and the general were the last to ar- 
 rive, accompanied by the country gentleman who 
 had brought his memoir on silkworms to David 
 that afternoon. Doubtless, he was some mayor of 
 a canton whose acquaintance was worth cultivating 
 because of his fine estates; but his manner and his 
 costume betrayed absolute unfamiliarity with so- 
 ciety; he was uncomfortable in his clothes, he did 
 not know where to put his hands, he walked around 
 the person with whom he was talking, he rose and
 
 132 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 sat down again before replying when he was spoken 
 to, he seemed ready to do any menial service; he 
 was by turns obsequious, uneasy, solemn ; he made 
 haste to laugh at a jest, he listened in a servile 
 fashion, and sometimes he assumed a cunning leer 
 when he thought that someone was making sport of 
 him. Several times during the evening, as his 
 memoir lay heavy on his mind, he tried to talk 
 about silkworms; but the ill-fated Monsieur de 
 Severac fell upon Monsieur de Bartas, who replied 
 with a few remarks concerning Music, and upon 
 Monsieur de Saintot, who quoted Cicero to him. 
 Toward the middle of the evening, the poor mayor 
 succeeded in coming to an understanding with a 
 widow and her daughter, Madame and Mademoiselle 
 du Brossard, who were not the least interesting 
 figures in the assemblage. A single word will tell 
 the whole story : they were as poor as they were 
 noble. Their dress displayed that striving after 
 elegance which betrays secret poverty. Madame 
 du Brossard, very unskilfully and on every possible 
 occasion, vaunted the charms of her tall, stout 
 daughter, about twenty-seven years of age, who 
 was supposed to be a fine performer on the piano; 
 she took care that her daughter should share the 
 likes and dislikes of all the marriageable men, and 
 in her desire to see her dear Camille settled in 
 life, she had, in the course of the same evening, 
 declared that Camille loved the wandering life of 
 the garrison, and the tranquil life of landowners 
 who cultivate their own estates. Both had the
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 133 
 
 prim, bitter-sweet dignity of persons whom every- 
 one is delighted to pity, in whom people are inter- 
 ested through selfishness, and who have sounded the 
 empty depths of the consolatory phrases with which 
 society takes pleasure in greeting the unfortunate. 
 Monsieur de Severac was fifty-nine years of age 
 and a childless widower; therefore the mother and 
 daughter listened with devout admiration to the 
 details he gave them of his silkworm nurseries. 
 
 "My daughter has always loved animals," said 
 the mother. "And as the silk the little creatures 
 make interests us women, I will ask your permis- 
 sion to go to Severac and show my Camille how it 
 is gathered. Camille is so intelligent, that she 
 will grasp at once everything you tell her. Why, 
 one day she understood the inverse ratio of the 
 square of distances!" 
 
 This phrase brought the conversation between 
 Monsieur de Severac and Madame du Brossard to a 
 glorious termination, after Lucien's reading. 
 
 Some habitues of the salon glided freely about 
 among the guests, and there were two or three 
 young men of good family, timid and silent, ar- 
 ranged like shrines, happy to have been invited to 
 this solemn literary function, the boldest of whom 
 emancipated himself so far as to talk a good deal 
 with Mademoiselle de la Haye. All the women 
 seated themselves in a circle, with serious faces, 
 and the men stood behind them. This assemblage 
 of strange personages, with eccentric costumes and 
 made-up faces, became most imposing to Lucien,
 
 134 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 whose heart beat fast when he found all eyes fixed 
 upon him. Bold as he was, he found it difficult to 
 undergo that first test, despite the encouragement 
 of his mistress, who bestowed her most ceremo- 
 nious reverences and her most charming courtesies 
 upon the illustrious luminaries of Angoumois. The 
 distress that he felt was exaggerated by a cir- 
 cumstance readily foreseen, but well calculated to 
 dismay a young man as yet unfamiliar with social 
 tactics. 
 
 Lucien, all eyes and all ears, heard himself ad- 
 dressed as Monsieur de Rubempre by Louise, by 
 Monsieur de Bargeton, by the bishop and by some 
 few sycophants of the mistress of the house; and as 
 Monsieur Chardon by the majority of that dreaded 
 audience. Abashed by the questioning glances of 
 the curious, he knew when his plebeian name was 
 coming, from the mere movement of the lips; he 
 divined the anticipatory judgments that were passed 
 upon him with the provincial outspokenness that is 
 often a little too near discourtesy. These constant, 
 unexpected pin-pricks put him on still worse terms 
 with himself. He awaited impatiently the moment 
 for beginning his reading, in order to assume an 
 attitude that would put an end to his internal agony ; 
 but Jacques was describing his last hunt to Madame 
 de Pimentel; Adrien was discussing the new musi- 
 cal star, Rossini, with Mademoiselle Laure de Ras- 
 tignac; Astolphe, who had learned by heart a 
 newspaper description of a new plough, was telling 
 the baron about it. Lucien did not know, poor
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 135 
 
 poet, that not one of those great minds, save Ma- 
 dame de Bargeton's, could understand poetry. All 
 those people, being absolutely without emotions, 
 had hurried to the house entirely astray as to the 
 nature of the spectacle that awaited them. There 
 are words which, like the bugle, the cymbals, the 
 great drum of the puppet-show, always attract the 
 crowd. The words beauty, glory, poetry, have a 
 magic that fascinates the most commonplace minds.
 
 When everybody had arrived, when the conver- 
 sation had ceased, not without numberless warnings 
 given to the interrupters by Monsieur de Bargeton, 
 whom his wife sent about like a church beadle who 
 taps his staff on the flags, Lucien took his place at 
 the round table near Madame de Bargeton, conscious 
 of a terrible sinking of the heart. He announced in 
 a wavering voice that, in order not to disappoint 
 any person's expectations, he proposed to read some 
 recently discovered masterpieces of a great but 
 little known poet Although Andre de Chenier's 
 poems were published in 1819, no one at Angoule'me 
 had as yet heard of Andre de Chenier. Everyone 
 chose to discover in this announcement a pretext 
 invented by Madame de Bargeton to spare the poet's 
 self-esteem and put the audience at their ease. 
 
 Lucien first read Ix Jenne Malade, which was 
 received with flattering murmurs; then L'Aveugle, 
 a poem which ordinary minds consider too long. 
 While he was reading, Lucien was a prey to such 
 infernal agony as none but eminent artists can 
 realize, or those whom enthusiasm and exalted in- 
 telligence place upon the same level. To be trans- 
 lated by the voice, as well as to be understood, 
 poetry demands religious attention. There must be 
 a close alliance between the reader and his auditory, 
 failing which the magnetic communication does not 
 
 (137)
 
 138 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 take place. If such cohesion of minds is lacking, 
 the poet is like an angel trying to sing a celestial 
 hymn amid the sneering laughter of the demons of 
 hell. Now, in the sphere in which their faculties 
 are developed, men of intellect possess the circum- 
 spective eyesight of the snail, the scent of the blood- 
 hound and the ear of the mole ; they see, they smell, 
 they hear everything about them. The musician 
 and the poet know as quickly whether they are ad- 
 mired or not understood, as a plant withers or 
 revives in a friendly or hostile atmosphere. The 
 whispers of the men who had come there only to 
 please their wives, and who were talking business 
 with one another, echoed in Lucien's ears, by vir- 
 tue of this peculiar law of acoustics; just as he saw 
 the sympathetic gulfs between various yawning 
 jaws, whose teeth mocked at him. When, like the 
 dove of the Deluge, he looked about in search of 
 some favorable corner upon which to let his glance 
 rest a moment, he met the impatient eyes of people 
 who were evidently thinking of taking advantage 
 of this assemblage to question one another as to 
 some important matters. With the exception of 
 Laure de Rastignac, two or three young men and 
 the bishop, everybody in the room was bored. 
 They who understand poetry try to develop in their 
 minds what the author has placed in germ in his 
 lines; but those icy auditors, far from breathing in 
 the poet's soul, did not even listen to his words. 
 Lucien was so profoundly disheartened, therefore, 
 that his shirt was drenched with cold perspiration.
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 139 
 
 A glance of flame from Louise, toward whom he 
 turned, gave him courage to finish; but his poet's 
 heart was bleeding from a thousand wounds. 
 
 "Do you find this very interesting, Fifine?" said 
 the meagre Lili to her neighbor, anticipating per- 
 haps more stage effect. 
 
 "Don't ask me for my opinion, my dear; my 
 eyes close as soon as I hear anybody begin to read. " 
 
 "I hope Na'is won't often give us poetical even- 
 ings," said Francis. "When I listen to reading 
 after my dinner, the attention I have to pay to it 
 disturbs my digestion." 
 
 "Poor dear," said Zephirine in a low voice, 
 "drink a glass of eau sucree." 
 
 "It was very well delivered," said Alexandre; 
 "but I prefer whist." 
 
 At that remark, which was considered to be clever, 
 because of the English meaning of the word, some 
 enthusiastic card players declared that the reader 
 must need a rest. On that pretext, one or two 
 couples escaped to the boudoir. Lucien, at the 
 earnest request of Louise, the charming Laure 
 de Rastignac and the bishop, re-aroused atten- 
 tion, thanks to the counter-revolutionary energy 
 of the iambics, which several of the guests, carried 
 away by the vigorous warmth of the declamation, 
 applauded without understanding them. People of 
 that sort are worked upon by vociferation, just as 
 ordinary palates are inflamed by strong liquors. 
 While ices were being passed around, Zephirine 
 sent Francis to look at the volume, and told her
 
 140 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 neighbor Amelie that the lines Lucien had read were 
 printed. 
 
 "Why, that's easily explained," Amelie replied 
 with visible satisfaction, "Monsieur de Rubempre 
 works for a printer. It's as if a pretty woman 
 should make her own dresses," she said, glancing 
 at Lolotte. 
 
 "He has printed his poems himself," said the 
 women. 
 
 "Why is he called Monsieur de Rubempre then?" 
 demanded Jacques. "When a man of noble blood 
 works with his hands, he ought to change his 
 name." 
 
 "He has changed his name, which was plebeian, 
 for that of his mother, who is of noble birth," said 
 Zephirine. 
 
 "As his verses are printed," said Astolphe, "we 
 can read them ourselves." 
 
 This stupidity complicated matters until Sixte du 
 Chatelet deigned to explain to this ignorant assem- 
 blage that the preliminary announcement was not a 
 mere oratorical precaution, and that the beautiful 
 poems they had heard were from the pen of a roy- 
 alist brother of the revolutionist Marie- Joseph 
 Chenier. The aristocracy of Angouleme, with the 
 exception of the bishop and Madame de Rastignac 
 and her daughters, who were profoundly impressed 
 by the noble lines, deemed itself imposed upon and 
 took offence at the fraud. A subdued muttering 
 arose; but Lucien did not hear it. Isolated from 
 that hateful assemblage by the intoxication produced
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 141 
 
 by inward melody, he strove to prolong it, and he 
 saw the faces about him as through a cloud. He 
 read the mournful elegy upon suicide, the one in 
 the archaic metre, overflowing with sublime melan- 
 choly; then the one in which this line occurs: 
 
 " Your lines are sweet, 1 love to say them o'er." 
 
 And he concluded with the smooth-flowing idyl, 
 
 Neere. 
 
 Plunged in a delicious reverie, with one hand 
 among her curls, which she had involuntarily un- 
 curled, the other hanging at her side, with dis- 
 traught eyes, alone in her crowded salon, Madame 
 de Bargeton for the first time in her life, felt that 
 she had been transported to the sphere in which she 
 belonged. Imagine the disagreeable shock she re- 
 ceived when Amelie, who had undertaken to voice 
 the general opinion, said to her: 
 
 "Na'is, we came here to listen to Monsieur Char- 
 don's poetry, and you give us printed poems. 
 Although they are very pretty, from patriotism 
 these ladies would prefer the wine of the province." 
 
 "Don't you think that the French language is 
 ill-suited to poetry?" said Astolphe to the superin- 
 tendent of imposts. "I find Cicero's poetry a thou- 
 sand times more poetic." 
 
 "The true French poetry is light poetry, the 
 chanson," replied Chatelet. 
 
 "The chanson proves that our language is very 
 musical," said Adrien. 
 
 "I would much like to know the verses that caused
 
 142 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 Nais's fall, " said Zephirine ; "but, to judge from the 
 way she receives Amelie's suggestion, she isn't in- 
 clined to give us a specimen." 
 
 "She owes it to herself to make him repeat his 
 own verses," said Francis, "for the fellow's genius 
 is her justification." 
 
 "You have been in the diplomatic service; do 
 you obtain this treat for us," said Amelie to Mon- 
 sieur du Chatelet. 
 
 "Nothing could be easier," the baron replied. 
 
 The ex-secretary of despatches, accustomed to 
 these little manoeuvres, went to the bishop and suc- 
 ceeded in making him prefer the request. Being 
 urged by Monseigneur, Nais had no choice but to 
 ask Lucien to repeat some piece that he knew by 
 heart. The baron's speedy success in this negotia- 
 tion earned for him a languorous smile from Amelie. 
 
 "Really the baron is very clever," she said to 
 Lolotte. 
 
 Lolotte remembered Amelie's bitter-sweet remark 
 as to women who made their own dresses. 
 
 "Since when have you recognized the barons of 
 the Empire?" she asked with a smile. 
 
 Lucien had essayed to deify his mistress in an 
 ode which was addressed to her under a title adopted 
 by all young men on leaving college. That ode, 
 which he had toiled over so lovingly and embel- 
 lished with all the love that filled his heart, seemed 
 to him the only one of his own works worthy to 
 contend with the poetry of Chenier. He glanced 
 with a more or less conscious expression at Madame
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 143 
 
 de Bargeton, as he said: A ELLE! Then he 
 proudly took his place to recite his ambitious essay, 
 for his author's self-esteem was quite at ease be- 
 hind Madame de Bargeton's skirts. At that 
 moment, Nais betrayed her secret to the eyes of 
 her own sex. Notwithstanding her habit of domi- 
 nating these people from the height of her superior 
 intellect, she could not avoid an involuntary tremor 
 for Lucien. Her face was troubled, her glances 
 seemed, in a certain sense, to crave indulgence; 
 finally she was obliged to sit with her eyes fixed on 
 the floor and to conceal her satisfaction as the fol- 
 lowing strophes fell upon her ear : 
 
 TO HER. 
 
 Forth from the luminous depths of eternal glory 
 Where cherubim attentive, on timbrels of gold 
 In homage bent, repeat to God the prayerful story 
 Ouf sorrowing worlds unfold, 
 
 Ofttimes a cherubin whose golden locks appear 
 Veiling God's glory confusing that illumes her face, 
 Her argent wings abandons in the heavenly place, 
 And seeks our earthly sphere. 
 
 God's pitying glance all prompt has she learned to divine: 
 She lulls the keen pangs of struggling genius distressed ; 
 Like maiden adored, she cheers the days of life's decline 
 With flowers in childhood blessed. 
 
 Of contrite souls she notes the late repentant cry, 
 And whispering "Hope" in dreams, relieves the mother's load; 
 With heart joy-abounding she carefully reckons each sigh 
 On want and grief bestowed.
 
 144 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 Still with us of those bright angels one remains, 
 Whom earth all-enamored stays in her march ; 
 But weeping, and saddened she her gentle gaze strains 
 To the paternal arch. 
 
 'Tis not the dazzling whiteness that her brow o'ershines, 
 Has told me all the secret of her noble race, 
 Nor yet the burning glance, nor pregnant fire, the signs 
 Of her celestial grace. 
 
 But dazzled, my love that numberless glances assail 
 Has oft striven with her nature divine to unite 
 But she has donned the great, the dread archangel's mail 
 Impenetrable, bright. 
 
 Oh ! beware, oh ! beware lest he see her aspire, 
 See the seraph all-glorious mount heavenward again ; 
 For too soon would he learn the enchanting refrain 
 Of the eventide choir. 
 
 Then piercing night's veil would you see them appear, 
 Like gleams of earliest morn, enter the starlit sphere 
 
 In swift flight fraternal ; 
 And the sailor on watch while awaiting a sign, 
 Would show the pathway of their feet, a brilliant line 
 
 Like a beacon eternal. 
 
 "Do you understand that metaphor?" said 
 Amelie to Monsieur du Chatelet, bestowing a co- 
 quettish smile upon him. 
 
 "Oh! they are such verses as all of us write 
 more or less when we leave college," replied the 
 baron with a bored expression, to carry out his 
 part of a critic who is surprised at nothing. 
 "Formerly we affected the Ossianic mists. There 
 were Malvinas and Fingals, cloudlike apparitions,
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 145 
 
 warriors who came forth from their tombs with 
 stars above their heads. To-day that poetic frip- 
 pery is replaced by Jehovah, by the zither, by 
 angels, by seraph's wings, by the whole wardrobe 
 of paradise freshly renovated, with the words 'im- 
 mense, infinite, solitude, intelligence.' There are 
 lakes and words of God, a sort of Christianized 
 pantheism, enriched with rare rhymes evolved 
 with much toil, emeraude and fraude, akul and 
 glai'eul, etc. In short, we have changed our lati- 
 tude; instead of being in the North, we are in 
 the East; but the shadows are quite as dense 
 there." 
 
 "If the ode is obscure," said Zephirine, "the 
 declaration seems clear enough." 
 
 "And the archangel's armor is a decidedly thin 
 muslin dress," said Francis. 
 
 Although courtesy demanded that they should 
 pretend to think the ode enchanting on Madame de 
 Bargeton's account, the women, furious because 
 they had no poet at their service to call them 
 angels, rose to their feet as if they were sadly 
 bored, murmuring frigidly: Very fine! how pretty! 
 lovely! 
 
 "If you love me, you will not compliment the 
 author or his angel either," said Lolotte to her dear 
 Adrien, in a despotic tone which he was bound to 
 obey. 
 
 "After all, it's nothing but words," said Ze- 
 phirine to Francis, "and love is poetry in action." 
 
 "You said then just what I was thinking, Zizine, 
 10
 
 146 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 but I couldn't have expressed it so neatly," re- 
 joined Stanislas, eyeing himself from head to foot 
 with a caressing expression. 
 
 "I don't know what I would give," said Amelie to 
 Du Chatelet, "to see Nais's pride have a fall, for 
 she allows herself to be called an archangel as if 
 she were better than the rest of us, and asks us to 
 meet such canaille as the son of an apothecary and 
 a nurse, whose sister is a grisette, and works in a 
 printing office." 
 
 "As the father sold biscuits for worms,* he ought 
 to have made his son take them," said Jacques. 
 
 "He continues at his father's trade, for what he 
 has just given us seems to me very like a drug, " ob- 
 served Stanislas, assuming one of his most fetching 
 attitudes. "Drug for drug, I prefer something else. " 
 
 In a moment, everybody was doing his or her 
 best to humiliate Lucien by some aristocratic sar- 
 casm. Lili, the devotee, looked upon it as a char- 
 itable action, saying that it was high time to open 
 Nais's eyes, for she was on the point of making a 
 fool of herself. Francis, the diplomat, undertook 
 to guide this absurd conspiracy, in which all these 
 petty minds were as deeply interested as in the 
 final catastrophe of a melodrama, seeing therein an 
 exciting adventure to be talked about the next day. 
 The ex-consul, who was by no means anxious to 
 fight with a young poet who, before his mistress's 
 eyes, would fly into a rage at an insulting word, 
 
 *Vers— The French word for -verse and verses is also the plural form of ver, 
 meaning worm, hence the French pun is untranslatable.
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 147 
 
 realized that Lucien must be attacked with a con- 
 secrated weapon against which revenge was impos- 
 sible. He followed the example set by the adroit 
 Chatelet when he desired to make Lucien recite 
 some of his own lines. He went and talked with 
 the bishop, pretending to share the enthusiasm the 
 ode had awakened in His Grace; then he began to 
 mystify him by giving him to understand that Lu- 
 cien's mother was a very superior woman of an 
 exceedingly modest nature, who supplied her son 
 with the themes of all his compositions. Lucien's 
 greatest desire was to see justice done to his mother, 
 whom he adored. Once this idea was implanted in 
 the bishop's mind, Francis trusted to the chances 
 of conversation to bring forth the insulting remark 
 which he had undertaken to make monseigneur 
 utter. 
 
 When Francis and the bishop returned to the 
 circle in the centre of which Lucien stood, interest 
 redoubled among those who were already giving 
 him hemlock to drink in small doses. The poor 
 poet, being entirely unfamiliar with the devious 
 practices of salons, could only look at Madame de 
 Bargeton and reply awkwardly to the awkward 
 questions that were put to him. He was ignorant 
 of the names and rank of most of those present, and 
 he did not know how to reply to women who said 
 absurd things to him that made him ashamed. 
 Moreover, he felt a thousand leagues apart from 
 those Angoumois divinities, who called him some- 
 times Monsieur Chardon, sometimes Monsieur de
 
 148 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 Rubempre, while they called one another Lolotte, 
 Adrien, Astolphe, Lili, Fifine. His confusion was 
 extreme when, having taken Lili for a man's name, 
 he called the outspoken Monsieur de Senonches 
 Monsieur Lili. The Nimrod retorted with a Mon- 
 sieur Lulu? that made Madame de Bargeton blush 
 to the tips of her ears. 
 
 "She must be completely blinded to admit that 
 little fellow here and present him to us!" he said 
 in an undertone. 
 
 "Madame la Marquise," said Zephirine to Ma- 
 dame de Pimentel, in a low voice but loud enough 
 to be overheard, "don't you see a great resemblance 
 between Monsieur Chardon and Monsieur de Cante- 
 Croix?" 
 
 "The resemblance is imaginary," Madame de 
 Pimentel replied with a smile. 
 
 "Glory has a fascination that one may acknowl- 
 edge," said Madame de Bargeton to the marchion- 
 ess. "There are women who fall in love with 
 grandeur as others do with pettiness," she added, 
 glancing at Francis. 
 
 Zephirine did not understand, for in her eyes, her 
 consul was a very great man ; but the marchioness 
 went over to Nai's's side, laughing heartily. 
 
 "You are very fortunate, monsieur," said Mon- 
 sieur de Pimentel to Lucien, addressing him as 
 Monsieur de Rubempre, after previously calling 
 him Chardon; "you are never bored, I sup- 
 pose?" 
 
 "Do you work quickly?" Lolotte asked him, in
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 1 49 
 
 the tone in which she would have asked a carpenter : 
 "Does it take you long to make a box?" 
 
 Lucien was crushed by that sledge-hammer blow; 
 but he raised his head as he heard Madame de 
 Bargeton reply, with a smile: 
 
 "My dear, poetry doesn't grow in Monsieur de 
 Rubempre'shead as grass grows in our courtyards." 
 
 "Madame," said the bishop to Lolotte, "we can- 
 not have too much respect for the noble minds 
 which God has illumined with one of His rays. 
 Yes, poetry is a holy thing. Poetry means suffer- 
 ing. How many silent, wakeful nights were the 
 price of the strophes you admire! Salute the poet 
 with affection, for he almost always leads an un- 
 happy life, and God doubtless reserves a place for 
 him in Heaven, among His prophets. This young 
 man is a poet," he added, laying his hand on Lu- 
 cien's head; "do you not see fatality written on 
 that fine brow?" 
 
 Happy at being so nobly defended, Lucien saluted 
 the bishop with a grateful glance, little thinking 
 that he was destined to be his executioner. 
 
 Madame de Bargeton bestowed on the hostile 
 circle about her a triumphant glance that buried 
 itself, like a javelin, in the hearts of her rivals, 
 whose rage redoubled. 
 
 "Ah! monseigneur," said the poet, hoping to 
 strike those foolish heads with his golden sceptre, 
 "the ordinary man has neither your intellect nor 
 your charity. Our sorrows are not known, nor 
 does anyone know of our toil. The miner has less
 
 150 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 difficulty in taking gold from the mine than we have 
 in wresting our images from the entrails of the 
 most ungrateful of tongues. If the aim of poetry be 
 to place ideas at the precise point where all the 
 world may see them and feel them, the poet must 
 constantly run over the scale of human intellects, 
 in order to satisfy them all ; he must conceal logic 
 and sentiment, two mighty enemies, beneath the 
 brightest colors; he must enclose a whole world of 
 poetry in a phrase, summarize whole systems of 
 philosophy in a single picture; in a word, his 
 poems are seeds from which flowers should spring 
 and bloom in the hearts of his fellows, seeking the 
 furrows ploughed by individual sentiments. Must 
 one not have felt everything in order to express 
 everything? And to feel keenly is to suffer, is it 
 not? Thus poetry is brought into the world only 
 after painful journeys into the vast regions of 
 thought and of society. Are not those works im- 
 mortal to which we owe beings whose lives seem 
 more vividly true to us than the lives of those who 
 have really lived; like Richardson's Clarissa, 
 Chenier's Camille, Tibullus's Delia, Ariosto's 
 Angelica, Dante's Francesca, Moliere's Alceste, 
 Beaumarchais' Figaro, Walter Scott's Rebecca, 
 Cervantes' Don Quixote?" 
 
 "And what will you create for us?" queried 
 Chatelet. 
 
 "To announce such creations in advance is to 
 give one's self a certificate of genius. Besides, such 
 sublime productions demand long experience of the
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 151 
 
 world, an exhaustive study of human passions and 
 interests which 1 have had no opportunity to under- 
 take; but I am beginning!" he added, bitterly, 
 casting a revengeful glance upon the circle. "The 
 brain has a long period of gestation — " 
 
 "Your accouchement will be a painful one," in- 
 terrupted Monsieur du Hautoy. 
 
 "Perhaps your excellent mother will assist you," 
 said the bishop. 
 
 This shaft so cleverly prepared, this premeditated 
 vengeance, kindled a gleam of joy in every eye. 
 Upon every mouth was a smile of aristocratic satis- 
 faction, augmented by the stupidity of Monsieur de 
 Bargeton, who began to laugh some time after the 
 blow. 
 
 "Monseigneur, you are a little too clever for us 
 at this moment, these ladies don't understand you," 
 said Madame de Bargeton, by that single sentence 
 paralyzing the laughter and drawing all eyes to 
 herself. "A poet who draws all his inspiration 
 from the Bible has a veritable mother in the Church. 
 — Monsieur de Rubempre, give us Saint Jean dans 
 Pathmos, or Le Festin de Balthazar, to show mon- 
 seigneur that Rome is still the Magna Parens of 
 Virgil." 
 
 The women smiled at one another when they 
 heard Nais say the two Latin words. 
 
 Early in life the haughtiest courage is not with- 
 out its moments of depression. The first effect of 
 the blow was to send Lucien straight to the bottom, 
 but he spurned it with his foot and returned to the
 
 152 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 surface, registering a vow to override the clique. 
 Like a bull, irritated by the pricking of a thousand 
 darts, he stood erect, furious with rage, and obeyed 
 Louise's command by declaiming Saint Jean dans 
 Pathmos. But most of the card-tables had attracted 
 their quota of players, who fell back into the rut of 
 their regular habits, finding a pleasure there that 
 poetry did not afford them. Moreover, the ven- 
 geance of so many wounded self-esteems would not 
 have been complete without the negative contempt 
 for native poetry which they displayed by deserting 
 Lucien and Madame de Bargeton. Everyone seemed 
 preoccupied; one went to talk about a proposed 
 departmental road with the prefect, another sug- 
 gested varying the evening's entertainment with 
 a little music. The first society of Angoul£me, con- 
 scious of its own unfitness to pass judgment on the 
 merits of poetry, was especially curious to learn the 
 opinion of the Pimentels and Rastignacs concerning 
 Lucien, and several persons gathered about them. 
 The great influence which those two families exer- 
 cised in the department was always recognized on 
 great occasions; everyone was jealous of them and 
 fawned upon them, for they all felt that they might 
 some day need their patronage. 
 
 "What do you think of our poet and his poetry?" 
 said Jacques to the marchioness, on whose estate 
 he hunted. 
 
 "Why, for provincial verses," she said with a 
 smile, "they're not bad; however, such a comely 
 poet can do nothing ill."
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS I 53 
 
 Everyone thought this an admirable judgment, 
 and they went about repeating it, giving it an ill- 
 natured turn which the marchioness by no means 
 intended. Chatelet was called upon at this juncture 
 to accompany Monsieur de Bartas, who murdered 
 the great aria from Figaro. Once the door was 
 opened to music, they must listen to the romanza 
 of the days of chivalry, written under the Empire 
 by Chateaubriand, as rendered by Chatelet. Then 
 came pieces for four hands, executed by young 
 ladies, and called for by Madame du Brossard, who 
 desired to display her dear Camille's talent in the 
 presence of Monsieur de Severac. 
 
 Madame de Bargeton, wounded by the disdainful 
 treatment of her poet, met scorn with scorn by going 
 into her boudoir while the music was in progress. 
 She was followed by the bishop, to whom his grand- 
 vicar had explained the profound irony of his in- 
 voluntary epigram, and who was desirous to make 
 amends therefor. Mademoiselle de Rastignac, who 
 was fascinated by the poetry, glided into the 
 boudoir, unknown to her mother. As she sat down 
 upon her quilted-cover couch, to which she led Lu- 
 cien, Louise was able, unseen and unheard, to 
 whisper in his ear: 
 
 "Dear angel, they did not understand you! but 
 
 " ' Your lines are sweet, I love to say them o'er.' " 
 
 Lucien, comforted by this flattery, forgot his 
 troubles for a moment.
 
 154 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 "Renown is not to be bought cheap," said Ma- 
 dame de Bargeton, taking his hand and pressing it. 
 "Suffer, suffer, my friend; you will be great, your 
 sorrows are the price of your immortality. I would 
 like well to sustain the burden of such a conflict. 
 God preserve you from a colorless life, without 
 battles to fight, a life in which the eagle's wings 
 never have room enough! I envy your suffering, 
 for you are at least alive! You will exert all your 
 strength, you will hope for victory! Your struggle 
 will be a glorious one. When you have reached 
 the sphere where great minds hold sway, remember 
 the poor creatures, disinherited by fate, whose in- 
 telligence is made naught by the oppression of 
 a moral nitrogen, and who die, having always 
 known what life was without being able to live it, 
 who have keen eyes and have seen nothing, who 
 have a most delicate sense of smell and have smelt 
 nothing but decaying flowers. Sing then of the 
 plant that is withering away in the heart of a forest, 
 stifled by creepers, by dense, greedy vegetation, 
 having never been caressed by the sun, and that 
 dies without having bloomed. Would not that be 
 a terribly melancholy poem, a most original subject? 
 What a sublime picture would be that of a young 
 girl born beneath Asian skies, or of some maiden 
 of the desert transplanted to some cold western 
 clime, calling to her beloved sun, dying of mysteri- 
 ous grief, overwhelmed alike by cold and by love! 
 It would be the type of many lives." 
 
 "You would thus depict the soul that remembers
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 155 
 
 Heaven," said the bishop; "a poem that must 
 have been written long ago; I have been glad 
 to recognize a portion of it in the Song of 
 Songs." 
 
 "Undertake it, " said Laure de Rastignac, artlessly 
 expressing her belief in Lucien's genius. 
 
 "France lacks a great sacred poem," said the 
 bishop. "Believe me, renown and fortune await 
 the man of talent who will labor for religion." 
 
 "He shall undertake it, monseigneur," said Ma- 
 dame de Bargeton with emphasis. "Do you not 
 see the idea of the poem already shining in his 
 eyes like the first gleam of dawn?" 
 
 "Nais is treating us very badly," said Fifine. 
 "What in the world is she doing?" 
 
 "Don't you hear her ?" replied Stanislas. "She's 
 mounted on her long words, which have no head or 
 tail." 
 
 Amelie, Fifine, Adrien and Francis appeared at 
 the door of the boudoir, with Madame de Rastignac, 
 who was looking for her daughter, to take her 
 home. 
 
 "Nais," said the two ladies, delighted to disturb 
 the little party in the boudoir, "it would be very 
 good of you to play us something." 
 
 "My dear child," replied Madame de Bargeton, 
 "Monsieur de Rubempre is going to recite his Saint 
 Jean dans Pathmos, a magnificent biblical poem." 
 
 "Biblical!" echoed Fifine, aghast. 
 
 Amelie and Fifine returned to the salon, taking 
 that word with them as food for mockery. Lucien
 
 y 
 
 156 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 excused himself from repeating the poem on the 
 plea of failure of memory. When he reappeared 
 he no longer aroused the slightest interest. Every- 
 one was talking or playing cards. The poet had 
 been stripped of all his plumes; the landowners saw- 
 no way in which they could make him useful ; the 
 people with pretensions feared him as a power hos- 
 tile to their ignorance; the women, who were 
 jealous of Madame de Bargeton — the Beatrice of this 
 new Dante, as the grand-vicar expressed it, — cast 
 coldly disdainful glances upon him. 
 
 "And that is society!" said Lucien to himself as 
 he went down to L'Houmeau by the Beaulieu steps, 
 for there are moments in life when one likes to take 
 the longest road, in order to stimulate by the motion 
 of walking, the movement of the ideas that occupy 
 one's mind and to which one wishes to give free 
 rein. 
 
 Far from discouraging him, the passion due to 
 foiled ambition gave Lucien new strength. Like 
 all those whose instinct leads them to a lofty sphere, 
 which they reach before they are able to maintain 
 themselves therein, he resolved to sacrifice every- 
 thing else in order to retain his foothold in good 
 society. As he walked along, he extracted one by 
 one the poisoned shafts that had entered his flesh, 
 he talked to himself aloud, he reviled the fools with 
 whom he had to deal ; he thought of clever retorts to 
 the absurd questions they had asked him, and was 
 in despair to have his wits come to him too late. 
 When he reached the Bordeaux road which winds
 
 EVE AND DAVID 
 
 1 1 'hen Lucie n reached the Bordeaux road, which 
 winds about the foot of the hill and follows the bank 
 of the Chareute, he thought that he saw, by the light 
 of the moon, Eve and David sitting on a piece of 
 timber by the river, near a large factory, and he took 
 a path that led down toward them.
 
 
 ■ , / , .. . 
 
 +J? 
 
 k\* 
 
 
 
 
 ^'VV" 
 
 OtlVr'N J-HpKtKu 

 
 LOST ILLUSIONS I 57 
 
 about the foot of the hill and follows the bank of the 
 Charente, he thought that he saw, by the light of 
 the moon, Eve and David sitting on a piece of timber 
 by the river, near a large factory, and he took a 
 path that led down toward them.
 
 * 
 
 While Lucien was hurrying to the torture at Ma- 
 dame de Bargeton's, his sister donned a dress of pink 
 calico with innumerable little stripes, a straw hat 
 and a little silk shawl; a simple costume which 
 would have made one think she was handsomely- 
 dressed, as is always the case with those persons 
 whose natural nobility of bearing sets off the poorest 
 accessories. Indeed, when she set aside her work- 
 ing-girl's costume, she awed David prodigiously. 
 Although the printer had determined to talk about 
 himself, he could think of nothing to say when he 
 gave the fair Eve his arm to walk through L'Hou- 
 meau. Love delights in this sort of respectful ter- 
 ror, like that which God's glory arouses in the 
 faithful. The two lovers walked silently toward 
 Pont Sainte-Anne on their way to the left bank of 
 the Charente. Eve, who found the silence burden- 
 some, paused in the middle of the bridge to gaze at 
 the river, which, from that point to the point where 
 the powder mill was being built, forms a long sheet, 
 whereon the setting sun threw at that moment a 
 joyous flood of light. 
 
 "What a lovely evening!" she said, casting about 
 for a subject of conversation; "the air is balmy and 
 cool at the same time, the flowers smell so sweet 
 and the sky is superb." 
 
 (i59)
 
 l6o LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 "Everything seems to speak to the heart," David 
 replied, trying to work around to his love by 
 analogy. "Those who love derive infinite pleasure 
 from finding in the details of a landscape, in the 
 transparent clearness of the air, in the perfumes 
 that rise from the earth, the poetic feeling that they 
 have in their hearts. Nature speaks for them." 
 
 "And she loosens their tongues too," laughed Eve. 
 "You were very silent as we came through L'Hou- 
 meau. Do you know, I was really embarrassed!" 
 
 "You looked so beautiful that I was spellbound!" 
 replied David artlessly. 
 
 "So I am less beautiful now, am I?" she asked. 
 
 "No, but I am so happy to be walking alone with 
 you, that — " 
 
 He stopped, abashed, and looked at the hills down 
 which the road winds from Saintes. 
 
 "If you take any pleasure in this walk, I am 
 delighted, for I feel in duty bound to give you an 
 evening in exchange for the one you sacrificed to 
 me. By refusing to go to Madame de Bargeton's, 
 you were as generous as Lucien was in taking the 
 risk of angering her by his request." 
 
 "Not generous, but wise," replied David. "As 
 we are alone here in the open air, with no other 
 witnesses than the reeds and bushes that border the 
 Charente, permit me, dear Eve, to express to you 
 some of the anxious thoughts that Lucien's present 
 course causes me. After what I have just said to 
 him, my fears will seem to you, I hope, a refine- 
 ment of friendship. You and your mother have done
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 161 
 
 everything to raise him above his station; but, by 
 arousing his ambition, have you not imprudently 
 exposed him to great suffering? How will he sus- 
 tain himself in the world to which his tastes are 
 leading him? I know him! it is his nature to like 
 to reap without labor. Social duties will consume 
 his time, and time is the only capital of people who 
 have no fortune but their intellectual powers; he 
 likes to shine, society will aggravate his longings, 
 which no amount of money will satisfy; he will 
 spend money and earn none; in a word, you have 
 accustomed him to look upon himself as a great 
 man; but, before acknowledging any sort of superi- 
 ority, the world demands some striking success. 
 Now, literary success can be won only in solitude 
 and by persistent work. What will Madame de 
 Bargeton give your brother in return for so many 
 days passed at her feet? Lucien is too proud to 
 accept help, and we know that he is as yet too poor 
 to continue to meet her social coterie, which is 
 doubly ruinous. Sooner or later, that woman will 
 abandon our dear brother, after she has killed all 
 taste for work in him, after she has developed in 
 him the taste for luxury, contempt for our humble 
 mode of life, love of pleasure, and his inclination to 
 idleness, the curse of poetic souls. Yes, I tremble 
 to think that this great lady is amusing herself with 
 Lucien as a mere plaything: either she loves him 
 sincerely and will make him forget everything, or 
 she doesn't love him and will make him unhappy, 
 for he is daft over her." 
 ii
 
 162 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 "You freeze my heart," said Eve, stopping at 
 the lock. "But, as long as my mother has the 
 strength to continue her difficult work, and as long 
 as I live, the proceeds of our toil will be sufficient 
 perhaps to meet Lucien's expenses, and enable him 
 to await the moment when his fortunes will begin 
 to mend. I shall never lose courage, for the idea of 
 working for a person one loves," said Eve, with ani- 
 mation, "takes away all the bitterness and weari- 
 ness of the work itself. I am happy when I think 
 for whom I am taking so much trouble, if indeed it 
 is trouble. Yes, you need have no fear, we shall 
 earn enough for Lucien to go into the best society. 
 There is where his fortune lies." 
 
 "And there lies his ruin too," rejoined David. 
 "Listen, dear Eve. The slow execution of works 
 of genius demands either a considerable fortune 
 ready at hand, or the sublime cynicism of a life of 
 poverty. Believe me! Lucien has such an un- 
 bounded horror of the privations of poverty, he has 
 found the aroma of feasts and the vapor of success 
 so pleasant to his senses, his self-esteem has as- 
 sumed such vast proportions in Madame de 
 Bargeton's boudoir, that he will try everything 
 rather than give it all up ; and the proceeds of your 
 toil will never correspond with his needs." 
 
 "Ah! you are only a false friend!" cried Eve in 
 desperation. "Otherwise, you would not discour- 
 age us so." 
 
 "Eve! Eve!" replied David, "I would like to be 
 Lucien's brother. You alone can give me that title,
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 163 
 
 which would make it possible for him to accept 
 everything from me, which would give me the right 
 to devote myself to him with the same devoted love 
 that prompts your sacrifices, but combined with the 
 discernment of one who looks forward to the future. 
 Eve, my dear, loved child, consent to give Lucien 
 a treasury upon which he can draw without shame ! 
 Will not a brother's purse be like his own? If you 
 only knew all the reflections that Lucien's new 
 position has suggested to me! If he desires to goto 
 Madame de Bargeton's, the poor boy must not be 
 my proof-reader, he must not live at L'Houmeau, 
 you must not continue to work and your mother 
 must abandon her profession. If you consent to be- 
 come my wife, everything will be made smooth; 
 Lucien can live on the second floor at my house, 
 while I am building an apartment for him above the 
 lean-to at the end of the courtyard, unless my father 
 will agree to put on a second floor. In that way we 
 could arrange for him an independent life, without 
 care. My desire to support him will give me such 
 courage and energy in money-making as I should 
 never have if I alone were concerned; but it de- 
 pends upon you to authorize my devotion. Perhaps 
 some day he will go to Paris, the only stage upon 
 which he can show what he really is, and where 
 his talents will be appreciated and rewarded. Life 
 in Paris is very expensive, and three of us will not 
 be too many to support him there. Moreover, do 
 not you, and your mother too, need a support? 
 Dear Eve, marry me for love of Lucien. Later you
 
 164 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 will love me perhaps, when you see the efforts I 
 will make to serve him and to make you happy. 
 We are both equally modest in our tastes, we need 
 but little; Lucien's happiness shall be our great 
 care, and his heart the treasure-chest in which we 
 will put fortune, sentiments, sensations, every- 
 thing!" 
 
 "The proprieties keep us apart, " said Eve, deeply 
 moved when she saw how his great love humbled 
 itself. "You are rich and I am poor. One must 
 love dearly to pass over such a difficulty." 
 
 "Then you don't love me enough yet?" cried 
 David in dismay. 
 
 "But perhaps your father would not be willing— " 
 
 "Good, good," said David, "if there's only my 
 father to be consulted, you will be my wife. Eve, 
 dear Eve, you have, at this moment, made life a 
 very light burden for me to carry. Alas! my heart 
 was very heavy with feelings which I could not 
 express. Just tell me that you love me a little, and 
 I will find the requisite courage to tell you all the 
 rest." 
 
 "Indeed," said she, "you make me very much 
 ashamed; but, as we are confiding our sentiments 
 to each other, 1 will tell you that I have never in 
 all my life given a thought to any other man than 
 you. You have seemed to me one of the men to 
 whom a woman may well be proud to belong, and I 
 did not dare to hope for such a great destiny for 
 myself, a poor working-girl without prospects of 
 any kind."
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 165 
 
 "Enough, enough," he said, sitting on the cross- 
 bar of the lock, to which they had returned, for they 
 were walking back and forth over the same ground 
 like fools. 
 
 "What is the matter?" she said, expressing for 
 the first time the charming anxiety women feel for 
 the well-being of one who belongs to them. 
 
 "Nothing but good," said he. "On looking for- 
 ward to a long, happy life, the mind is dazzled, as 
 it were, the heart is overwhelmed. Why am I the 
 happier?" he said in a melancholy tone. "But I 
 know why." 
 
 Eve glanced at him with a coy, questioning ex- 
 pression which signified her desire for an explana- 
 tion. 
 
 "Dear Eve, I receive more than I give. I shall 
 always love you better than you will love me, be- 
 cause I have more reason to love you : you are an 
 angel and I'm a man." 
 
 "I am not so learned," said Eve, with a smile. 
 "I love you dearly — " 
 
 "As much as you love Lucien?" he interrupted 
 her. 
 
 "Enough to be your wife, to devote myself to 
 you and to try to cause you no sorrow during the 
 life, perhaps a little hard at first, that we shall live 
 together." 
 
 "You have seen, dear Eve, haven't you, that I 
 have loved you since the day 1 first saw you?" 
 
 ' ' What woman does not know when she is loved ?" 
 she asked.
 
 166 • LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 "Then let me demolish the scruples that my sup- 
 posed wealth causes you. I am poor, dear Eve. 
 Yes, my father has taken pleasure in ruining me; 
 he has speculated on my work; he has done as 
 many pretended benefactors do to their proteges. 
 If I become rich, it will be through you. This is 
 not mere lover's talk, but the reflection of a man 
 who thinks. I am bound to tell you of my failings, 
 and they are enormous for a man obliged to earn his 
 living. My character, my habits, the occupations I 
 delight in make me unfit for any sort of commerce 
 or speculation, and yet we can become rich only by 
 carrying on some trade. If I am capable of discov- 
 ering a gold mine, I am singularly incapable of 
 working it. But you who, through love for your 
 brother, have descended to the smallest details, who 
 have the genius of economy, the patient attention 
 of the true business man, you will reap the harvest 
 I have sown. Our situation, for I long ago became 
 one of your family in my own mind, weighs so 
 heavily upon my heart, that I have employed my 
 days and nights seeking opportunities to make 
 money. My knowledge of chemistry and my ob- 
 servation of the necessities of commerce have put 
 me on the track of a valuable discovery. I can tell 
 you nothing about it yet, I foresee too many delays. 
 We shall suffer for some years perhaps; but I shall 
 end by finding industrial processes which others 
 than myself are on the scent of; and which will 
 assure us a large fortune if I reach the goal first. I 
 have said nothing to Lucien, for his impulsive nature
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 167 
 
 would spoil everything; he would convert my hopes 
 into realities, he would live like a grandee and 
 would run in debt perhaps. So do you keep my 
 secret. Your sweet, loving companionship alone 
 can comfort me during this long period of waiting, 
 just as the desire to enrich you and Lucien will give 
 me constancy and persistence — " 
 
 "1 had guessed also," Eve interrupted, "that you 
 were one of those inventors, like my poor father, 
 who need a wife to take care of them." 
 
 "You love me then! Oh! tell me without fear, 
 for I saw in your name a symbol of my love. Eve 
 was the only woman in the world, and what was 
 materially true in Adam's case, is morally true in 
 mine. My God! do you love me?" 
 
 "Yes," she said, lengthening that simple syllable 
 by the way in which she pronounced it, as if to 
 depict the extent of her love. 
 
 "Well, let us sit down here," he said, leading 
 Eve to a long beam that lay on the ground near 
 the wheels of a paper-mill. "Let me breathe 
 the evening air, listen to the calling of the tree- 
 toads and gaze at the moonbeams shimmering on 
 the water; let me grasp the full meaning of this 
 scene where I seem to see my happiness written 
 upon everything, and which appears to me for 
 the first time in all its splendor, illumined by 
 love, embellished by you. Eve, my dear love, 
 this is the first moment of unalloyed joy 1 have 
 ever known ! I doubt if Lucien is as happy as 
 lam."
 
 168 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 As he felt Eve's moist hand trembling in his own, 
 David dropped a tear upon it 
 
 "May I not know the secret?" she said in a 
 coaxing tone. 
 
 "You have a sort of right to it, for your father 
 gave much thought to the question, which is be- 
 coming a serious one. This is why: the fall of the 
 Empire is going to make the use of cotton rags 
 almost universal, because they are so much cheaper 
 than linen. At this moment, paper is still made 
 from flax and linen rags; but those materials are 
 very expensive, and their high price retards the 
 great forward movement that the French press must 
 necessarily make sooner or later. Now, the pro- 
 duction of rags cannot be forced. Rags are the 
 result of the use of cloth, and the population of a 
 country yields only a certain fixed quantity. That 
 quantity can be increased only by an increase in 
 the ratio of births. To produce a perceptible change 
 in its population, a country requires a quarter of a 
 century and revolutionary changes in its customs, 
 in commerce or in agriculture. If, therefore, the 
 requirements of the paper trade exceed the produc- 
 tion of rags in France, whether it be twice or three 
 times, it will be necessary, in order to maintain the 
 low price of paper, to use some material other than 
 rags in its manufacture. This reasoning rests upon 
 a fact which is well illustrated in this town. The 
 paper mills of Angouleme, the last to abandon the 
 use of linen rags, see cotton taking its place in the 
 pulp with alarming rapidity."
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 169 
 
 In reply to a question from the girl, who did not 
 know the meaning of the word pulp, David gave 
 her certain information concerning paper-making, 
 which would not be out of place in a work whose 
 material existence is due to the paper as much as to 
 the press; but this long parenthesis between a lover 
 and his mistress will gain in interest no doubt by 
 being somewhat abridged. 
 
 Paper, a product no less marvelous than the 
 printing for which it serves as a basis, had long 
 existed in China when it made its way, through 
 the underground passages of commerce, into Asia 
 Minor, where, about the year 750, according to 
 some traditions, they used a paper made of cotton 
 ground and reduced to pulp. The necessity of 
 finding a substitute for parchment, which was very 
 costly, led to the invention, in imitation of the bom- 
 bycinous paper — such was the name given to the 
 cotton paper of the East — of paper made of rags, 
 some say at Basle in 1 170, by Greek refugees ; others 
 say at Padua in 1301, by an Italian named Pax. 
 Thus paper approached perfection very slowly and 
 obscurely; but it is certain that, under Charles VI., 
 pulp for playing cards was made at Paris. When 
 the immortal Faust, Coster and Gutenberg had in- 
 vented THE BOOK, mechanics, unknown to fame like 
 so many great artists of that period, applied paper- 
 making to the necessities of typography. In the 
 fifteenth century, that energetic, guileless epoch, 
 the names of the different sizes of paper, as well as 
 the names given to the type, bore the imprint of
 
 IjO LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 the simple manners of the time. Thus the grape, 
 the Jesus, the colombier, the pot, the crown, the 
 shell, the wreath, were so named from the bunch of 
 grapes, the image of Our Lord, the wreath, the 
 crown, the pot, in a word, from the water-mark in 
 the centre of the sheet, just as later, under Napo- 
 leon, the water-mark was an eagle; whence the 
 paper called great eagle. In the same way, they 
 called the different type cicero — pica — grand canon, 
 or Saint-Augustin — long primer — from the treatises 
 of Cicero, liturgical books and theological works, 
 for which the type were first used. Italics were in- 
 vented by Aldus at Venice ; hence the name. Before 
 the invention of machine-made paper, which is made 
 of unlimited length, the sheets of largest size were 
 the grand jesus or the grand colombier; the latter was 
 seldom used except for atlases or for engravings. 
 As a matter of fact, the dimensions of the paper to 
 be used in printing were governed by the size of 
 the bed of the press. At the time when David was 
 speaking, endless paper was believed in France to 
 be a mere chimera, although Denis Robert of Es- 
 sonne had invented a machine to manufacture it, 
 about 1799, and Didot-Saint-Leger afterwards tried 
 to perfect it. Vellum, invented by Ambroise Didot, 
 dates only from 1780. This rapid sketch shows 
 conclusively that all the great acquisitions of the 
 mechanical arts and of the intelligence are made 
 very slowly, and by unnoticed development, pre- 
 cisely as nature performs her work. To reach 
 their perfect state, writing, — yes, and language,
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 171 
 
 perhaps ! — had to feel their way just as typography 
 and paper-making had to do. 
 
 "Rag-pickers all over Europe collect rags, old 
 cloths and purchase the refuse of every sort of tis- 
 sue," said the printer in conclusion. "This refuse, 
 carefully sorted out, goes to the warehouses of the 
 wholesale dealers in rags, who supply the paper- 
 mills. To give you an idea of the extent of the 
 business, mademoiselle, in 1814, Cardon the banker, 
 owner of the mills at Buges and Langlee, where 
 Leorier de l'lsle tried as long ago as 1776 to solve 
 the problem that your father worked upon, had a 
 lawsuit with one Proust concerning an error of two 
 million pounds of rags in an account involving ten 
 million pounds, worth four million francs! The 
 manufacturer washes his rags and boils them down 
 to a clear pulp, which is strained exactly as a cook 
 strains her sauce through a sieve, over an iron 
 framework called a form, the interior of which is 
 filled with a metallic substance with the water-mark 
 in the centre that gives its name to the paper. 
 Thus the size of the paper depends upon the size of 
 the form. When I was with Messieurs Didot, the 
 question was even then being considered and they 
 are considering it still, for the process your father 
 tried to find is one of the most imperative necessi- 
 ties of the time. For this reason. Although the 
 durability of linen, as compared with that of cotton, 
 makes the linen less expensive in the long run, 
 still, as with poor people there is always money to 
 be paid out, they prefer to pay out less rather than
 
 172 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 more, and on the principle of the motto Vce victis! 
 they submit to enormous losses. The bourgeois 
 class follows the same course as the poor man. 
 Thus the supply of linen rags is failing. In 
 England, where cotton has taken the place of linen 
 with four-fifths of the population, paper is now 
 made from cotton exclusively. This paper, which, 
 in the first place, has the drawback of tearing and 
 cracking, dissolves so quickly in water that a book 
 made of cotton paper will be reduced to pulp if left 
 in water a quarter of an hour, whereas an old book 
 wouldn't be destroyed if it were left for two hours. 
 When the old book was dried, although it would be 
 yellow and the type somewhat faded, it would still 
 be legible and the work would not be ruined. We 
 are approaching a time when, as fortunes continue 
 to diminish by the process of equalization, every 
 one will grow poor ; we shall demand cheap cloth and 
 books, just as there is beginning to be a demand for 
 small pictures for lack of space to hang large ones. 
 The shirts and books won't last, that's all. The 
 solidity of the products of our factories is vanishing 
 on all sides. Thus the problem to be solved is of 
 the utmost importance to literature, science and 
 politics. One day in Paris, in my office, there was 
 an animated discussion as to the ingredients that 
 are used in the manufacture of paper in China. 
 There, thanks to the raw materials, paper-making 
 has from the very beginning, attained a perfection 
 that ours lacks. Much was said about Chinese 
 paper, which is much superior to ours by reason of
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS I73 
 
 its lightness and fineness, for those valuable qual- 
 ities do not detract from its strength ; and, however 
 thin it may be, it is never transparent. A very 
 well-informed proof-reader — at Paris you find emi- 
 nent scholars among readers: Fourier and Pierre 
 Leroux are readers for Lachevardiere at this 
 moment! — as I was saying, the Comte de Saint- 
 Simon, temporarily a reader, came to see us in the 
 midst of the discussion. He told us that, according 
 to Kempfer and Du Halde, the broussonatia furnished 
 the Chinese with the raw material for their paper, 
 which is entirely a vegetable product, like our own, 
 by the way. Another reader maintained that 
 Chinese paper was made principally from an 
 animal substance, together with silk, which is so 
 abundant in China. A wager was made in my 
 presence. As Messieurs Didot are printers to the 
 Institute, the dispute was naturally submitted to 
 members of that assembly of scholars. Monsieur 
 Marcel, formerly manager of the imperial printing- 
 office, who was agreed upon as referee, sent the two 
 readers to Monsieur l'Abbe Grozier, librarian at the 
 Arsenal. By the decision of Abbe Grozier, both 
 readers lost their stakes. Chinese paper is made 
 neither from silk nor from the broussonatia ; its 
 pulp is made from the pulverized fibres of the bam- 
 boo. Abbe Grozier had a Chinese book, an icono- 
 graphic as well as technological work, in which 
 were numerous sketches representing the manufac- 
 ture of paper in all its stages, and he showed us piles 
 of bamboo stalks lying in a corner of a paper-factory
 
 174 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 drawn with great skill. When Lucien told me 
 that your father, by a sort of intuition peculiar to 
 men of talent, had conceived a method of replac- 
 ing linen rags by an exceedingly common vegetable 
 substance, taken directly from the ground, as the 
 Chinese take their fibrous stalks, I went over in my 
 mind all the experiments tried by my predecessors, 
 and I began finally to study the question seriously. 
 The bamboo is a reed: I naturally thought of the 
 reeds of our own country. The labor amounts to 
 nothing in China; a day's work is worth three 
 sous; so the Chinese are able to place their paper, 
 as soon as it comes from the form, leaf by leaf be- 
 tween tables of heated white porcelain, by means 
 of which they press it and give it the gloss, the 
 toughness, the lightness and the satiny softness 
 which make it the finest paper in the world. Very 
 good; we must find some machine to do the work 
 the Chinese do by hand. Machinery is the only 
 solution of the problem of producing paper at the 
 low price which the cheapness of labor makes pos- 
 sible in China. If we can succeed in making paper 
 of similar quality to the Chinese, at a low price, we 
 shall diminish the weight and thickness of books 
 by more than one-half. A bound set of Voltaire's 
 works, which weighs two hundred and fifty pounds, 
 printed on our glazed paper, will weigh less than 
 fifty on Chinese paper. And that will certainly be 
 a triumph. The necessary space for libraries will 
 become a problem more and more difficult of solution 
 at a time when the general contraction of men and
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 175 
 
 things is affecting everything, even their houses. 
 In Paris the great mansions, the great suites, will 
 be demolished sooner or later; soon there will be no 
 great fortunes to harmonize with the mammoth 
 edifices of our fathers. What a disgrace for the 
 times we live in to make books that will not last! 
 Ten years hence Holland paper, that is to say, 
 paper made of linen rags, will have entirely disap- 
 peared. Now, your brother has told me your 
 father's idea of using certain fibrous plants in mak- 
 ing paper ; so you see that, if I succeed, you will be 
 entitled to—" 
 
 At that moment Lucien accosted his sister and 
 interrupted David's generous proposition. 
 
 "I don't know whether you have enjoyed the 
 evening," he said, "but it's been a cruel one 
 for me." 
 
 "My poor Lucien, what has happened to you, 
 then?" said Eve, noticing the excitement depicted 
 on her brother's face. 
 
 The angry poet described his suffering, pouring 
 into those loving hearts the flood of thoughts that 
 assailed him. Eve and David listened in silence, 
 distressed at this torrent of grief which revealed as 
 much grandeur as weakness. 
 
 "Monsieur de Bargeton," Lucien concluded, "is 
 an old man who will probably be carried off by an 
 attack of indigestion; and then I will have my re- 
 venge on that arrogant set: I will marry Madame 
 de Bargeton! I read in her eyes to-night afove as 
 great as my own. Yes, she felt the blows that
 
 176 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 wounded me; she soothed my suffering; she is as 
 great and noble as she is lovely and charming! 
 No, she will never betray me!" 
 
 "Isn't it time we set his mind at rest about the 
 future?" David whispered to Eve. 
 
 Eve silently pressed his arm, and David, under- 
 standing her thought, hastened to tell Lucien of the 
 plans he had formed. The two lovers were as full 
 of themselves as Lucien was full of himself; so that, 
 in their eagerness to secure his approval of their 
 happiness, they did not notice the gesture of surprise 
 that escaped Madame de Bargeton's lover when he 
 learned of the projected marriage of his sister and 
 David. Lucien was dreaming of arranging some 
 great match for his sister when he should have at- 
 tained some lofty position, in order to shore up his 
 ambition with the interest of some powerful family, 
 and he was in despair to see in this union an ad- 
 ditional obstacle to his success in society. 
 
 "If Madame de Bargeton consents to become Ma- 
 dame de Rubempre, she will never be willing to be 
 David Sechard's sister-in-law!" 
 
 Such was the exact purport of the thoughts that 
 tortured Lucien's heart. 
 
 "Louise is right! people of the future are never 
 understood by their families," he thought bitterly. 
 
 If the idea of this union had been presented to him 
 at a time when he had not just killed off Monsieur 
 de Bargeton in his mind's eye, it would probably 
 have called forth expressions of the liveliest satis- 
 faction. Upon reflecting on his present plight and
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 177 
 
 on the probable destiny of Eve Chardon, a beauti- 
 ful, penniless girl, he would have looked upon the 
 proposed marriage as unhoped-for good fortune. 
 But he was living in one of those golden dreams in 
 which young men, mounted upon ifs, surmount all 
 obstacles. He fancied himself dominating society; 
 it was a severe blow to the poet to fall so quickly 
 into the sphere of reality. 
 
 Eve and David believed that their brother was 
 silent because such at display of generosity over- 
 whelmed him. To those two noble hearts, silent 
 approbation proved true affection. The painter be- 
 gan to describe with simple, heartfelt eloquence the 
 happiness that awaited all four of them. Despite 
 Eve's exclamations, he furnished his first floor with 
 the extravagance of a lover; with artless sincerity, 
 he constructed the second floor for Lucien and the 
 apartments over the lean-to for Madame Chardon, 
 toward whom he proposed to display all the affec- 
 tionate solicitude of a son. In short, he made the 
 whole family so happy and his brother so inde- 
 pendent that Lucien, seduced by David's voice and 
 by Eve's caresses, as they walked beneath the 
 trees along the calm, gleaming Charente, under the 
 starry vault of heaven, in the balmy night air, for- 
 got the painful crown of thorns that society had 
 pressed down upon his head. At last, Monsieur de 
 Rubempre knew David as he was. His mobile 
 nature soon brought him back to the pure, hard- 
 working, bourgeois life he had hitherto led; he saw 
 it in the future surrounded with comfort and free 
 12
 
 178 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 from care. The sounds of aristocratic society be- 
 came fainter and fainter. At last, when he reached 
 the pavements of L'Houmeau, the ambitious youth 
 pressed his brother's hand and assented to the union 
 of the happy lovers. 
 
 "But won't your father oppose the marriage?" 
 he asked David. 
 
 "You know how much he troubles himself about 
 me! the goodman lives for himself; but I shall go 
 and see him to-morrow at Marsac, to induce him to 
 do such building as we need, if for no other purpose. " 
 
 David accompanied the brother and sister to Ma- 
 dame Chardon's room, and asked her for Eve's hand 
 with the eagerness of a man to whom the slightest 
 delay would be unbearable. The mother took her 
 daughter's hand and joyfully placed it in David's, 
 whereupon the lover made bold to kiss the forehead 
 of his fair betrothed, who blushed as she smiled 
 upon him. 
 
 "Such is the betrothal of poor people," said the 
 mother, raising her eyes as if to implore God's 
 blessing. — "You must have courage, my child," 
 she said to David, "for we are most unfortunate 
 and I fear our ill-fortune may prove to be con- 
 tagious." 
 
 "We are rich and fortunate," said David gravely. 
 "First of all, you must give up your nursing and 
 come and live at Angouleme with your daughter and 
 Lucien. " 
 
 The three thereupon hastened to tell the wonder- 
 ing mother of their delightful project, plunging into
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 179 
 
 one of the unreserved family talks, in which every 
 seed is joyously garnered, every pleasure enjoyed 
 in anticipation. They were obliged to turn David 
 out; he would have liked that evening to last for- 
 ever. The clocks were striking one when Lucien 
 walked with his future brother-in-law as far as the 
 Porte Palet. Honest Postel, much concerned about 
 these extraordinary proceedings, was standing be- 
 hind his blind; he had opened his window, and 
 said to himself, seeing a light in Eve's room : 
 
 "What can be going on at the Chardons' ? — Ah! 
 my boy," he said as Lucien returned, "what in the 
 world is happening to you all? Do you need my 
 services?" 
 
 "No, monsieur," replied the poet, "but, as you 
 are our friend, I can tell you about it; my mother 
 has just given my sister's hand to David Sechard. " 
 
 Postel's only reply was to close his window 
 abruptly, in despair because he had not himself 
 asked for Mademoiselle Chardon's hand.
 
 Instead of returning to Angoul<§me, David took 
 the Marsac road. He walked all the way to his 
 father's house and reached the home vineyard just 
 as the sun was rising. The lover spied the old 
 bear's head over the top of a hedgerow under an 
 almond-tree. 
 
 "Good morning, father," said David. 
 "Hallo, is it you, my boy! How do you happen 
 to be on the road at this time of day ? Come in 
 there," said the vine-grower, pointing to a gap in 
 the hedge where there was a small gate. "My vines 
 have all passed the flowering stage and not a twig 
 frozen! There'll be more than twenty casks to the 
 acre this year; but how it was manured!" 
 
 "I have come to talk about some important busi- 
 ness, father." 
 
 "Well, how are our presses? you ought to have a 
 pile of money as big as yourself." 
 
 "I shall make money, father, but just now I am 
 not rich." 
 
 "They all blame me here for manuring to death," 
 rejoined the father. "The bourgeois, that is to say, 
 Monsieur le Marquis, Monsieur le Comte, Messieurs 
 This and That, maintain that I injure the quality 
 of the wine. What's the use of education? to be- 
 fog your mind. Hark ye! those gentry press seven, 
 sometimes eight casks to the acre, and sell at sixty 
 
 (iSi)
 
 1 82 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 francs the cask, which makes four hundred francs 
 an acre at most. I press twenty casks and sell at 
 thirty francs; total six hundred francs! Who are 
 the fools? Quality! quality! What do I care for 
 quality? Let messieurs the marquises keep their 
 quality for themselves! To my mind, quality is 
 crowns. You were saying?" 
 
 "I am going to be married, father, and I came to 
 ask you — " 
 
 "Ask me? What? nothing at all, my boy. 
 Marry away, I give my consent; but, as for giving 
 you anything, I haven't got a sou. Taxes have 
 ruined me! For two years, I've been paying out 
 money for manure, taxes and expenses of every 
 kind; the government takes everything; all the 
 profits go to the government ! For two years the 
 poor vine-growers haven't made anything. This 
 year don't look so bad, and yet my wretched casks 
 are worth eleven francs to begin with! We shall 
 harvest our grapes for the cooper's benefit. Why 
 do you get married before the grape-picking?" 
 "I only came to ask your consent, father." 
 "Ah! that's another affair. May I ask, without 
 being too inquisitive, whom you propose to marry ?" 
 "Mademoiselle Eve Chardon. " 
 "What's that? how much is she worth?" 
 "She's the daughter of the late Monsieur Char- 
 don, the druggist of L'Houmeau." 
 
 "You marry a girl from L'Houmeau ! you, a bour- 
 geois! you, the king's printer at Angouleme! 
 That's the result of education ! Send your children
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 183 
 
 to college by all means! Say, my boy, is she 
 very rich?" said the old vine-grower, drawing near 
 his son with a wheedling air; "for, if you marry a 
 girl from L'Houmeau, she ought to have thousands 
 and hundreds! Good! you'll pay me my rent. Do 
 you know, my boy, that there's two years and three 
 months' rent due, which makes twenty-seven hun- 
 dred francs, and they'd come in handily to pay my 
 cooper. From any other than my son, I should 
 have a right to demand interest, for business is 
 business after all; but I'll give you the interest. 
 Well, how much has she got?" 
 
 "Why, she has just what my mother had." 
 
 The old fellow was on the point of saying: 
 "She's only got ten thousand francs!" but he re- 
 membered having refused to render his son any 
 account, and said : 
 
 "She's got nothing!" 
 
 "My mother's fortune was her good sense and 
 her beauty." 
 
 "Go to the market with it and you'll see what 
 they'll lend you on it. Bless my soul, how unlucky 
 fathers are with their children ! David, when I 
 married I had a paper cap on my head for my for- 
 tune, and I had my two arms; I was only a poor 
 bear; but, with the fine printing office I gave you, 
 with your industry and your learning, you ought to 
 marry a bourgeoise of the Upper Town, a woman 
 with thirty or forty thousand francs. Let your 
 passion go, and I'll find a wife for you myself! 
 There's a widow of thirty-two within a league, a
 
 184 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 miller, with a hundred thousand francs in good land ; 
 she's the girl for you. You can add her estate to 
 the Marsac property; they touch! Oh! the fine 
 estate we'd have, and how I would manage it! 
 They say she's going to marry Courtois, her fore- 
 man, and you're a better man than he is! I would 
 run the mill while she was showing off her pretty 
 arms in Angouleme." 
 
 "I am bound, father — " 
 
 "David, you don't understand anything about 
 business, and I can see that you'll soon be ruined. 
 Yes, if you marry this girl from L'Houmeau, I'll 
 settle my accounts with you, I'll sue you for my 
 rent, for I don't see any prospect of anything. Ah! 
 my poor presses ! my presses ! it takes money to 
 oil you and keep you in repair and make you go. 
 Nothing but a good wine year would console me for 
 this." 
 
 "It seems to me, father, that I have caused you 
 very little trouble hitherto — " 
 
 "And paid very little rent," retorted the old vine- 
 grower. 
 
 "I came to ask you, in addition to your consent 
 to my marriage, to have the second floor of your 
 house raised for me, and to build an apartment 
 above the lean-to." 
 
 "Not likely; I haven't a sou, as you know very 
 well. Besides, it would be throwing money into 
 the water, for what would I get out of it? Upon 
 my word! you get up early in the morning to come 
 and ask me to do building enough to ruin a king.
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 185 
 
 Although your name's David, I haven't the treasures 
 of Solomon. But you're mad! My child was 
 changed by his nurse. There's a vine that will 
 bear some grapes!" he said, interrupting himself 
 to point out a shoot to David. "They are children 
 that don't disappoint their parent's hopes; you 
 manure them and they pay you back. I sent you 
 to the lyceum, I paid enormous sums to make you 
 a scholar, you studied with the Didots and the re- 
 sult of all that nonsense is to give me a girl from 
 L'Houmeau for a daughter-in-law, without a sou 
 of dowry ! If you hadn't gone away to study, if 
 you'd stayed under my eyes, you'd have done as I 
 wanted you to, and you'd be marrying to-day a 
 miller with a hundred thousand francs, not counting 
 the mill. Ah! you had so little wit as to think I'd 
 reward you for this fine bit of sentiment by building 
 palaces for you, eh? Why, anyone would think, upon 
 my word, that the house you live in hadn't sheltered 
 anyone but pigs for two hundred years, and that 
 it isn't good enough for your girl from L'Houmeau 
 to sleep in. Say, is she the Queen of France?" 
 
 "Very well, father, then I'll build the second floor 
 at my own expense; the son will enrich the father. 
 Although that reverses the natural order of things, 
 it's sometimes done — " 
 
 "How's that, my boy; you have money to build 
 with and none to pay your rent ? You rascal, you're 
 playing sharp with your father!" 
 
 The question thus stated became difficult of solu- 
 tion, for the goodman was enchanted to place his
 
 1 86 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 son in a position which justified him in giving him 
 nothing, while maintaining a paternal attitude. 
 Thus David was able to obtain nothing more than 
 a bare consent to his marriage, and permission to 
 make at his own expense such additions to his 
 father's house as he might need. The old bear, 
 that model for conservative fathers, did his son the 
 favor not to demand his rent and not to take from 
 him the savings whose existence he was so impru- 
 dent as to disclose. David returned home sorely 
 depressed; he understood that he could not rely 
 upon any assistance from his father if affairs should 
 turn out badly. 
 
 All Angoul£me was talking about the bishop's 
 remark and Madame de Bargeton's reply. The 
 slightest incidents were so distorted, exaggerated, 
 embellished, that the poet became the hero of the 
 hour. 
 
 From the superior sphere in which this tempest 
 of trifles was rumbling, some drops fell among the 
 bourgeoisie. When Lucien passed through Beau- 
 lieu on his way to Madame de Bargeton's, he ob- 
 served the envious scrutiny that several young 
 men bestowed upon him, and caught a sentence 
 here and there that made him flush with pride. 
 
 "There's a lucky fellow, " said a solicitor's clerk, 
 named Petit-Claud, a schoolmate of Lucien, and an 
 ugly youth, whom the poet treated in a patronizing 
 way. 
 
 "Yes, he's good-looking, he has talent, and
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 1 87 
 
 Madame de Bargeton is mad over him," replied 
 a young man of good family, who was present at 
 the reading. 
 
 He had impatiently awaited the hour when he 
 knew he should find Louise alone; it was necessary 
 for him to reconcile this woman, the arbiter of his 
 destiny, to his sister's marriage. After the experi- 
 ence of the preceding evening, perhaps she would 
 be more affectionate than usual, and if so, a 
 moment of happiness might be the result. He was 
 not mistaken: Madame de Bargeton received him 
 with an effusion of sentiment that seemed to the 
 novice in love affairs to denote a most impressive 
 progress in passion. She abandoned her lovely 
 golden hair, her hands, her face to the burning 
 kisses of the poet who had suffered so much the 
 night before! 
 
 "If you had seen your face while you were 
 reading!" she said, continuing to use the second 
 person singular, the familiar, caressing form of ad- 
 dress which she had adopted the night before when 
 they sat upon the couch and Louise with her fair 
 hand wiped away the drops of perspiration that 
 stood like pearls upon his brow, as if anticipating 
 the crown she would place upon it. "Your lovely 
 eyes shot fire! 1 saw, coming from your mouth, 
 the chains of gold whereby hearts hang suspended 
 from a poet's lips. You must read me the whole of 
 Chenier, he is the poet of lovers. You shall suffer 
 no more, I will not have it! Yes, dear angel, I will 
 make an oasis for you, where you shall live your
 
 1 88 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 poet's life, active, inactive, indolent, laborious, 
 pensive by turns; but never forget that your laurels 
 are due to me, that they will be the noble reward 
 of the suffering that will fall to my lot. Poor love, 
 those people will spare me no more than they spared 
 you; they take revenge for all the joys they do not 
 share. Yes, I shall always be looked upon with 
 jealousy; didn't you see it yesterday? Didn't the 
 blood-drinking insects fly quickly enough to drink 
 from the stings they had made ? But I was happy ! 
 I lived! It was so long since all the chords of my 
 heart had rung full and clear!" 
 
 Tears rolled down Louise's cheeks; Lucien seized 
 one hand and kissed it again and again for all re- 
 sponse. Thus the poet's vanity was fondled 
 by this woman as it had been by his mother, and 
 sister, and by David. Everyone about him con- 
 tinued to raise higher and higher the imaginary 
 pedestal upon which he placed himself. Upheld in 
 his ambitious hopes by one and all, by his friends 
 and by the vain rage of his enemies, he walked 
 in an atmosphere full of mirages. Youthful imagi- 
 nations so naturally become accomplices of such 
 flattery and such ideas as these, everybody is so 
 eager to serve a handsome young man, with the 
 future all his own, that more than one stern and 
 bitter lesson is necessary to dispel such illusions. 
 
 "Then you will really be my Beatrice, my lovely 
 Louise, but a Beatrice who allows herself to be 
 loved?" 
 
 She raised her fine eyes, which she had kept on
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 189 
 
 the floor, and said, contradicting her words by an 
 angelic smile: 
 
 "If you deserve it — later! Aren't you happy? 
 To have a heart all to one's self! to be able to say 
 anything with the certainty of being understood! 
 is not that happiness?" 
 
 "Yes," he replied, with the pout of a disap- 
 pointed lover. 
 
 "Child!" she said, laughing at him. "Come, 
 haven't you anything to tell me? You were think- 
 ing very deeply as you came in, my Lucien. " 
 
 Lucien timidly confided to his beloved the story 
 of David's love for his sister, his sister's love for 
 David, and their projected marriage. 
 
 "Poor Lucien!" said she; "he is afraid of being 
 beaten and scolded as if he were going to be married 
 himself ! Why, where's the harm ?" she continued, 
 running her hands through his hair. "What do I 
 care for a family, in which you are an exception ? 
 If my father married his housekeeper, would you 
 worry very much about it? Dear child, lovers are 
 a whole family in themselves. Have I any other 
 interest in the world than my Lucien? Be great, 
 succeed in winning renown, that is all that con- 
 cerns us!" 
 
 Lucien was made the happiest man in the world 
 by that selfish reply. While he was listening to 
 the absurd arguments by which Louise proved to 
 him that they were alone in the world, Monsieur de 
 Bargeton entered. Lucien frowned and seemed 
 tongue-tied; Louise made a sign to him and begged
 
 IQO LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 him to stay and dine with them, asking him to read 
 Chenier to her until the card players and regular 
 guests arrived. 
 
 "You will not only please her," said Monsieur de 
 Bargeton, "but myself as well. Nothing suits me 
 better than to listen to reading after my dinner." 
 
 Petted by Monsieur de Bargeton, petted by Louise, 
 waited upon by the servants with the respect they 
 show for their masters' favored guests, Lucien re- 
 mained at the Hotel de Bargeton, identifying him- 
 self with all the pleasures of a fortune, the usufruct 
 of which was turned over to him. When the salon 
 was filled with people, he felt so strong in Monsieur 
 de Bargeton's stupidity and Louise's love, that he 
 assumed an air of authority which his fair mistress 
 encouraged. He tasted the joys of the despotism 
 won by Nais, which she loved to have him share 
 with her. In short, he attempted throughout that 
 evening to play the part of the hero of a small town. 
 Observing Lucien's latest attitude, some persons 
 concluded that he was, to use an old-time expression, 
 on the best possible terms with Madame de Barge- 
 ton. Amelie, who came with Monsieur du Chatelet, 
 asserted the truth of that dire rumor in a corner of 
 the salon, where the envious and jealous guests had 
 collected. 
 
 "Don't hold Nais responsible for the vanity of a 
 paltry youth who is all puffed up with pride to find 
 himself in a social sphere he never expected to 
 reach," said Chatelet. "Don't you see that this 
 Chardon takes the courteous phrases of a woman of
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 191 
 
 the world for advances? He hasn't yet learned to 
 distinguish the silence of genuine passion from the 
 patronizing language his beauty, his youth and his 
 talent call forth ! Women would be too much to be 
 pitied, if they were guilty of all the desires they 
 arouse in us. He is certainly in love, but as for 
 Nais— " 
 
 ''Oh!" rejoined the perfidious Amelie, "Nais is 
 very happy in his passion. At her age, a young 
 man's love presents so many fascinations! She 
 renews her youth with him, she fancies herself a 
 young girl, and assumes a young girl's manners 
 and scruples, and doesn't think of the absurdity of 
 it. Fancy ! a druggist's son putting on the airs of 
 a master in Madame de Bargeton's salon!" 
 
 "Love knows naught of those distances," hummed 
 Adrien. 
 
 The next day there was not a single house in An- 
 gouleme in which people were not discussing the 
 degree of intimacy between Monsieur Chardon, alias 
 De Rubempre, and Madame de Bargeton; although 
 guilty of nothing more than a few kisses, society 
 was already accusing them of the most criminal 
 happiness. Madame de Bargeton had to bear the 
 cross of her royalty. Among the eccentricities of 
 society, have you not noticed the caprice of its 
 judgments and the folly of its demands? There are 
 people to whom everything is permitted; they can 
 do the most unreasonable things; from them, every- 
 thing is as it should be; everyone is eager to justify 
 their acts. But there are others to whom society is
 
 192 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 incredibly harsh: they must do everything right, 
 never make a mistake, never fall short, never do 
 even a foolish thing; you would say that they were 
 statues of wonderful beauty, which are taken from 
 their pedestals as soon as the winter weather has 
 cracked a finger or a nose; they are not allowed to 
 be simply human, they are required to be always 
 divine and perfect. A single glance from Madame 
 de Bargeton to Lucien was more severely censured 
 than the whole twelve years' happiness of Zizine 
 and Francis. A pressure of the hand exchanged by 
 the two lovers was about to draw down upon them 
 all the thunders of the Charente. 
 
 David had brought back from Paris a little hoard 
 which he intended for the necessary expenses of his 
 marriage and for building the second floor of his 
 father's house. To add to the value of the house 
 was really equivalent to working in his own interest ; 
 sooner or later, it would revert to him, for his father 
 was seventy-eight. So he built Lucien's apartment 
 with a colonnade, in order not to overburden the 
 old cracked walls of the house. He took great 
 pleasure in decorating and furnishing attractively 
 the first floor, where the fair Eve was to pass her 
 life. Those were days of unalloyed joy and happi- 
 ness for the two lovers. 
 
 Although weary of the pitiful proportions of pro- 
 vincial life, and disgusted with the sordid economy 
 that magnified a hundred-sou piece into an enormous 
 sum of money, Lucien bore without a murmur the 
 necessarily close calculations of poverty and its
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 193 
 
 deprivations. His gloomy melancholy had given 
 place to a radiant expression of hope. He saw a 
 bright star shining over his head; he dreamed of a 
 glorious future, basing his happiness upon the tomb 
 of Monsieur de Bargeton, who had from time to 
 time sharp attacks of indigestion and the agreeable 
 mania of regarding the failure of his dinner to digest 
 as a disease to be cured by eating a hearty supper. 
 Toward the beginning of September, Lucien was 
 no longer a proof-reader; he was Monsieur de Ru- 
 bempre, living in magnificent quarters, compared 
 with the wretched attic in which young Chardon 
 lived at L'Houmeau; he was no longer a man from 
 L'Houmeau, for he lived in Upper Angoule'me, and 
 dined about four times a week with Madame de 
 Bargeton. Having won the friendly regard of mon- 
 seigneur, he was received at the episcopal palace. 
 His occupations entitled him to a place in the most 
 exalted society. In a word, he was likely to take 
 rank some day among the eminent men of France. 
 Certainly, as he cast his eye about a pretty salon, 
 a charming bedroom, and a tastefully decorated 
 study, he could console himself for taking thirty 
 francs a month from the hard-earned wages of his 
 mother and sister; for the day was in sight when 
 the historical romance upon which he had been at 
 work two years, U Archer de Charles IX. , and a vol- 
 ume of poems entitled Les Marguerites, would make 
 his name known in the literary world, giving him 
 enough money to discharge his debt to his mother 
 and sister and David. And so, feeling that he had 
 13
 
 IQ4 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 grown in stature, listening to the reverberating 
 echoes of his name in the future, he accepted those 
 sacrifices now with noble self-confidence: he smiled 
 at his past distress, he enjoyed his recent poverty. 
 Eve and David had put their brother's happiness 
 before their own. The marriage was postponed 
 because the workmen needed further time to finish 
 the furnishing and painting and to hang the papers 
 intended for the first floor, for Lucien's affairs took 
 precedence. No one who knew Lucien would be 
 surprised at their devotion; he was so fascinating! 
 his manners were so coaxing! his impatience and 
 his desires were expressed so charmingly! he had 
 always won his case before he opened his mouth. 
 This fatal privilege ruins more young men than it 
 saves. Accustomed to the attentions that youthful 
 beauty provokes, happy in the selfish patronage 
 society accords a person who takes its fancy, just as 
 it gives alms to the beggar who awakens a senti- 
 ment or causes a thrill of emotion, many of these 
 great children simply enjoy this favor instead of 
 trying to exploit it. Deceived as to the meaning 
 and motive power of social relations, they believe 
 that they will always meet deceitful smiles; but 
 there comes a time when society leaves them, like 
 old coquettes and old rags, naked, bald, stripped 
 bare, worthless and penniless, outside the door of a 
 salon or begging alms at a street corner. Eve de- 
 sired the delay, however, as she wished to make the 
 necessary arrangements for managing her little 
 household economically. What could two lovers
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 195 
 
 refuse a brother who, seeing his sister at work, 
 said with an accent that came from his heart: "I 
 wish I knew how to sew?" And then, too, the 
 grave and observant David was an accessory to this 
 devotion. Nevertheless, since Lucien's triumph at 
 Madame de Bargeton's, he was alarmed by the 
 transformation that was taking place in him; he 
 was afraid that he would soon begin to feel contempt 
 for bourgeois customs. With the purpose of testing 
 his brother, David sometimes forced him to choose 
 between patriarchal family joys and the pleasures 
 of aristocratic society, and when he saw that Lucien 
 sacrificed his vain pleasures to them, he cried: 
 "They will never corrupt him!" 
 
 Several times the three friends and Madame 
 Chardon indulged in little pleasure trips of the 
 familiar provincial variety; they would walk 
 through the woods near Angouleme along the bank 
 of the Charente ; they would dine on the grass, 
 David's apprentice bringing the provisions to a cer- 
 tain spot at a time agreed upon ; then they would 
 return in the evening, a little tired, having spent 
 less than three francs. On great occasions, when 
 they dined at what is called a restanrat, a sort of 
 open air restaurant midway between the provincial 
 bouchon and the Parisian guinguette, they sometimes 
 spent as much as a hundred sous, divided between 
 David and the Chardons. David was infinitely 
 grateful to Lucien for forgetting, during those days 
 in the open air, the satisfaction that he derived 
 from being at Madame de Bargeton's and the
 
 196 lost illusions 
 
 sumptuous dinners of society. For at this time 
 every one was anxious to entertain the great man 
 of Angouleme. 
 
 At this juncture, when everything was almost 
 ready for the young couple to begin housekeeping, 
 during a call David made at Marsac to obtain his 
 father's consent to be present at his wedding, hop- 
 ing that the goodman would be so far fascinated by 
 his daughter-in-law as to contribute to the enormous 
 expenditures made necessary by the rearrangement 
 of the house, one of those events occurred which, 
 in a small town, entirely change the face of affairs. 
 
 Lucien and Louise had in Chatelet a spy in 
 their innermost circle of friends, who watched, with 
 the persistence of hatred made up of passion and 
 avarice combined, for an opportunity to bring dis- 
 covery. Sixte desired to force Madame de Bargeton 
 to declare herself so unequivocally on Lucien's side 
 that she would be what is called lost He had 
 adopted the attitude of a humble confidant of Ma- 
 dame de Bargeton; but, if he admired Lucien on 
 Rue du Minage, he made short work of him every- 
 where else. He had insensibly acquired the right 
 to call upon Nai's at all times, and she no longer 
 suspected her old adorer; but he had taken too 
 much for granted in the case of the lovers, whose 
 love continued to be strictly platonic, to the great 
 despair of Louise and of Lucien. There are, in 
 fact, passions which start off well or ill, as the 
 parties to them choose. Two persons plunge into 
 the tactical part of sentiment, talk instead of acting,
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 197 
 
 and fight in the open fields instead of beginning a 
 siege. In this way, they often surfeit themselves 
 by wearing out their desires in the void in which 
 they live. Two lovers at such times give each 
 other time to reflect, to pass judgment upon each 
 other. It often happens that passions which have 
 taken the field with heads erect and colors flying, 
 hot to overcome all obstacles, return home beaten, 
 shamefaced, disarmed, besotted with their vain 
 parade. Such fatalities are sometimes to be ex- 
 plained by the timidity of youth and the temporiz- 
 ing methods in which women who are just begin- 
 ning their career take pleasure; for this mutual 
 deception never happens to coxcombs who know 
 the trade, or to coquettes who are used to the 
 manoeuvres of passion. 
 
 Moreover, provincial life is peculiarly opposed to 
 contented love and rather favors the intellectual 
 disputes of passion ; so also the obstacles it offers to 
 the sweet intercourse that binds lovers so closely, 
 tend to drive ardent hearts to extreme courses. 
 This life is based upon such minute espionage, upon 
 such complete knowledge of everything that takes 
 place in every family, it is so opposed to the in- 
 timacy that gives comfort without offending virtue, 
 the purest relations are so unreasonably calumni- 
 ated, that many women are smirched, despite their 
 innocence. Certain ones thereupon revile them- 
 selves for not having tasted all the joys of a sin of 
 which they suffer all the inconveniences. Society, 
 which blames or criticizes without any serious
 
 198 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 scrutiny the visible facts in which long, secret 
 struggles end, is thus primarily accessory to these 
 explosions; but the majority of the people who in- 
 veigh against the alleged scandal caused by some 
 women who are wrongfully accused, have never 
 reflected upon the causes which finally lead them to 
 take the course they do. Madame de Bargeton was 
 about to find herself in that anomalous position in 
 which many women have found themselves who 
 have not gone astray until after they were unjustly 
 accused. 
 
 At the outset of a passion, the obstacles that 
 arise alarm inexperienced persons; and those en- 
 countered by our two lovers strongly resembled the 
 bonds with which the Lilliputians bound Gulliver. 
 There was a multiplicity of nothings which made 
 any sort of movement impossible and nullified the 
 most vehement desires. For instance, Madame de 
 Bargeton must always be visible. If she had closed 
 her door when Lucien was with her, it would have 
 been the end of everything, and she might as well 
 have eloped with him at once. She received him, 
 to be sure, in the boudoir, to which he was so ac- 
 customed that he fancied himself master there; but 
 the doors were always conscientiously left open. 
 Everything was as proper as could be. Monsieur 
 de Bargeton walked about the house like a cock- 
 chafer, never dreaming that his wife wished to be 
 alone with Lucien. If he had been the only ob- 
 stacle, Na'is would very soon have found a way to 
 dismiss him or give him something to do; but she
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 199 
 
 was overrun with visitors, and they were the more 
 numerous because of the prevalent curiosity. Pro- 
 vincials are naturally of a teasing disposition, they 
 love to annoy budding passions. The servants 
 went here and there about the house, unsummoned 
 and giving no notice of their approach, — a result of 
 long-continued habit, which a woman who had 
 nothing to conceal had allowed them to adopt. To 
 change the interior economy of her household 
 would have been to confess the love all Angouleme 
 suspected. 
 
 Madame de Bargeton could not put her foot out of 
 doors without the whole town knowing where she 
 went. To walk alone with Lucien out of the town 
 would have been a fatal step: it would have been 
 less dangerous to shut herself up with him at home. 
 If Lucien had remained at her house after midnight, 
 when there was no other company, it would have 
 been talked about the next day. Thus, within as 
 well as without, Madame de Bargeton lived always 
 in the public eye. These details will apply to 
 provincial life as a whole; sins are either openly 
 avowed or impossible. 
 
 Louise, like all women who act under the impulse 
 of a passion without previous similar experience, 
 realized one by one the difficulties of her position, 
 and she was fairly terrified. Her alarm reacted 
 upon the amorous discussions which occupy the 
 happiest hours, when two lovers are alone. Ma- 
 dame de Bargeton had no estate to which she could 
 take her dear poet, as some women do who, under
 
 200 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 one or another skilfully devised pretext, go and 
 bury themselves in the country. Wearied with 
 living in public, driven to extremities by this 
 tyranny whose yoke was harsher than her pleasures 
 were sweet, she thought of Escarbas and contem- 
 plated going thither to see her old father, so dis- 
 turbed was she by these wretched obstacles. 
 
 Chatelet did not believe in so much innocence. 
 He watched to see when Lucien called at Madame 
 de Bargeton's and appeared there himself a few 
 moments later, always accompanied by Monsieur 
 de Chandour, the most talkative person in the whole 
 clique, always allowing him to enter first, persist- 
 ing in the hope that chance would enable them to 
 surprise the lovers. The part he had undertaken 
 and the success of his plan were the more diffi- 
 cult, because he must remain neutral, in order to 
 direct all the actors in the drama he desired to have 
 played. Thus, in order to allay the suspicions of 
 Lucien, whom he constantly flattered, and of Ma- 
 dame de Bargeton, who did not lack perspicacity, 
 he had, to keep himself in countenance, attached 
 himself to the jealous Amelie. To perfect his sys- 
 tem of espionage upon Lucien and Louise, he had 
 succeeded some days before in starting a contro- 
 versy between himself and Monsieur de Chandour 
 on the subject of the lovers. Chatelet maintained 
 that Madame de Bargeton was making sport of Lu- 
 cien, that she was too well-born, too proud, to stoop 
 to a druggist's son. This role of incredulity suited 
 the plan he had formed, for he desired to pose as
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 201 
 
 Madame de Bargeton's defender. Stanislas main- 
 tained that Lucien was not a baffled lover. Amelie 
 spurred on the discussion by desiring to ascertain 
 the truth. Each of the two gave his reasons. It 
 often happened, as it will in small towns, that some 
 habitues of the Chandour salon arrived in the midst 
 of a conversation in which Chatelet and Chandour 
 were fortifying their respective opinions with sage 
 observations. It would have been very strange if 
 each of the adversaries had not sought partisans, 
 asking his neighbor: "What do you think about 
 it?" This controversy kept Madame de Bargeton 
 and Lucien constantly in evidence. 
 
 At last one day Chatelet remarked that, whenever 
 he and Monsieur de Chandour went to Madame de 
 Bargeton's while Lucien was there, they failed to 
 discover any indication of improper relations: the 
 door of the boudoir was always open, the servants 
 going and coming, there was no air of mystery that 
 pointed to the charming crimes of love, etc. Stan- 
 islas, who did not lack a considerable share of stu- 
 pidity, promised to enter the house the next day 
 on tiptoe, a determination in which he was encour- 
 aged by the perfidious Amelie. 
 
 The next day proved to be for Lucien one of the 
 days when young men tear their hair and take an 
 oath to themselves that they will no longer ply the 
 absurd trade of sighing swain. He had become 
 accustomed to his position. The poet, who had 
 taken a chair so timidly in the sanctified boudoir of 
 the Queen of Angouleme, was metamorphosed into
 
 202 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 an exacting lover. Six months had sufficed to make 
 him think himself Louise's equal, and he proposed 
 now to become her master. He left his own home, 
 determined to be very unreasonable, to put his life 
 at stake, to employ all the resources of impassioned 
 eloquence, to say that he was losing his mind, 
 that he was incapable of thinking or of writing a 
 line. 
 
 Certain women have a horror of doing things 
 deliberately which does honor to their delicacy; 
 they like to yield to sudden excitement and not with 
 premeditation. Generally speaking, no one cares 
 for a pleasure that is forced upon him. Madame de 
 Bargeton noticed upon Lucien's forehead, in his 
 eyes, in his whole face and in his manner that air 
 of excitement which betrays a resolution already 
 formed; she determined to defeat it, partly through 
 a spirit of contradiction, but also through a noble 
 interpretation of the word love. Being a woman 
 made up of exaggerations, she exaggerated the value 
 of her own person. In his eyes Madame de Barge- 
 ton was a sovereign, a Beatrice, a Laura. She 
 took her seat, as in the Middle Ages, beneath the 
 raised canopy of the literary tournament, and Lu- 
 cien was sure of winning her after several victories ; 
 he had to efface the memory of the sublime child, of 
 Lamartine, of Walter Scott and of Byron. The 
 noble creature deemed her love a generous senti- 
 ment; the desires she aroused in Lucien would be 
 a source of glory to him. This feminine Don 
 Quixotism is a sentiment which imparts to love a
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 203 
 
 consecration of respectability; it utilizes it, mag- 
 nifies it, honors it. Persisting in her determination 
 to play the part of Dulcinea in Lucien's life for 
 seven or eight years, Madame de Bargeton, like 
 many provincials, proposed to make him purchase 
 her person by a sort of serfdom, by a period of 
 constant devotion which would enable her to judge 
 him. 
 
 When Lucien had opened the battle with one of 
 those exhibitions of sulkiness at which women laugh 
 who are themselves heart-free, and which grieve 
 only those who love, Louise assumed a dignified air 
 and began one of her long speeches interlarded with 
 pompous words. 
 
 "Is this what you have promised me, Lucien?" 
 she concluded. "Do not sow in this delicious pres- 
 ent the seeds of remorse which would poison my 
 life hereafter. Do not ruin the future! and — I say 
 it with pride — do not ruin the present! Have you 
 not my whole heart? What more must you have? 
 Can your love submit to be influenced by the 
 senses, while a beloved woman's noblest privilege 
 is to impose silence upon them ? For whom do you 
 take me, pray? am I no longer your Beatrice? If I 
 am nothing more to you than a woman, then I am 
 less than a woman." 
 
 "You would say nothing different to a man you 
 did not love," cried Lucien frantically. 
 
 "If you do not feel all the genuine affection there 
 is in my ideas, you will never be worthy of me." 
 
 "You cast a doubt upon my love in order to evade
 
 204 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 a reply," said Lucien, throwjng himself at her feet 
 and weeping. 
 
 The poor boy wept in all seriousness when he 
 saw that he was to be kept so long at the gates of 
 paradise. They were the tears of the poet who 
 deems himself humbled in his might, the tears of a 
 child in despair at being refused the toy he wants. 
 
 "You have never loved me!" he cried. 
 
 "You do not believe what you say," she replied, 
 flattered by his violence. 
 
 "Then prove to me that you are mine," said 
 Lucien mildly. 
 
 At that moment Stanislas arrived, unheard, saw 
 Lucien half prostrate, with tears in his eyes and 
 his head against Louise's knees. Satisfied with 
 that abundantly suspicious tableau, Stanislas 
 abruptly retired upon Chatelet, who was standing 
 at the door of the salon. Madame de Bargeton 
 darted from the boudoir into the salon, but did not 
 catch the two spies, who had hurriedly withdrawn 
 like intruders. 
 
 "Who has been here?" she asked her people. 
 
 "Messieurs de Chandour and du Chatelet," re- 
 plied Gentil, her old footman. 
 
 She returned to her boudoir, pale and trembling. 
 
 "If they saw you thus, I am lost," she said to 
 Lucien. 
 
 "So much the better !" cried the poet. 
 
 She smiled at this outcry of selfishness overflow- 
 ing with love.
 
 MME. BE BARGETON'S BOUDOIR 
 
 "Then prove to me that you are mine," said 
 Lucien, mildly. 
 
 At that moment Stanislas arrived, unheard, saw 
 Lucien half prostrate, with tears in his eyes and his 
 head against Loirisc's knees. Satisfied with that 
 abundantly suspicious tableau, Stanislas abruptly re- 
 tired upon Chdtelet, who was standing at the door 
 of the salon.
 
 rtOlsJT « _r\0HJE4 

 
 In the provinces such episodes are magnified by 
 the way in which they are described. In a moment 
 everyone knew that Lucien had been surprised at 
 Nais's knees. Monsieur de Chandour, delighted 
 with the importance the affair conferred upon him, 
 went first of all to the club to tell of the great event, 
 and then from house to house. Chatelet made haste 
 to announce everywhere that he had seen nothing; 
 but, by thus putting himself outside the fact, he 
 excited Stanislas to talk and to embellish the de- 
 tails; and Stanislas, considering himself exceed- 
 ingly clever, added something new at every 
 repetition. In the evening, the aristocratic society 
 filled Amelie's salon to overflowing; for, when 
 evening came, the most exaggerated versions of the 
 story were circulating through Angoul£me, where 
 every narrator had imitated Stanislas. Men and 
 women alike were impatient to know the truth. 
 The women who veiled their faces, crying scandal 
 loudest of all, were Amelie, Zephirine, Fifine and 
 Lolotte, all of whom were more or less burdened 
 with illicit joys. The cruel theme was played 
 with variations in every key. 
 
 "Well," said one, "you've heard about poor 
 Nais, I suppose? For my part I don't believe it; 
 she has a whole irreproachable life before her; she's 
 much too proud to be anything more than Monsieur 
 
 (205)
 
 206 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 Chardon's patroness. But, if it is true, I pity her 
 with all my heart." 
 
 "She's the more to be pitied because she's mak- 
 ing herself so frightfully ridiculous; for she's old 
 enough to be Monsieur Lulu's mother, as Jacques 
 called him. The poetaster is twenty-two at most, 
 and Nais, between ourselves, will never see forty 
 again." 
 
 "To my mind," said Chatelet, "Monsieur de 
 Rubempre's position is in itself a proof of Nais's 
 innocence. A man doesn't go on his knees to ask 
 for what he's already had." 
 
 "That depends!" said Francis, with a waggish 
 air that called forth a disapproving glance from Ze- 
 phirine. 
 
 "Do, pray, tell us all about it," they said to 
 Stanislas, organizing a secret conclave in a corner 
 of the salon. 
 
 Stanislas had ended by composing a little tale full 
 of improprieties, and accompanied it with gestures 
 and poses which threw a prodigiously bad light 
 upon the affair. 
 
 "It's incredible!" they said. 
 
 "At noon!" said one. 
 
 "Nais is the last one I should have suspected." 
 
 "What will she do?" 
 
 And then the endless comments and conjectures! 
 — Du Chatelet defended Madame de Bargeton ; but 
 he defended her so bunglingly that he fanned the 
 flame of gossip instead of extinguishing it. Lili, in 
 despair at the fall of the loveliest angel in the
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 207 
 
 Angoumois Olympas, went, bathed in tears, to 
 cry the news at the bishop's palace. When it was 
 certain that the entire town was in a ferment, the 
 delighted Chatelet went to Madame de Bargeton's, 
 where there was, alas! but a single whist table. 
 He diplomatically asked Louise to grant him an 
 interview in her boudoir. They sat down together 
 on the little couch. 
 
 "You know, doubtless," said Chatelet in an 
 undertone, "what all Angouleme is talking about?" 
 
 "No," said she. 
 
 "Well," he rejoined, "I am too good a friend of 
 yours to leave you in ignorance. Indeed, it is my 
 duty to place you in a position to put an end to the 
 calumnies, invented doubtless by Amelie, who has 
 the presumption to consider herself your rival. I 
 came to see you this morning with that monkey, 
 Stanislas, who was a few steps ahead of me; when 
 he got as far as there," he continued, pointing to 
 the door of the boudoir, "he claimed to have seen 
 you with Monsieur de Rubempre in a position that 
 made it impossible for him to enter; he fell back 
 upon me all aghast, and dragged me away without 
 giving me time to recover myself; and we were at 
 Beaulieu before he told me the reason of his retreat. 
 If I had understood, I wouldn't have stirred from 
 your house until the affair was cleared up to your 
 advantage; but to return after having once gone, 
 would establish nothing. Now, whether Stanislas 
 saw crooked or whether he is right, he must be put 
 in the wrong. Dear Nais, don't, I pray you, allow
 
 208 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 a fool to play with your life, your honor, your 
 future; impose silence on him instantly. You know 
 my position here? Although I need everybody's 
 good-will, I am entirely devoted to you. Do what 
 you will with a life that belongs to you. Although 
 you have repelled my advances, my heart will 
 always be yours, and at every opportunity I will 
 prove to you how dearly I love you. Yes, 1 will 
 watch over you as a faithful servant, without hope 
 of reward, simply for the pleasure it gives me to 
 serve you, even without your knowledge. This 
 morning I said everywhere that I was at the door of 
 the salon and saw nothing. If anybody asks you 
 who informed you of the remarks that are being 
 made about you, use my name. I shall be very 
 proud to be your acknowledged defender ; but, be- 
 tween ourselves, Monsieur de Bargeton is the only 
 one who can demand satisfaction of Stanislas. 
 Even if little Rubempre did do some foolish thing, a 
 woman's honor must not be at the mercy of the first 
 rattle-brained boy who throws himself at her feet. 
 That is what I have said." 
 
 Na'is thanked Chatelet by an inclination of the 
 head, and sat lost in thought. She was tired, even 
 to disgust, of provincial life. At Chatelet's first 
 word, she had turned her eyes upon Paris. Ma- 
 dame de Bargeton's silence placed her adroit ad- 
 mirer in an embarrassing situation. 
 
 "Dispose of me, I repeat," he said. 
 
 "Thanks," was her reply. 
 
 "What do you mean to do?"
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 209 
 
 "I shall see." 
 
 A long silence. 
 
 "Do you really care so much for that little Ru- 
 bempre?" 
 
 She smiled superbly and folded her arms, with 
 her eyes fixed on the curtains of her boudoir. 
 Chatelet went away, having failed to decipher the 
 haughty creature's heart. When Lucien and the 
 four faithful old men who had come to play their 
 usual game, unmoved by the doubtful gossip, had 
 taken their leave, Madame de Bargeton stopped her 
 husband, who was preparing to go to bed and had 
 his mouth open to bid his wife good-night 
 
 "Come this way, my dear, I have something to 
 say to you," she said with a sort of solemnity. 
 
 Monsieur de Bargeton followed his wife into the 
 boudoir. 
 
 "Monsieur," she said, "perhaps I have been 
 wrong to display in my patronizing attentions to 
 Monsieur de Rubempre a warmth as ill understood 
 by the idiotic people of this town as by himself. 
 This morning Lucien threw himself there, at my 
 feet, and made me a declaration of love. Stanislas 
 came in just as I was lifting the child from the floor. 
 Heedless of the obligation that courtesy imposes 
 upon a gentleman toward a lady under all circum- 
 stances, he has declared that he surprised me in an 
 equivocal situation with that boy, whom I was 
 then treating as he deserves to be treated. If the 
 young hothead knew of the calumnious statements 
 based upon his folly, I know him, he would go at 
 14
 
 210 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 once and insult Stanislas and force him to fight. 
 Such a performance would be equivalent to a public 
 avowal of his love. I have no need to tell you that 
 your wife is pure; but you will agree that it would 
 be dishonorable both to you and myself that Mon- 
 sieur de Rubempre should be the one to defend her. 
 Go at once to Stanislas and in all seriousness de- 
 mand satisfaction for the insulting remarks he has 
 made about me; remember that you must not allow 
 the matter to be settled peaceably unless he retracts 
 in presence of a number of well-known witnesses. 
 In this way, you will win the esteem of all honor- 
 able people; you will act like a man of spirit and of 
 gallantry, and you will be entitled to my esteem. I 
 will send Gentil at once to Escarbas; my father 
 must be your second; despite his age, I know he is 
 the man to trample on the puppet who blackens the 
 reputation of a Negrepelisse. You have the choice 
 of weapons, fight with pistols ; you are a wonderful 
 shot." 
 
 "I will go at once," said Monsieur de Bargeton, 
 taking his hat and cane. 
 
 "Good, my dear," said his wife, deeply moved; 
 "that's how I like men to act. You are a gentle- 
 man." 
 
 She gave him her forehead to kiss, and the proud 
 and happy old man pressed his lips to it. His wife, 
 who had a sort of motherly affection for the great 
 child, could not restrain a tear as she heard the porte 
 cochere close behind him. 
 
 "How he loves me!" she said to herself. "The
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 211 
 
 poor man clings to his life and yet he would lose it 
 for me without a regret" 
 
 Monsieur de Bargeton was not at all disturbed at 
 having to stand up in front of another man and look 
 coolly into the barrel of a pistol that was aimed at 
 him ; no, he was embarrassed by one thing only, 
 and he shuddered as he betook himself to Monsieur 
 de Chandour's. 
 
 "What shall I say ?" he thought. "Nais ought to 
 have given me an idea." 
 
 And he cudgeled his brain to formulate a few 
 phrases that would not sound ridiculous. 
 
 But people who live, as Monsieur de Bargeton 
 lived, in silence imposed upon them by their nar- 
 row-mindedness and their limited breadth of vision, 
 have at their disposal in the great crises of life a 
 ready-made solemnity of demeanor. As they speak 
 but little, they naturally make few foolish remarks; 
 and as they reflect abundantly upon what they 
 shall say, their extreme distrust of themselves 
 leads them to study their projected harangues so 
 carefully that they express themselves wonderfully 
 well, by a phenomenon similar to that which 
 loosened the tongue of Balaam's ass. 
 
 Thus Monsieur de Bargeton bore himself like a 
 man of superior mould. He justified the opinions 
 of those who looked upon him as a philosopher of 
 the school of Pythagoras. He reached Stanislas' 
 house at eleven o'clock at night and found a numer- 
 ous company assembled there. He went up to 
 Amelie and saluted her without speaking, and
 
 212 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 bestowed upon each of the guests an inane smile, 
 which, under the existing circumstances, seemed 
 profoundly ironical. His advent was followed by 
 a painful silence, as in nature when a storm is ap- 
 proaching. Chatelet, who had returned, glanced 
 significantly from Monsieur de Bargeton to Stanis- 
 las, whom the offended husband saluted courteously. 
 
 Chatelet grasped the meaning of a call made at 
 an hour when the old man was always in bed; Na'is 
 was evidently working that feeble arm : and, as his 
 relations to Amelie gave him the right to intervene 
 in the affairs of the household, he rose, took Mon- 
 sieur de Bargeton aside and said to him : 
 
 "You want to speak to Stanislas?" 
 
 "Yes," said the goodman, delighted to find an 
 intermediary who would perhaps do the talking for 
 him. 
 
 "Very well, go to Amelie's bedroom," said the 
 superintendent of imposts, well pleased at the pros- 
 pect of a duel which might make Madame de Barge- 
 ton a widow, while making it impossible for her to 
 marry Lucien, the cause of the duel. 
 
 "Stanislas," said Chatelet to Monsieur de Chan- 
 dour, "Bargeton has come, without doubt, to de- 
 mand satisfaction for what you have been saying 
 about Nais. Come to your wife's room and act, 
 both of you, like gentlemen. Don't make any noise 
 over it, be exceedingly polite, in short, be as cool 
 and dignified as a Briton." 
 
 A moment later Stanislas and Chatelet had joined 
 Bargeton.
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 213 
 
 "Monsieur," said the outraged husband, "you 
 claim to have found Madame de Bargeton in an 
 equivocal situation with Monsieur deRubempre?" 
 
 "With Monsieur Chardon," rejoined Stanislas 
 ironically, for he fancied that Bargeton was not a 
 strong man. 
 
 "Very good," returned the husband. "If you 
 don't contradict your statements in presence of those 
 who are your guests at this moment, I beg you to 
 select a second. My father-in-law, Monsieur de 
 Negrepelisse, will call upon you at four in the 
 morning. Let us both make all necessary arrange- 
 ments, for the affair can be settled in no other way 
 than that I have indicated. I select pistols, as I am 
 the insulted party." 
 
 On his way to the house, Monsieur de Bargeton 
 had ruminated over this speech, the longest he had 
 ever made in his life; he delivered it without pas- 
 sion and with the simplest manner imaginable. 
 Stanislas turned pale and said to himself: 
 
 "What did I see, after all?" 
 
 But between the shame of retracting his state- 
 ments before the whole town, in presence of this 
 dumb creature who seemed unable to take a joke, 
 and the fear, the ghastly fear that grasped his neck 
 in its burning hands, he chose the more distant 
 danger. 
 
 "Very well. Until to-morrow," he said to Mon- 
 sieur de Bargeton, believing that the matter could 
 be arranged. 
 
 The three men returned to the salon and everyone
 
 214 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 scrutinized their faces: Chatelet was smiling, 
 Monsieur de Bargeton was exactly the same as if 
 he were in his own house ; but Stanislas was as 
 pale as death. At sight of him some of the ladies 
 divined the object of the conference. The words: 
 "They are going to fight!" passed from ear to ear. 
 Half of the party believed that Stanislas was in the 
 wrong, for his pallor and his expression accused 
 him of falsehood; the other half admired Monsieur 
 de Bargeton's bearing. Chatelet assumed a grave, 
 mysterious air. Monsieur de Bargeton remained a 
 few moments, examining the faces of those about 
 him, and then withdrew. 
 
 "Have you pistols?" whispered Chatelet to 
 Stanislas, who shuddered from head to foot. 
 
 Amelie understood the meaning of it all and 
 showed symptoms of fainting; the ladies were all 
 anxious to assist in carrying her to her bedroom. 
 There was a tremendous uproar there, everybody 
 talking at once. The men remained in the salon 
 and declared with one voice that Monsieur de 
 Bargeton was within his rights. 
 
 "Did you suppose the goodman was capable of 
 acting thus?" said Monsieur de Saintot. 
 
 "Why," said the pitiless Jacques, "in his 
 younger days he was most expert with firearms. 
 My father has often told me of Bargeton's ex- 
 ploits." 
 
 "Bah! you place them twenty paces apart and 
 they'll both miss if you give them horse pistols," 
 said Francis to Chatelet.
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 215 
 
 When everybody else had gone, Chatelet encour- 
 aged Stanislas and his wife, assuring them that all 
 would be well, and that, in a duel between a man 
 of sixty and a man of thirty-six, the advantage was 
 all with the latter. 
 
 The next morning, when Lucien and David, who 
 had returned from Marsac without his father, were 
 breakfasting together, Madame Chardon rushed into 
 the room, terrified beyond measure. 
 
 "Well, well, Lucien, have you heard the news 
 everyone is talking about, even in the market place ? 
 Monsieur de Bargeton almost killed Monsieur de 
 Chandour at five o'clock this morning in a meadow 
 belonging to Monsieur Tulloye, a name that they 
 make puns upon. It seems that Monsieur de Chan- 
 dour said yesterday that he surprised you with Ma- 
 dame de Bargeton." 
 
 "It's false! Madame de Bargeton is innocent," 
 cried Lucien. 
 
 "A man from the country, whom I heard describ- 
 ing the details of the affair, saw it all from his 
 wagon. Monsieur de Negrepelisse arrived at three 
 o'clock in the morning to assist Monsieur de Barge- 
 ton. He told Monsieur de Chandour that, if any- 
 thing happened to his son-in-law, he would take it 
 on himself to avenge him. An officer of the cavalry 
 regiment lent his pistols and Monsieur de Negre- 
 pelisse tried them several times. Monsieur du 
 Chatelet objected to their trying the pistols, but the 
 officer they took for a referee said that unless they 
 wanted to act like children they must use weapons
 
 216 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 that were in proper condition. The seconds placed 
 the duelists twenty -five paces apart. Monsieur de 
 Bargeton, who acted just as if he were out for a walk, 
 fired first and hit Monsieur de Chandour in the 
 neck; he fell and couldn't return the fire. The sur- 
 geon from the hospital said just now that Monsieur 
 de Chandour's neck will be crooked for the rest 
 of his life. I hurried home to tell you the result 
 of the duel, to prevent your going to Madame de 
 Bargeton's or showing yourself in Angoul£me, 
 for some of Monsieur de Chandour's friends may 
 insult you." 
 
 At that moment Gentil, Monsieur de Bargeton's 
 footman, entered the room, escorted by the ap- 
 prentice from the printing office and handed Lucien 
 this letter from Louise: 
 
 " Doubtless you have learned, my friend, the result of the 
 duel between Chandour and my husband. We shall be at 
 home to no one to-day. Be prudent, do not show yourself ; I 
 ask it in the name of your affection for me. Do you not 
 think that the best way to pass this sad day is to come and 
 listen to your Beatrice, whose life is completely changed by 
 this occurrence, and who has a thousand things to say to 
 you?" 
 
 "Luckily," said David,"my wedding is appointed 
 for the day after to-morrow; you will have an ex- 
 cuse for going to Madame de Bargeton's less fre- 
 quently." 
 
 "Dear David," Lucien answered, "she asks me to 
 come and see her to-day; I think I must do as she
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 217 
 
 asks ; she knows better than we how I ought to act 
 under such circumstances." 
 
 "Is everything ready here?" asked Madame 
 Chardon. 
 
 "Come and see," cried David, delighted to ex- 
 hibit the apartments on the first floor in their trans- 
 formed condition, everything being fresh and new. 
 
 They exhaled the sweetness that reigns in young 
 households where orange flowers and the bridal veil 
 still crown the home life, where the springtime of 
 love is reflected in everything, where everything is 
 white and clean and blooming. 
 
 "Eve will be like a princess," said the mother; 
 "but you have spent too much money, you have 
 been foolish!" 
 
 David smiled without replying, for Madame 
 Chardon had placed her finger upon a raw secret 
 wound which caused the poor lover cruel suffering: 
 his ideas had been so exceeded in carrying them out 
 that it was impossible for him to build over the 
 lean-to. His mother-in-law would not for a long 
 time to come have the apartment that he intended 
 her to have. Generous minds feel the keenest 
 sorrow in breaking promises of that sort, which are, 
 in a certain sense, the little vanities of affection. 
 David carefully concealed his embarrassment, in 
 order to avoid giving pain to Lucien, who might 
 well have felt crushed by the burden of the sacrifices 
 made for him. 
 
 "Eve and her friends have worked hard too, " said 
 Madame Chardon. "The trousseau, the house
 
 2l8 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 linen, everything is ready. The girls are so fond 
 of her that they have covered her mattresses with 
 white fustian edged with pink, without her knowl- 
 edge. It's very pretty! it makes one long to be 
 married." 
 
 The mother and daughter had expended all their 
 savings in furnishing David's house with the things 
 of which young men never think. Knowing how 
 luxuriously he was doing his part, for they had heard 
 of a dinner service ordered at Limoges, they had 
 tried to make the things they contributed harmo- 
 nize with those purchased by David. This little 
 struggle between love and generosity was destined 
 to cause pecuniary troubles for the young hus- 
 band and wife from the very beginning, amid all 
 the outward indications of bourgeois comfort which 
 would be esteemed luxury in an old-fashioned town 
 such as Angouleme then was. 
 
 As soon as Lucien saw his mother and David go 
 into the bedroom, whose blue and white hangings 
 and pretty furniture were so familiar to him, he 
 made his escape and hurried to Madame de Barge- 
 ton's. He found Nais breakfasting with her hus- 
 band, who was eating heartily, entirely unmoved 
 by what had taken place, his appetite having been 
 sharpened by his early walk. The old country 
 gentleman, Monsieur de Negrepelisse, an imposing 
 relic of the old French nobility, was with his 
 daughter. When Gentil announced Monsieur de 
 Rubempre, the white-haired old man bestowed upon 
 him the searching glance of a father eager to pass
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 219 
 
 judgment upon the man his daughter has distin- 
 guished. Lucien's extraordinary beauty impressed 
 him so deeply that he could not repress an expres- 
 sion of approval ; but he seemed to look upon his 
 daughter's liaison as an ephemeral affair, a mere 
 whim rather than a lasting passion. The break- 
 fast came to an end. Louise rose, leaving her father 
 and Monsieur de Bargeton in the dining-room and 
 motioning to Lucien to follow her. 
 
 "My dear," she said in a tone that was at once 
 sad and joyful, "I am going to Paris and my father 
 is to take Bargeton to Escarbas, where he will stay 
 during my absence. Madame d'Espard, a Blamont- 
 Chauvry, with whom we are connected through the 
 D'Espards, the elder branch of the Negrepelisses, 
 enjoys great influence just at this time, through her 
 own charms as well as through her connections. If 
 she deigns to acknowledge us, 1 propose to cultivate 
 her acquaintance assiduously; by her influence she 
 can obtain a place for Bargeton. My solicitations 
 may lead the court to express a desire that he be 
 chosen deputy from the Charente, which will assist 
 his chances of election here. His having a seat in 
 the Chamber may later be of assistance to my plans 
 in Paris. You are the one, my darling child, who 
 have led me to make this change in my life. This 
 morning's duel compels me to close my house for 
 some time, for there are people who will take sides 
 with the Chandours against us. In our present 
 position, especially in a small town, absence is 
 always necessary to give hard feeling time to be
 
 220 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 softened. But, either I shall succeed and shall 
 never see Angoul£me again, or I shall fail; and in 
 that event, I shall await at Paris the time when I 
 can pass all my summers at Escarbas and my win- 
 ters at Paris. That is the only life for a woman 
 comme ilfaut, and I have delayed too long about tak- 
 ing it up. The day will suffice for all our prepara- 
 tions; I shall start to-morrow night, and you will 
 go with me, won't you ? You must go on ahead. 
 Between Mansle and Ruffec I will take you into my 
 carriage, and we shall soon be in Paris. There, 
 my dear, is the stage for people of superior minds. 
 One is never at ease except with one's equals; 
 anywhere else one suffers. Moreover, Paris, the 
 capital of the intellectual world, is the field wherein 
 you can achieve success ; hasten to pass the space 
 that separates you from it. Do not let your ideas 
 rust in the provinces, but put yourself promptly in 
 communication with the great men who will repre- 
 sent the nineteenth century. Draw near to the 
 court and the seat of power. Neither distinctions 
 nor dignities will seek out the talent that is running 
 to seed in a small town. Name me any notable 
 works that were ever executed in the provinces! 
 On the other hand, see the sublime, poverty- 
 stricken Jean- Jacques irresistibly attracted by that 
 moral sun which creates renown, warming men's 
 minds by the constant friction of rivalries! Should 
 you not hasten to take your place among the con- 
 stellations that every generation produces? You 
 would not believe how useful it is to youthful talent
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 221 
 
 to be exhibited for the first time in the best society. 
 I will persuade Madame d'Espard to receive you; 
 no one finds it easy to gain admission to her salon, 
 where you will find all the great personages, min- 
 isters, ambassadors, the orators of the Chamber, 
 the most influential peers, and numbers of wealthy 
 or famous men and women. One must be quite 
 devoid of tact to be unable to arouse their interest, 
 when one is handsome, young, and running over 
 with genius. Great talents are not narrow-minded, 
 they will lend you their support. When you are 
 known to occupy a lofty position, your works will 
 acquire enormous value. The great problem for 
 artists to solve is how to place themselves where 
 they can be seen. Thus you will find there in- 
 numerable opportunities to make your fortune, some 
 sinecure, or a pension on the privy purse. The 
 Bourbons are so devoted to letters and the arts ! be 
 at once a religious poet and a royalist poet. Not 
 only will that be worthily done, but you will make 
 your fortune. Does the opposition, does liberalism, 
 give places and rewards and make the fortune of 
 authors ? So take the pleasant road, and come where 
 all men of genius go. You have my secret, pre- 
 serve the most absolute silence and make your ar- 
 rangements to accompany me. — Don't you want 
 to?" she added, amazed at her lover's silent atti- 
 tude. 
 
 Lucien, dazed by the rapid glance he cast upon 
 Paris as he listened to these seductive words, felt 
 as if he had hitherto used only half of his brain ; it
 
 222 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 seemed to him as if the other half were just begin- 
 ning to bestir itself, so rapidly did his ideas expand ; 
 he looked upon himself, in Angouleme, as a frog 
 under his stone in the heart of a swamp. Paris and 
 its splendors, Paris, which looms in all provincial 
 imaginations as a sort of Eldorado, appeared to him 
 then in her golden robe, her head adorned with cir- 
 clets of royal gems, her arms open to talent. Illus- 
 trious men would come forth to give him a fraternal 
 greeting. There, everything smiled on genius. 
 There were no jealous country squires to utter cut- 
 ting remarks to humiliate the writer, no stupid 
 indifference to poetry. Thence the works of poets 
 shed their refulgent light; there they were paid and 
 made known to the world. After reading the first 
 few pages of his Archer de Charles IX., the book- 
 sellers would open their cash-boxes and say : " How 
 much do you want?" He understood, too, that, after 
 a journey in which they would be married by cir- 
 cumstances, Madame de Bargeton would be his ab- 
 solutely, that they would live together. 
 
 To the question: "Don't you want to?" he 
 replied with a tear, seized Louise around the waist, 
 pressed her to his heart and reddened her neck by 
 the ardent pressure of his kisses. But suddenly he 
 paused, as if something had just come to his mind, 
 and cried: 
 
 "Great God! my sister is to be married on the 
 day after to-morrow." 
 
 That cry was the last sigh of the noble, pure- 
 hearted child. The powerful bonds that attach
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 223 
 
 young hearts to their families, to their early friends, 
 to all the primitive sentiments, were about to re- 
 ceive a terrible blow. 
 
 "Well," cried the haughty Negrepelisse, "what 
 has your sister's marriage in common with the 
 progress of our love? Are you so bent upon being 
 the good fairy of that bourgeois and working-girl's 
 wedding, that you cannot sacrifice its noble delights ? 
 A sacrifice indeed!" she added, with bitter con- 
 tempt. "I sent my husband out this morning to 
 fight a duel on your account! Go, monsieur, leave 
 me! I have deceived myself. " 
 
 She fell fainting on her couch. Lucien followed 
 her thither, imploring her forgiveness, cursing his 
 family, David and his sister alike. 
 
 "I had such faith in you!" she said. "Monsieur 
 de Cante-Croix had a mother whom he idolized, 
 but, for the sake of obtaining a letter from me in 
 which I should say to him: / am satisfied! he died 
 on the battlefield. And you, forsooth! cannot give 
 up a wedding-breakfast for the sake of taking a 
 journey with me!" 
 
 Lucien swore that he would kill himself, and his 
 despair was so sincere, so profound, that Louise 
 forgave him, but made him feel that he would have 
 to atone for his sin. 
 
 "Go," she said at last, "be discreet, and to-mor- 
 row night at midnight, wait for me a hundred yards 
 beyond Mansle. " 
 
 Lucien felt the earth grow small beneath his feet; 
 he returned to David's house, attended by Hope as
 
 224 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 Orestes was by his Furies, for he foresaw a thou- 
 sand obstacles, all of which were included in that 
 terrible question: "What about money ?" David's 
 perspicacity terrified him so that he shut himself 
 up in his pretty study to recover from the bewilder- 
 ment caused by his new position. He must leave 
 that apartment, furnished at so great a cost, and 
 render useless so many sacrifices. It occurred to 
 Lucien that his mother might live there, and thus 
 David could dispense with the costly structure he 
 had planned to build at the end of the courtyard. 
 His departure would be an advantage to his family; 
 he found a thousand peremptory reasons for going 
 away, for there is nothing so Jesuitical as a desire. 
 He hastened at once to his sister at L'Houmeau, to 
 tell her of his new prospects and come to an under- 
 standing with her. As he passed PosteFs shop, he 
 thought that, if there were no other way, he would 
 borrow from his father's successor the sum neces- 
 sary for a year's stay in Paris. 
 
 "If I live with Louise, a crown a day will be a 
 fortune to me, and that makes only a thousand francs 
 a year," he said to himself. "And in six months 
 I shall be rich!" 
 
 Eve and her mother listened to Lucien's confi- 
 dences under a promise of absolute secrecy. Both 
 wept as they heard what the ambitious youth had 
 to tell them ; and when he sought to learn the cause 
 of their grief, they informed him that all they pos- 
 sessed had been absorbed by the table and house- 
 hold linen, by Eve's trousseau and by a multitude
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 225 
 
 of purchases of which David had not thought, and 
 which they were happy to have made, for the 
 printer had settled ten thousand francs on Eve. 
 Thereupon, Lucien told them of his idea of a loan, 
 and Madame Chardon undertook to ask Postel for 
 a thousand francs for one year. 
 
 "But Lucien," said Eve, with a feeling of oppres- 
 sion at her heart, "you won't be at my wedding? 
 Oh! come back; I will wait a few days! Surely 
 she will let you come back after a fortnight, when 
 you have escorted her to Paris! She certainly can 
 spare us a week, when we have brought you up for 
 her! Our marriage will turn out badly if you are 
 not there.— But will a thousand francs be enough?" 
 she said, suddenly interrupting herself. "Although 
 your coat becomes you divinely, you have only one ! 
 You have only two fine shirts, the other six are 
 coarse linen. You have only three lawn cravats, 
 the other three are common jaconet; and then your 
 handkerchiefs are not fine enough. Will you find a 
 sister in Paris to wash and iron your linen for you 
 the very day you need it ? you must have more of 
 it. You have only one pair of nankeen trousers 
 made this year; last year's are too short for you; 
 so you will have to buy clothes in Paris, and Paris 
 prices are different from Angouleme prices. You 
 have only two white waistcoats fit to wear, I have 
 mended the others already. I advise you to borrow 
 two thousand francs." 
 
 David, entering the room at that moment, 
 seemed to have overheard the last sentence, for 
 15
 
 226 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 he looked earnestly at the brother and sister with- 
 out speaking. 
 
 "Don't conceal anything from me," he said 
 at last. 
 
 "He is going away with her," cried Eve. 
 
 "Postel agrees to let you have the thousand 
 francs," said Madame Chardon, returning to the 
 room without seeing David, "but for six months 
 only, and he wants your note of hand endorsed by 
 your brother-in-law, for he says you don't offer any 
 security." 
 
 As she spoke, she turned and saw her future 
 son-in-law, and the four stood looking at one 
 another in absolute silence. The Chardon family 
 knew how they had abused David's generosity. 
 They were all ashamed. A tear stood in the 
 printer's eye. 
 
 "Then you won't be at my wedding?" he said; 
 "you won't stay with us ? And to think that I have 
 spent all I had! Ah! Lucien, I have brought Eve 
 her poor little bridal jewels; 1 didn't know," he 
 added, wiping his eyes and taking several cases 
 from his pocket, "that I should have to regret hav- 
 ing brought them." 
 
 He placed the morocco-covered boxes on the table, 
 in front of his mother-in-law. 
 
 "Why do you think so much of me?" said Eve, 
 with an angelic smile that contradicted the implied 
 reproach. 
 
 "Dear mamma," said the printer, "go and tell 
 Monsieur Postel that I consent to endorse the note,
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 227 
 
 for 1 see from your face, Lucien, that you are fully 
 decided to go." 
 
 Lucien bowed gently and sadly, saying a moment 
 later : 
 
 "Don't think ill of me, my beloved angels," 
 
 He drew Eve and David to him and embraced 
 them, adding: 
 
 "Await results and you will see how dearly I love 
 you. David, what good would our lofty thoughts 
 do, if they did not permit us to dispense with the 
 petty formalities with which the laws entangle sen- 
 timents ? Despite the distance, will not my heart 
 be here? shall we not be united in thought? Have 
 I not a destiny to fulfil ? Will the booksellers come 
 here to look for my Archer de Charles IX., and Les 
 Marguerites ? Must 1 not do at some time, sooner 
 or later, what I am doing to-day? shall I ever find 
 circumstances more favorable? Is it not worth a 
 whole fortune to me simply to make my debut in 
 Paris in the Marquise d'Espard's salon?" 
 
 "He is right," said Eve. "Didn't you say your- 
 self that he ought soon to go to Paris?" 
 
 David took Eve's hand, led her into the narrow 
 closet in which she had slept for seven years, and 
 whispered in her ear: 
 
 "Did you say that he needs two thousand francs, 
 my love? Postel lends him only one thousand." 
 
 Eve looked at her future husband with a heart- 
 rending expression that betrayed all her suffering. 
 
 "Listen, my adored Eve; we are going to begin 
 life badly. Yes, my expenses have absorbed all I
 
 228 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 possessed. I have but two thousand francs left, and 
 half of that is indispensable to keep the printing- 
 office at work. To give your brother a thousand 
 francs is to give him the bread out of our mouths, 
 to endanger our happiness. If I were alone, I 
 know what I would do; but there are two of us. 
 Decide." 
 
 Eve threw herself wildly into her lover's arms, 
 kissed him fondly, and whispered to him, her eyes 
 wet with tears: 
 
 "Do as you would do if you were alone; I will 
 work to earn the money." 
 
 Despite the most ardent kiss that lovers ever 
 exchanged, David left Eve sorely depressed, and 
 returned to Lucien. 
 
 "Don't be distressed," he said, "you shall have 
 your two thousand francs." 
 
 "Go and see Postel," said Madame Chardon, 
 "for you both have to sign the note." 
 
 When the two friends returned, they surprised 
 Eve and her mother on their knees, praying. 
 Although they knew how many hopes his future 
 return from Paris was likely to fulfil, they felt at 
 that moment all that they lost in bidding him fare- 
 well ; for they considered that possible happiness to 
 come was not worth the price of a separation which 
 would break up their family life and cast them upon 
 a sea of anxiety concerning Lucien's destiny. 
 
 "If you ever forget this scene," said David in 
 Lucien's ear, "you will be the lowest of men." 
 
 Doubtless the printer deemed those solemn words
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 229 
 
 necessary ; Madame de Bargeton's influence alarmed 
 him no less than Lucien's deplorably fickle nature, 
 which was as likely to lead him into evil courses 
 as into honorable ones. Eve soon had Lucien's 
 clothes ready for him. This literary Fernando 
 Cortez took but few things with him. He wore 
 his best redingote, his best waistcoat and one of his 
 two fine shirts. All his linen, his famous dress 
 coat, his other clothes and his manuscripts made 
 such a small bundle, that, to conceal it from Ma- 
 dame de Bargeton, David proposed to send it by the 
 diligence to his correspondent, a dealer in paper, to 
 whom he would write to hold it subject to Lucien's 
 orders. 
 
 Despite Madame de Bargeton's precautions to con- 
 ceal her departure, Chatelet learned of it and de- 
 termined to ascertain whether she made the journey 
 alone or in Lucien's company; he sent his valet to 
 Ruffec, with instructions to examine all the carriages 
 that changed horses at the posting-station. 
 
 "If she takes her poet with her," he thought, 
 "she is mine." 
 
 Lucien started the next morning at daybreak, 
 accompanied by David, who had hired a horse and 
 cabriolet, saying that he was going to see his father 
 on business ; a little falsehood which, under existing 
 circumstances, was not improbable. The two 
 friends drove to Marsac, where they passed part of 
 the day with the old bear; then, in the evening, 
 they drove a little beyond Mansle, to wait for Ma- 
 dame de Bargeton, who arrived toward morning.
 
 230 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 As he caught sight of the old sexagenarian caleche 
 that he had so often seen in the carriage-house, Lu- 
 cien experienced one of the keenest thrills of 
 emotion of his whole life; he threw himself into 
 David's arms. 
 
 "God grant this may prove to be for your good !" 
 said David. 
 
 The printer re-entered his wretched cabriolet and 
 drove away with an oppressed heart, for he had 
 gloomy forebodings of the destiny that awaited Lu- 
 cien in Paris.
 
 PART SECOND 
 
 (23O
 
 A PROVINCIAL GREAT MAN AT PARIS 
 
 * 
 
 Neither Lucien nor Madame de Bargeton, Gentil, 
 nor Albertine, the maid, ever spoke of the events 
 of that journey ; but it may well be believed that 
 the constant presence of servants made it very 
 irksome to a lover who was anticipating all the 
 pleasures of an elopement. Lucien, who then 
 traveled by post for the first time in his life, was 
 dismayed to find that almost the whole sum he had 
 expected to live upon for a year was scattered along 
 the road from Angouleme to Paris. Like most men 
 who combine the charms of boyhood with the energy 
 of talent, he made the mistake of expressing his 
 ingenuous amazement at the sight of things that 
 were new and strange to him. A man should study 
 a woman carefully before allowing her to see his 
 emotions and his thoughts in their crude state. A 
 mistress as loving as she is noble smiles at such 
 childish ways and understands them; but let her be 
 ever so little vain, and she never forgives her lover 
 for being childish, vain or trivial. Many women 
 carry their adoration to such a point that they 
 always expect to find a god in their idol; while 
 
 (233)
 
 234 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 those who love a man for himself, before loving him 
 for themselves, adore his pettinesses as well as his 
 great qualities. Lucien had not yet discovered that 
 in Madame de Bargeton's case, love was grafted 
 upon pride. He made the mistake of not seeking 
 an explanation of certain smiles that escaped Louise 
 during the journey, when, instead of restraining 
 himself, he indulged in the pretty antics of a young 
 rat just out of his hole. 
 
 The travelers alighted at the Hotel du Gaillard- 
 Bois, Rue de l'Echelle, before daybreak. They 
 were so fatigued that Louise desired beyond every- 
 thing to go to bed, and she did so, having told Lu- 
 cien to request a room above the apartments that 
 she engaged. Lucien slept until four in the after- 
 noon. Madame de Bargeton sent to waken him for 
 dinner; he dressed himself hurriedly when he 
 learned the time, and found Louise in one of those 
 vile chambers which are the disgrace of Paris, 
 where, despite all its pretensions to splendor, there 
 does not as yet exist a single hotel where a wealthy 
 traveler can find the comforts of home. 
 
 His eyes were dimmed by the haze left by a sud- 
 den awakening, and he did not recognize his Louise 
 in that cold, sunless room, with faded curtains, a 
 wretched, uncarpeted floor and ugly, worn furniture, 
 very old or bought at second-hand. It is a fact that 
 there are some people who have not the same aspect 
 or the same attractiveness when they are separated 
 from the figures, the objects, the localities which 
 have served them as a frame. Living faces have
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 235 
 
 a sort of atmosphere that is suited to them, just as 
 the chiaro-oscuro of Flemish paintings is necessary 
 to the vitality of the figures which the painter's 
 genius has placed therein. Almost all provincials 
 come within this category. Then, too, Madame de 
 Bargeton seemed more reserved, more thoughtful, 
 than she should have been at the moment when a 
 life of unfettered happiness was dawning. But 
 Lucien could not complain. They were waited 
 upon by Gentil and Albertine. The dinner lacked 
 the abundance and essential excellence which are 
 the distinguishing characteristics of provincial din- 
 ners. The dishes, brought from a neighboring 
 restaurant, were insufficient in quantity, carefully 
 subdivided, and our lovers dined on short commons. 
 Paris does not shine in those little matters to which 
 people of moderate fortune are condemned. Lucien 
 waited until the end of the dinner to question 
 Louise, whose changed bearing was inexplicable to 
 him. He was not mistaken. A serious event — for 
 reflections are events in one's moral life — had oc- 
 curred while he was sleeping. 
 
 About two in the afternoon, Sixte du Chatelet 
 appeared at the hotel, sent a servant to waken 
 Albertine, told her that he wished to speak with her 
 mistress, and returned after allowing Madame de 
 Bargeton barely sufficient time to make her toilet. 
 Anais, whose curiosity was aroused by Monsieur du 
 Chatelet's unexpected appearance on the scene — 
 for she thought she had covered her tracks perfectly 
 — received him about three o'clock.
 
 236 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 "I followed you, taking the risk of a reprimand 
 from headquarters, " he said, as he bowed to her, "for 
 I foresaw what would happen. But, even if 1 lose 
 my place, you shall not be lost!" 
 
 "What do you mean ?" cried Madame de Bargeton, 
 "1 see that you love Lucien," he continued, with 
 an air offender resignation, "for one must love a 
 man very dearly to throw reflection to the winds, 
 to forget all the proprieties, which nobody is more 
 familiar with than you! Do you imagine, pray, my 
 dear, adored Nais, that you will be received at Ma- 
 dame d'Espard's, or in any salon in Paris, when it 
 is known that you have practically eloped from 
 Angouleme with a young man, and especially after 
 Monsieur de Bargeton's duel with Monsieur de 
 Chandour ? Your husband's stay at Escarbas looks 
 like a separation. In such cases, men of the world 
 begin by fighting for their wives' honor, and then 
 leave them free. Love Monsieur de Rubempre, 
 patronize him, do whatever you please in every- 
 thing, but do not remain together! If anyone here 
 should know that you had made the journey in the 
 same carriage, you would be excommunicated by 
 the social set you are desirous to enter. And again, 
 Nais, do not make such sacrifices as this for a 
 young man whom you have as yet compared to no- 
 body, who has been subjected to no test, and may 
 forget you for some Parisian woman, deeming her 
 more necessary than you to his ambitious projects. 
 I have no wish to injure the man you love, but you 
 will permit me to place your interests before his,
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 237 
 
 and to say to you: 'Study him! Realize the full 
 meaning of what you are doing.' If you find the 
 doors closed, if ladies refuse to receive you, at least 
 do not regret your sacrifice, being certain that he 
 for whom you make it, will always be worthy of it 
 and will understand it. Madame d'Espard is the 
 more rigid and exacting in such matters because she 
 is herself living apart from her husband, for some 
 reason which society has never been able to dis- 
 cover; but the Navarreins, the Blamont-Chauvrys, 
 the Lenoncourts, all her relatives, have taken her 
 up, the most straitlaced women go to her house and 
 receive her at their houses with great respect, so 
 that the Marquis d'Espard is in the wrong. The 
 very first time that you call upon her, you will 
 realize the correctness of what 1 say. I, knowing 
 Paris as I do, can predict just what will happen as 
 you enter the marchioness' salon, you will be in 
 despair lest she should learn that you are at the 
 Hotel du Gaillard-Bois with an apothecary's son, 
 though he does call himself Monsieur de Rubempre. 
 You will have rivals here much more astute and sly 
 than Amelie, and they will not fail to ascertain who 
 you are, where you are, whence you come and what 
 you are doing. You relied upon your incognito, I 
 see; but you are one of those persons for whom 
 there is no such thing as an incognito. Won't you 
 fall in with Angouleme everywhere? there are the 
 deputies from the Charente who have come up for 
 the opening of the session; there is the general in 
 Paris on leave; but it will be enough that a single
 
 238 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 person from Angouleme should see you, to check 
 your career with extraordinary promptitude; you 
 would be nothing more than Lucien's mistress. If 
 you need me for any purpose, I am at the receiver- 
 general's, Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honore, within 
 two steps of Madame d'Espard. I know the Mare- 
 chale de Carigliano, Madame de Serizy and the 
 President of the Council well enough to present you 
 to them ; but you will see so many people at Ma- 
 dame d'Espard's that you won't need me. Far 
 from desiring to go to this or that salon, your pres- 
 ence will be desired in all the salons." 
 
 Madame de Bargeton allowed Chatelet to speak 
 without interruption : she was impressed by the 
 justness of his observations. The Queen of An- 
 gouleme had, in fact, relied upon her incognito. 
 
 "You are right, my dear friend," she said, "but 
 what am I to do?" 
 
 "Let me find you a suitable furnished apartment," 
 said Chatelet; "in that way, you will live less ex- 
 pensively than at a hotel, and you will be at home; 
 if you take my advice, you will sleep there to- 
 night." 
 
 "But how did you know my address?" she said. 
 
 "Your carriage was easy to recognize, and, be- 
 sides that, 1 followed you. At Sevres, the postilion 
 who drove you gave my postilion your address. 
 Will you permit me to be your quartermaster? I 
 will write you a line soon to let you know where 
 I have found quarters for you." 
 
 "Very well, do so," she said.
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 239 
 
 Those words seemed unimportant, but they were 
 really of the utmost importance. The Baron du 
 Chatelet had spoken the language of society to a 
 society woman. He had appeared before her in all 
 the elegance of Parisian costume ; a pretty cabriolet, 
 well-appointed, had brought him to the hotel. By 
 chance, Madame de Bargeton walked to the window 
 to reflect upon her position, and saw the old beau 
 drive away. A few moments later, Lucien, 
 awakened from a sound sleep, having dressed in 
 great haste, appeared before her in his last year's 
 nankeen trousers, with his shabby little redingote. 
 He was handsome, but ridiculously dressed. Put a 
 water-carrier's costume on the Apollo Belvedere or 
 the Antinous; would you then recognize the divine 
 creature of the Greek or Roman chisel ? The eyes 
 make comparisons before the heart has rectified 
 their rapid, instinctive judgment. The contrast be- 
 tween Lucien and Chatelet was too sudden not to 
 make an impression upon Louise. 
 
 When the dinner was at an end, about six o'clock, 
 Madame de Bargeton motioned to Lucien to come 
 and sit beside her on a wretched couch covered with 
 a red chintz with yellow flowers. 
 
 "My Lucien," she began, "don't you think that, 
 if we have done a foolish thing that will ruin us 
 both alike, we ought to do our best to undo it? We 
 must neither remain together in Paris, my dear 
 child, nor allow it to be suspected that we came 
 hither in company. Your future depends in a great 
 measure upon my position, and 1 must be careful
 
 240 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 not to compromise it in any way. So I am going, 
 this evening, into lodgings a few steps away; but 
 you will remain in this hotel and we can see each 
 other every day without giving anyone an oppor- 
 tunity to criticize us." 
 
 Louise explained the laws of society to Lucien, 
 who listened with wide open eyes. Although he 
 did not realize that they who regret their follies 
 regret their love, he did realize that he was no 
 longer the Lucien of Angouleme. Louise spoke only 
 of herself, her interests, her reputation and society; 
 and, to excuse her egotism, she tried to make him 
 believe that his own interests were at stake. He 
 had no rights over Louise, who had so suddenly be- 
 come Madame de Bargeton again, and — worse still ! 
 — he had no power over her. So he could not keep 
 the great tears from gathering in his eyes. 
 
 "If I am your glory, you are much more than that 
 to me, you are my only hope and my whole future. 
 I understood that, if you shared my successes, you 
 were to share my failure too, and now we are to 
 separate so soon !" 
 
 "You criticize my conduct," said she; "you 
 don't love me." 
 
 Lucien looked at her with such a piteous expres- 
 sion that she could not forbear saying to him: 
 
 "Dear boy, I will stay here if you wish; we shall 
 ruin ourselves and be left without support. But, 
 when we are equally wretched and both frowned 
 upon by society; when failure, for we must con- 
 sider every possibility, has driven us back to
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 241 
 
 Escarbas, remember, my love, that I prophesied 
 that result, and that I proposed to you at the begin- 
 ning to win success according to the laws of society 
 by bowing to those laws." 
 
 "Louise," he replied, kissing her, "I am terrified 
 to find you so prudent. Remember that I am a child, 
 that I yielded absolutely to your dear will. I in- 
 tended to triumph over men and things by sheer 
 force of will; but I can succeed more quickly with 
 your aid than alone, I shall be very happy to owe 
 all my fortune to you. Forgive me ! I have placed 
 myself too entirely in your hands, not to fear every- 
 thing. To me, separation is the herald of desertion ; 
 and desertion is death." 
 
 "But, my dear child, society asks very little of 
 you," she replied. "It is simply a question of 
 sleeping here, for you can stay with me all day, 
 and no one will have a word to say." 
 
 A caress or two restored Lucien's tranquillity. 
 An hour later, Gentil brought a note from Chatelet 
 informing Madame de Bargeton that he had found 
 an apartment on Rue Neuve-de-Luxembourg. She 
 ascertained the location of that street, which was 
 not very far from Rue de l'Echelle, and remarked 
 to Lucien : 
 
 "We are neighbors." 
 
 Two hours later, Louise entered a carriage sent 
 by Chatelet to take her to her new quarters. The 
 apartment, one of those which upholsterers furnish 
 and let to rich deputies or great personages, who 
 have come to Paris for a short time, was sumptuous 
 16
 
 242 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 but inconvenient. Lucien returned about eleven 
 o'clock to his little Hotel du Gaillard-Bois, having as 
 yet seen nothing of Paris but that part of Rue 
 Saint-Honore that lies between Rue Neuve-de-Lux- 
 embourg and Rue de PEchelle. He went to bed in 
 his wretched little room, which he could not refrain 
 from contrasting with Louise's magnificent suite. 
 Just as he left Madame de Bargeton's, Baron du 
 Chatelet arrived there, returning from the Ministry 
 of Foreign Affairs in all the splendor of a ball cos- 
 tume. He came to advise Madame de Bargeton of 
 the agreements he had made in her behalf. Louise 
 was disturbed, her luxurious surroundings terrified 
 her. Provincial manners had reacted upon her at 
 last ; she had become very fastidious in her accounts ; 
 she was so careful that she was likely to be con- 
 sidered miserly in Paris. She had brought with 
 her an order on the receiver-general for twenty 
 thousand francs, intending that sum to cover her 
 surplus expenses for four years; she already feared 
 that she would not have enough and would run in 
 debt. Chatelet informed her that the apartment 
 would cost her only six hundred francs a month. 
 
 "A mere trifle," he said, noticing Nais's start. 
 "You have a carriage at your service for five hun- 
 dred francs a month, making fifty louis in all. You 
 will have nothing to think of except your dress. A 
 lady who intends to go into the best society cannot 
 do otherwise. If you want to make Monsieur de 
 Bargeton a receiver-general or obtain a place for 
 him in the king's household, you must not live in
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 243 
 
 poor style. Here people give only to the rich. It's 
 very lucky," he added, "that you have Gentil with 
 you and Albertine to dress you, for servants are a 
 ruinous expense in Paris. You will seldom take 
 your meals at home, with the start in society you 
 will have." 
 
 Madame de Bargeton and the baron talked about 
 Paris. Chatelet told her the news of the day, the 
 thousand and one trifles which one must know 
 under penalty of not being considered a Parisian. 
 He advised Nais as to the shops she should patron- 
 ize: he mentioned Herbault for caps, Juliette for 
 hats and bonnets ; he gave her the address of the 
 only dressmaker who could fill Victorine's shoes; in 
 a word, he impressed upon her the necessity of dis- 
 angonleming herself. Then he launched the last 
 shaft of wit that he had had the good fortune to 
 conceive. 
 
 "To-morrow," he said, carelessly, "I shall prob- 
 ably have a box at some theatre or other; I will 
 come and take you and Monsieur de Rubempre, for 
 you will permit me to do the honors of Paris to both 
 of you." 
 
 "He has more generosity in his nature than I 
 supposed," said Madame de Bargeton to herself, 
 when he invited Lucien. 
 
 In the month of June, ministers do not know 
 what to do with their boxes at the theatres; the 
 ministerial deputies and their constituents are 
 gathering their grapes or looking after their crops, 
 and their most persistent acquaintances are in the
 
 244 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 country or traveling; and so, at that season, the 
 best boxes in the Parisian theatres are filled with 
 guests of curious appearance, whom the regular 
 habitues never see again and who produce upon 
 the audience an impression of worn-out tapestry. 
 It had occurred to Chatelet that, owing to that 
 circumstance, he might, without spending much 
 money, afford Nais the entertainments that are most 
 attractive to provincials. 
 
 The next morning, the first time that he called, 
 Lucien did not find Louise. She had gone out to 
 make some indispensable purchases. She had gone 
 out to take counsel with the grave and illustrious 
 authorities on the subject of feminine garb whom 
 Chatelet had recommended to her, for she had written 
 to the Marquise d'Espard, to inform her of her ar- 
 rival in Paris. Although Madame de Bargeton had 
 that confidence in herself that a long-continued habit 
 of domination imparts, she had a curious fear of 
 seeming provincial. She had sufficient tact to realize 
 how much the future relations of women to one 
 another depend upon first impressions; and, 
 although she knew that she was capable of attaining 
 the level of superior women like Madame d'Espard, 
 she felt that she needed kindly support on her first 
 appearance, and above all things, she desired to 
 neglect no element of success. Thus she was in- 
 finitely grateful to Chatelet for having pointed out 
 to her the way to place herself in harmony with the 
 best Parisian society. 
 
 By a strange chance, the marchioness was in a
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 245 
 
 position in which she was enchanted to render a 
 service to one of her husband's family. Without 
 apparent cause, the Marquis d'Espard had with- 
 drawn from the world ; he paid no attention to mat- 
 ters of business, to political affairs, to his family or 
 to his wife. Having thus become her own mistress, 
 the marchioness felt the necessity of being smiled 
 upon by society ; she was therefore glad to replace 
 the marquis at this juncture by becoming the 
 patroness of his family. She proposed to make a 
 great parade of her patronage in order to make her 
 husband's fault the more notorious. In the course 
 of the same day she wrote to Madame de Bargeton, 
 nee Nlgrepelisse, one of those charming notes which 
 are so prettily worded that one needs time to dis- 
 cover their lack of depth: 
 
 "She was overjoyed that circumstances had 
 brought within speaking distance a person of whom 
 she had often heard, and whom she was anxious to 
 know, for Parisian friendships were not so enduring 
 that she did not long to have one more friend to 
 love on earth; and if that longing were not to be 
 gratified, it would simply be one illusion more to 
 be buried with the others. She wished to place 
 herself entirely at her cousin's disposal, and she 
 would go to see her at once were it not for a slight 
 indisposition which kept her at home; but she con- 
 sidered herself indebted to her for having thought 
 of her." 
 
 During his first aimless walk along the boulevards 
 and the Rue de la Paix, Lucien, like all newcomers,
 
 246 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 paid much more heed to things than to persons. At 
 Paris, the massiveness of everything first claims 
 the attention ; the magnificence of the shops, the 
 height of the buildings, the swarm of carriages, the 
 constant contrast between extreme luxury and ex- 
 treme destitution impress one first of all. Amazed 
 at the throng, which was an entirely unfamiliar 
 sight to him, this man of vivid imagination felt 
 something like a tremendous belittling of himself. 
 Those persons who enjoy any sort of consideration 
 in the provinces, and who meet at every step there 
 a proof of their eminence, are not accustomed to 
 this sudden, total loss of their importance. To be 
 somebody in one's province and nobody in Paris 
 are two states which require some transitionary 
 stages ; and those who pass too abruptly from one 
 to the other, fall into a dazed, inanimate condition. 
 For a young poet, who found an echo of all his feel- 
 ings, a confidante for all his thoughts, a heart to 
 share his lightest sensations, Paris was certain to 
 be a horrible desert. 
 
 Lucien had not gone to get his fine blue coat, so 
 that he was embarrassed by the shabbiness, not to 
 say the dilapidation of his costume, as he betook 
 himself to Madame de Bargeton's when she was 
 likely to have returned; he found there the Baron 
 du Chatelet, who took them both to dine at the 
 Rocher de Cancale. Lucien, bewildered by the rapid 
 movement of the Parisian vortex, could say nothing 
 to Louise, for they were all together in the carriage; 
 but he pressed her hand and she replied amicably
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 247 
 
 to all the thoughts that he expressed in that way. 
 After dinner, Chatelet took his two guests to the 
 Vaudeville. Lucien had a secret feeling of disgust 
 at Chatelet's appearance in Paris and cursed the 
 chance that brought him there. The superintendent 
 of imposts attributed his trip to the capital to his 
 ambition; he hoped to be appointed general secre- 
 tary of a department, and to enter the Council of 
 State as a Master of Requests; he had just de- 
 manded a fulfilment of the promises that had been 
 made him, for such a man as he could not remain 
 superintendent of imposts; he preferred to hold no 
 office, to become a deputy, to re-enter the diplomatic 
 service. He added to his own stature; Lucien 
 recognized vaguely in this old beau, the superiority 
 of the man of the world who is thoroughly at home 
 in Parisian life; he was especially ashamed of 
 owing his pleasures to him. Where the poet was 
 ill at ease and embarrassed, the former secretary of 
 despatches was like a fish in water. Chatelet 
 smiled at the hesitation, the amazement, the ques- 
 tions, the petty errors of etiquette which lack of 
 familiarity with society led his rival to commit, 
 as the old sea-dog laughs at the novices who have 
 not their sea-legs on. 
 
 The pleasure that Lucien experienced in attend- 
 ing the play in Paris for the first time atoned for 
 the dissatisfaction due to his confusion. The even- 
 ing was a noteworthy one because of his secret 
 repudiation of a vast number of his ideas concern- 
 ing provincial life. His mental horizon expanded,
 
 248 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 society assumed different proportions. The prox- 
 imity of several pretty Parisian women, fashionably 
 and coquettishly dressed, called his attention to 
 the antiquated appearance of Madame de Bargeton's 
 costume, although it was reasonably ambitious; 
 neither the materials nor the colors nor the cut were 
 in the prevailing fashion. The style of wearing 
 the hair, which was considered so bewitching at 
 Angouleme, seemed to him in frightfully bad taste, 
 compared with the dainty contrivances by which 
 the other ladies about him commended themselves 
 to public notice. 
 
 "Will she always be like that?" he said to him- 
 self, unaware that the day had been employed in 
 arranging a transformation. 
 
 In the provinces, there is no opportunity to select 
 or compare; constant familiarity with the same 
 faces gives them a conventional sort of beauty. A 
 woman who is considered pretty in the provinces 
 does not attract the slightest attention when trans- 
 ported to Paris, for she is beautiful only by virtue of 
 the proverb : In the kingdom of the blind, the one- 
 eyed are kings. Lucien's eyes made the comparison 
 that Madame de Bargeton had made the night be- 
 fore between him and Chatelet. On her part, Ma- 
 dame de Bargeton indulged in some strange reflec- 
 tions concerning her lover. Despite his extraordi- 
 nary beauty, the poor poet had no style. His 
 redingote, the sleeves of which were too short, his 
 shocking provincial gloves, his scanty waistcoat, 
 made him prodigiously absurd beside the young
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 249 
 
 men in the balcony; Madame de Bargeton thought 
 him a pitiful object Chatelet, unpretentiously 
 interested in her welfare, and watching over her 
 with an attentiveness that betrayed a profound pas- 
 sion ; Chatelet, refined and as thoroughly at ease as 
 an actor returning to the boards of his theatre, 
 regained in two days all the ground he had lost in 
 six months. Although it is not commonly admitted 
 that the sentiments change suddenly, it is certain 
 that lovers often part much more quickly than they 
 came together. On the part of both Madame de 
 Bargeton and Lucien, a season of disenchantment 
 was approaching of which Paris was the cause. 
 Life assumed larger proportions there in the eyes 
 of the poet, as society took on a new face in Louise's 
 eyes. In either case, only an accident was needed 
 to cut the bonds that united them. The blow, ter- 
 rible to Lucien, was not long in coming. Madame 
 de Bargeton set down the poet at his hotel and 
 returned to her own quarters, accompanied by 
 Chatelet, an arrangement exceedingly distasteful 
 to the poor lover. 
 
 "What will they say about me?" he thought as 
 he went up to his gloomy bedroom. 
 
 "That poor boy is terribly tiresome," said Chate- 
 let with a smile, when the carriage door was closed. 
 
 "That is true of all those who have a world of 
 thoughts in the heart and the brain. Men who have 
 so many things to express in great works which 
 they have long meditated over, profess a certain con- 
 tempt for conversation, in which the mind lowers
 
 250 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 itself by making itself common," said the haughty 
 Negrepelisse, who still had the courage to defend 
 Lucien, less on Lucien's account than her own. 
 
 "I willingly grant you that," said the baron, 
 "but we are living with persons, not with books. 
 I see, dear Nais, that there is nothing between you 
 as yet, and I am overjoyed. If you decide to import 
 into your life an interest that you have lacked 
 hitherto, do not, I implore you, let it be for this pre- 
 tended man of genius. Suppose you should be mis- 
 taken ! suppose that, a few days hence, upon 
 comparing him with men of genuine talent, with 
 the really noteworthy men you are going to meet, 
 you should see, my dear, lovely siren, that you 
 have taken upon your dazzlingly beautiful back and 
 carried into port, not a man armed with a tuneful 
 lyre, but a little monkey, unmannerly, of no depth, a 
 conceited fool, who may have wit at L'Houmeau, 
 but who becomes in Paris an exceedingly ordinary 
 young man ! Why, volumes of verses are published 
 here every week, the poorest of which is worth 
 more than the whole of Monsieur Chardon's poetry. 
 For mercy's sake, wait and compare! To-morrow, 
 Friday, there is a performance at the Opera," he 
 said, as the carriage entered Rue Neuve-de-Luxem- 
 bourg; "Madame d'Espard has the box of the first 
 gentlemen of the chamber at her disposal, and will 
 take you, I doubt not. In order to see you in all 
 your glory, I will go and sit in Madame de Serizy's 
 box. They are to give Les Danaides." 
 
 "Adieu," said she.
 
 * 
 
 The next day, Madame de Bargeton tried to ar- 
 range a suitable morning costume in which to call 
 upon her cousin, Madame d'Espard. It was slightly 
 cold and she could find nothing better among her 
 old-fashioned Angouleme properties than a certain 
 green velvet dress, rather richly trimmed. Lucien, 
 too, deemed it essential to go and get his famous 
 blue coat, for he had conceived a horror of his 
 shabby redingote, and he determined to appear on 
 all occasions as well dressed as possible, thinking 
 that he might meet the Marquise d'Espard, or go to 
 her house unexpectedly. He took a cab in order to 
 bring his bundle home at once. In two hours' time, 
 he spent three or four francs, which caused him to 
 think seriously of the financial side of life in Paris. 
 After he had reached the superlative degree in the 
 matter of toilet, he went to Rue Neuve-de-Luxem- 
 bourg, and there, on the doorstep, he met Gentil ac- 
 companied by an outrider magnificently beplumed. 
 
 "1 was on my way to you, monsieur; madame 
 sends you this little note," said Gentil, who did 
 not know the gradations of respect in vogue in 
 Paris, accustomed as he was to the simple provin- 
 cial manners. 
 
 The footman took the poet for a servant. Lucien 
 unfolded the note, from which he learned that Ma- 
 dame de Bargeton was to pass the day with Madame 
 
 (25O
 
 252 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 la Marquise d'Espard and to go to the Opera in the 
 evening; but she bade Lucien be there, for her 
 cousin allowed her to offer the young poet a place in 
 her box, being delighted to afford him that pleasure. 
 
 "She loves me then! my fears are unfounded," 
 said Lucien to himself; "she will present me to her 
 cousin this evening." 
 
 He leaped for joy and determined to pass pleas- 
 antly the hours that separated him from the happy 
 evening. He hurried away to the Tuileries, think- 
 ing that he would walk there until it was time for 
 him to go and dine at Very's. Behold Lucien cara- 
 coling and prancing, elated with happiness, de- 
 bouching upon the Terrasse des Feuillants, and 
 walking across it, eying the promenaders, the 
 pretty women with their swains, the dandies, two 
 by two, arm in arm, saluting one another with a 
 glance as they passed. What a contrast between 
 that terrace and Beaulieu! The birds upon that 
 magnificent perch were very different from those at 
 Angouleme! It was like comparing the splendor of 
 coloring that characterizes the ornithological species 
 of the Indies or America with the dull colors of 
 European birds. 
 
 Lucien passed two cruel hours at the Tuileries; 
 he indulged in some serious reflections and judged 
 himself. In the first place, he did not see a frock- 
 coat upon one of the fashionable dandies. If he did 
 occasionally spy a man in a frockcoat, it was some 
 old man to whom the laws of fashion did not apply, 
 some poor devil of an annuitant from the Marais, or
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 253 
 
 a clerk from some office. After he had discovered 
 that there was a difference between the correct garb 
 for the evening, the poet of keen emotions and pen- 
 etrating glance discovered the ugliness of his cos- 
 tume, the anomalies that made his frockcoat 
 ridiculous, its antiquated cut, its faded blue color, 
 its shockingly disgraceful collar,and its skirts, which 
 had been worn too long and lapped over each other 
 in front; the buttons were rusty and the seams 
 marked with deadly white lines. His waistcoat 
 was too short, also, and so grotesquely provincial 
 that, in order to hide it, he abruptly buttoned his 
 coat. Lastly, he saw no nankeen trousers except 
 upon the common people. The fashionable folk 
 wore lovely fancy stuffs, or else the always correct 
 white! Moreover, all the trousers were worn with 
 straps, whereas his hardly reached the heels of his 
 boots, for which the frayed edges of the stuff mani- 
 fested a violent antipathy. He had a white cravat, 
 the ends of which were embroidered by his sister, 
 who had lost no time, after seeing that Monsieur du 
 Hautoy and Monsieur de Chandour wore ties of that 
 description, in making some of them for her 
 brother. Not only did no one save serious-minded 
 persons, old financiers and stern-faced magistrates, 
 wear white cravats in the morning, but Lucien saw 
 through the iron fence on the sidewalk on Rue de 
 Rivoli, a grocer's boy with a basket on his head and 
 two floating cravat ends embroidered by some 
 charming grisette. That sight stabbed Lucien to 
 the heart, that still ill-defined organ in which our
 
 254 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 sensitiveness takes refuge and upon which men have 
 laid their hands, in moments of excessive joy as 
 well as of excessive sorrow, since sentiments have 
 existed in the world. 
 
 Do not tax this narrative with puerility. Of 
 course, to the wealthy who have never known suf- 
 fering of this sort, there is something paltry and 
 incredible about it; but the agony of the unhappy 
 is no less deserving of attention than the crises that 
 revolutionize the lives of the powerful and privi- 
 leged ones of earth. Indeed, do we not find as 
 much grief in the one case as in the other? Suffer- 
 ing magnifies everything. Change the conditions, 
 if you please; in place of a costume of more or less 
 magnificence, take a ribbon, a mark of favor, a 
 title. Have not those apparently trivial things 
 been the torment of many a brilliant existence? 
 Moreover, the question of costume is one of vast 
 moment to those who wish to appear to have what 
 they have not ; for that is often the best means of 
 procuring it later. Lucien felt a cold perspiration 
 break out upon him when he thought that he had 
 proposed to appear in the evening, in that costume, 
 before the Marquise d'Espard, the kinswoman of 
 one of the first gentlemen of the chamber to the king, 
 before a woman whose salon was frequented by the 
 most eminent men in all walks of life, by the 
 choicest minds of the age. 
 
 "I look like an apothecary's son, a genuine 
 counter-jumper!" he said to himself, raging in- 
 wardly as he watched the graceful, dandified,
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 255 
 
 fashionable young men of Faubourg Saint-Germain, 
 all of whom had a manner peculiar to themselves, 
 which made them all resemble one another in their 
 slender figures, their noble bearing and their general 
 expression; and all differ from one another in the 
 frames that each had selected in which to display 
 his charms. All of them made the most of their 
 good points by a sort of stage setting which young 
 men in Paris understand as well as women. Lucien 
 inherited from his mother the same invaluable 
 physical qualities whose privileges were flaunted 
 before his eyes by these dandies ; but the gold was 
 in the quartz and still unworked. His hair was 
 badly cut. Instead of keeping his head erect by a 
 flexible whalebone, he felt all drawn together in his 
 uncomfortable shirt collar; and his cravat offered 
 no resistance to his tendency to hang his humiliated 
 head. What woman could have imagined the pretty 
 feet that were hidden in the shapeless boots he had 
 brought from Angouleme? What young man would 
 have envied his graceful figure disguised in the blue 
 bag he had hitherto believed to be a coat? He saw 
 fascinating buttons upon shirts that fairly gleamed 
 with whiteness; his own was rusty! All the fash- 
 ionable dandies were elegantly gloved, and he wore 
 regular gendarme's gloves! One toyed with a 
 beautifully mounted cane. Another wore dainty 
 little gold buttons in his wristbands. One of them, 
 as he talked with a lady, swung a pretty hunting 
 crop, and his baggy trousers slightly spotted with 
 mud, his glistening spurs and his closely buttoned
 
 256 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 riding coat, showed that he was about to mount one 
 of the two horses held by a tiger no larger than 
 one's fist. Another took from his pocket a flat 
 watch of the size of a hundred-sou piece, and 
 looked at the time, like a man who was before or 
 behind the hour fixed for an appointment. As he 
 noticed these pretty trifles, whose existence he had 
 not suspected, Lucien began to conceive some idea 
 of the multitude of necessary superfluities, and he 
 shuddered as he thought that it must require an 
 enormous capital to ply the trade of a fashionable 
 bachelor ! The more he admired these young men 
 with their joyous, off-hand manners, the more con- 
 scious he became of his own strange manner, the 
 manner of a man who has no idea whither the road 
 leads that he is following, who does not know the 
 Palais-Royal when he is touching it, and who asks 
 the whereabouts of the Louvre from a passer-by, to 
 receive the answer : "You are there now." Lu- 
 cien felt that an abyss lay between him and those 
 others ; he asked himself by what means he could 
 cross it, for he was determined to make himself like 
 those slender and refined Parisian youths. All the 
 young patricians were constantly bowing to divinely 
 dressed and divinely beautiful women, for a single 
 kiss from whom Lucien would gladly have been cut 
 in pieces, like the Comtesse de Kcenigsmark's page. 
 In the recesses of his memory, Louise appeared like 
 an old woman, in comparison with those queens of 
 beauty. He met several of those women whose 
 names will appear in the history of the nineteenth
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 257 
 
 century, and whose wit and beauty and love will be 
 no less famous than those of the queens of the past. 
 He passed one sublime creature, Mademoiselle des 
 Touches, so well known under the name of Camille 
 Maupin, an eminent writer, as remarkable for her 
 beauty as for her superior mind, whose name was 
 repeated in undertones by all the promenaders, 
 both young men and women. 
 
 "Ah!" said he to himself, "there is poesy." 
 What was Madame de Bargeton beside that angel, 
 radiant with youth and hope and future renown, 
 whose smile was so sweet, and whose black eye was 
 as vast as the vault of heaven, as ardent as the 
 sun? She was laughing and talking with Madame 
 de Firmiani, one of the most delightful women in 
 Paris. A voice cried to him: "Intellect is the 
 lever with which the world is moved. ' ' But another 
 voice answered that the fulcrum of the lever of in- 
 tellect is money. He did not choose to remain amid 
 his ruins and on the stage of his discomfiture, so he 
 betook himself to the Palais-Royal, having first 
 asked where it was, for he did not as yet know the 
 topography of his own quarter. He went to Very's, 
 and ordered, as an initiation into the pleasures of 
 Paris, a dinner that somewhat allayed his chagrin. 
 A bottle of Bordeaux, Ostend oysters, a fish, a 
 partridge, an ice and some fruit were the ne plus 
 ultra of his desires. He relished his little dissipa- 
 tion, thinking how he would demonstrate his wit in 
 the evening in the Marquise d'Espard's presence, 
 and atone for the shabbiness of his anomalous garb 
 17
 
 258 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 by the manifestation of his intellectual powers. He 
 was awakened from his dreams by the footing of his 
 account, which despoiled him of the fifty francs 
 with which he expected to do a great deal in Paris. 
 That one dinner cost as much as he spent in a 
 whole month at Angouleme. So he respectfully 
 closed the door of that palace, thinking that he 
 would never again put his foot therein. 
 
 "Eve was right," he said to himself as he walked 
 homeward through the stone gallery, in order to 
 replenish his purse; "Paris prices differ from prices 
 at L'Houmeau. " 
 
 On his way he gazed admiringly into the tailors' 
 shops, and, as he remembered the costumes he had 
 seen in the morning, he cried: 
 
 "No, I will not appear before Madame d'Espard 
 in such a rig as this!" 
 
 He ran like a deer to the Gaillard-Bois, went up 
 to his room, took a hundred crowns and hurried 
 back to the Palais-Royal to refit from head to foot. 
 He had noticed the shops of bootmakers, haber- 
 dashers, vestmakers and hairdressers at the Palais- 
 Royal, and his future elegance was scattered through 
 ten establishments. The first tailor he visited 
 made him try on as many coats as he would consent 
 to try on, and persuaded him that they were all in 
 the latest style. Lucien, when he took his leave, 
 possessed a green coat, white trousers and a fancy 
 waistcoat, all for the sum of two hundred francs. 
 He soon found a very neat pair of boots that fitted 
 him perfectly. Finally, after he had purchased
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 259 
 
 everything he required, he sent for the hairdresser 
 to come to his room, where each dealer brought the 
 goods he had bought. At seven in the evening, he 
 called a cab and was driven to the Opera, curled 
 like an image of Saint- Jean in a procession, well 
 waistcoated, well cravated, but a little uncomfort- 
 able in the sort of mould in which he was incased 
 for the first time in his life. Following Madame de 
 Bargeton's directions, he asked for the box assigned 
 to the first gentleman-in-waiting. Seeing a man 
 whose borrowed elegance gave him the air of the 
 best man at a wedding, the ticket-taker requested 
 him to show his ticket. 
 
 "1 have none." 
 
 "Then you cannot go in," was the sharp reply. 
 
 "But I am invited by Madame d'Espard," he 
 said. 
 
 "We are not supposed to know that," said the 
 attendant, exchanging an imperceptible smile with 
 his associates. 
 
 At that moment a coupe drove under the peristyle. 
 An outrider, whom Lucien did not recognize, let 
 down the step and two ladies in full dress alighted. 
 Lucien, who did not wish to receive from the ticket- 
 taker an impertinent request to stand aside, made 
 room for the two ladies. 
 
 "But this lady is the Marquise d'Espard, whom 
 you claim to know, monsieur," said the ticket-taker 
 ironically to Lucien. 
 
 Lucien was the more abashed because Madame 
 de Bargeton did not seem to recognize him in his
 
 260 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 new plumage; but, when he walked toward her, 
 she smiled at him and said: 
 
 "This is extraordinary; come!" 
 
 The attendants had become serious once more. 
 Lucien followed Madame de Bargeton, who, as they 
 ascended the spacious staircase of the Opera, pre- 
 sented her Rubempre to her cousin. The box of the 
 first gentleman-in-waiting is in one of the flattened 
 corners at the rear of the hall ; there one can be 
 seen from and can see all parts of the great audito- 
 rium. Lucien took a chair behind Madame de, 
 Bargeton, well pleased to sit in the shadow. 
 
 "Monsieur de Rubempre," said the marchioness, 
 in a flattering tone, "this is your first visit to the 
 Opera; you must see all there is to be seen, so take 
 this chair at the front of the box; we will excuse 
 you." 
 
 Lucien obeyed; the first act of the opera was just 
 coming to an end. 
 
 "You have employed your time to good ad- 
 vantage," said Louise in his ear, amazed at the 
 change in Lucien's appearance. 
 
 Louise remained the same. The proximity of a 
 woman of fashion, the Marquise d'Espard, the Ma- 
 dame de Bargeton of Paris, was so disadvantageous 
 to her; the brilliant Parisian brought into such bold 
 relief the imperfections of the woman from the prov- 
 inces, that Lucien, doubly enlightened by the 
 gorgeous company assembled in that superb hall, 
 and by his eminent hostess, at last saw Anais de 
 Negrepelisse as she really was, as the people of
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 261 
 
 Paris saw her: tall, thin, pimply, faded, more than 
 red-haired, angular, stiff, formal, conceited, provin- 
 cial in her speech, and above all things, badly 
 dressed! In Paris a dress may be old and still its 
 folds will attest its owner's taste; you can under- 
 stand it and divine what it once was; but an old 
 provincial dress is an inexplicable mystery, it is 
 laughable. The dress and its wearer were alike de- 
 void of charm and freshness, the velvet was mottled 
 like the complexion. Lucien, ashamed of having 
 loved such a cuttle-bone, determined that he would 
 take advantage of Louise's first spasm of virtue to 
 leave her. His excellent eyesight enabled him to 
 see all the opera-glasses brought to bear upon the 
 aristocratic box, par excellence. The most fashion- 
 able women were certainly scrutinizing Madame de 
 Bargeton, for they all smiled as they talked to one 
 another. 
 
 If Madame d'Espard gathered, from the gestures 
 and smiles of those of her own sex, the source of 
 their amusement, she was entirely indifferent to 
 it. In the first place, everyone was sure to recog- 
 nize in her companion the poor kinswoman from the 
 provinces, with whom every Parisian family is 
 likely to be afflicted. Then, too, her cousin had 
 mentioned the subject of her toilet, expressing some 
 apprehension in that direction; she reassured her, 
 for she saw that when Anais was once properly 
 dressed, she would soon acquire Parisian manners. 
 If Madame de Bargeton lacked practice, she had the 
 inborn hauteur of a woman of noble birth, and the
 
 262 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 indefinable something that may be called race. On 
 the following Monday, therefore, she would have 
 her revenge. Moreover, when it was once known 
 that her guest was her cousin, the marchioness 
 knew that the public would suspend its raillery and 
 await an opportunity to examine her more closely 
 before passing judgment upon her. 
 
 Lucien did not foresee the change that would be 
 wrought in Louise by a scarf wound about her neck, 
 a pretty dress, a fashionable arrangement of her hair 
 and Madame d'Espard's advice. Even as they as- 
 cended the stairs, the marchioness told her cousin 
 not to carry her handkerchief unfolded in her hand. 
 Good or bad taste depends upon innumerable little 
 trifles of this sort, which a bright woman grasps at 
 once and which some women will never understand. 
 Madame de Bargeton, whose will was of the best, 
 was more clever than she required to be to discover 
 wherein she went astray. Madame d'Espard, sure 
 that her pupil would do her credit, did not shirk the 
 task of moulding her. In fact, an agreement had 
 been entered into by the two women, and cemented 
 by their mutual interests. Madame de Bargeton had 
 suddenly become a devoted worshiper of the idol of 
 the day, whose manners, wit and surroundings had 
 fascinated, dazzled, enchanted her. She had recog- 
 nized in Madame d'Espard the occult power of the 
 ambitious great lady, and had said to herself that 
 she would strive to become the satellite of that 
 planet: she had therefore frankly expressed her 
 admiration. The marchioness was touched by her
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 263 
 
 undisguised conquest, and had at once taken a deep 
 interest in her cousin, finding her to be poor and 
 unfriended; she had shrewdly laid her plans to 
 found a school of her own by having a pupil, and 
 she asked nothing better than to acquire in Madame 
 de Bargeton a sort of lady-in-waiting, a slave who 
 would sing her praises, a treasure rarer among 
 Parisian women than an honest critic in the literary 
 world. But the general curiosity became too per- 
 ceptible for the newcomer not to notice it, and Ma- 
 dame d'Espard determined courteously to mislead 
 her as to the cause of the excitement. 
 
 "If they come and call on us," she said, "per- 
 haps we shall find out to what we owe the honor 
 of such earnest attention on the part of all these 
 ladies." 
 
 "I strongly suspect my old velvet dress and my 
 Angoumois figure of amusing the Parisians, " said 
 Madame de Bargeton, laughing. 
 
 "No, it's not you; there's something I can't un- 
 derstand," she added, turning to the poet, whom 
 she then looked at for the first time and seemed to 
 think strangely attired. 
 
 "There's Monsieur du Chatelet, " said Lucien at 
 that moment, raising his finger to point to Madame 
 de Serizy's box, where the old beau, thoroughly 
 renovated, had just made his appearance. 
 
 At that gesture, Madame de Bargeton bit her lips 
 with annoyance, for the marchioness could not re- 
 strain a glance and a smile of amazement, which 
 said so contemptuously: "Where does this young
 
 264 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 man come from ?" that Louise felt deeply humiliated 
 in her love, the most painful sensation a French 
 woman can experience, and one that she never for- 
 gives her lover for causing. In that society, where 
 trifles are magnified into great things, a gesture, a 
 word, may ruin the chances of a beginner. The 
 principal advantage of the fine manners and the 
 tone of good society is to present a harmonious 
 whole, in which everything is so perfectly blended 
 that nothing offends. The very persons who, 
 whether it be through ignorance or because their 
 thoughts are engrossed by something else and fail 
 to observe the laws of this science, will all agree 
 that a single discordant note is, as it is in music, a 
 complete nullification of the art itself, for all its 
 conditions must be fulfilled to the least detail, under 
 pain of ceasing to exist at all. 
 
 "Who is that gentleman?" asked the marchion- 
 ess, indicating Chatelet. "Do you know Madame 
 de Serizy?" 
 
 "Ah! so that is the famous Madame de Serizy, 
 who has had so many adventures and still is re- 
 ceived everywhere!" 
 
 "An unheard-of thing, my dear," the marchion- 
 ess replied, "a thing capable of explanation, but 
 unexplained! The most redoubtable men are her 
 friends, and why ? No one dares probe the mystery. 
 Is yonder gentleman the lion of Angouleme?" 
 
 "Why, Monsieur le Baron du Chatelet," said 
 Ana'is, through vanity bestowing upon her adorer 
 in Paris the title she denied him in the country,
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 265 
 
 "is a man who has been much talked of. He is 
 Monsieur de Montr iveau's traveling companion." 
 
 "Ah!" exclaimed the marchioness, "I never hear 
 that name without thinking of the poor Duchesse 
 de Langeais, who has disappeared like a shooting 
 star. — There," she continued, pointing to another 
 box, "are Monsieur de Rastignac and Madame de 
 Nucingen, the wife of a contractor, banker, agent, 
 broker on a large scale, a man who forces himself 
 into Parisian society by virtue of his wealth, and 
 is said to be by no means scrupulous as to methods 
 of increasing it; he takes unheard-of pains to make 
 people believe in his fidelity to the Bourbons; he 
 has already tried to be introduced to my house. By 
 taking Madame de Langeais's box, his wife thought 
 she would inherit her charms, her wit and her suc- 
 cess! The old fable of the jackdaw in peacock's 
 feathers!" 
 
 "How do Monsieur and Madame de Rastignac, 
 whom we know to have less than three thousand 
 francs a year, manage to support their son in 
 Paris ?" said Lucien to Madame de Bargeton, amazed 
 at the style and luxury displayed in the young 
 man's dress. 
 
 "It is easy to see that you come from Angouleme," 
 said the marchioness satirically, without taking her 
 opera-glass from her eyes. 
 
 Lucien did not understand; he was entirely en- 
 grossed in looking at the boxes, divining the criti- 
 cisms that were being made upon Madame de 
 Bargeton, and the curiosity of which he was
 
 266 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 himself the object For her part, Louise was 
 deeply mortified by the marchioness's lack of ap- 
 preciation of Lucien's beauty. 
 
 "Then he can't be as handsome as 1 thought!" 
 she said to herself. 
 
 From that point, it was but a step to thinking 
 that he was less clever. The curtain fell. Cha- 
 telet, who had . come to pay his respects to the 
 Duchesse de Carigliano, whose box was quite near 
 Madame d'Espard's, bowed to Madame de Bargeton, 
 who replied with a slight inclination of the head. 
 A woman of the world sees everything, and the 
 marchioness noticed Chatelet's superior bearing. 
 At that juncture, four persons entered the marchion- 
 ess's box, one after another — four Parisian celeb- 
 rities. 
 
 The first was Monsieur de Marsay, a man famous 
 for the passions he aroused, and especially remark- 
 able for his girlish beauty, soft and effeminate, but 
 redeemed by a fixed, calm glance, as fierce and un- 
 compromising as a tiger's; he was loved and feared. 
 Lucien, too, was handsome; but his glance was so 
 gentle, his blue eye so clear, that he did not seem 
 capable of the strength and power which attract 
 women. Moreover, nothing had as yet shown the 
 poet's temper, while De Marsay had a flow of wit, 
 a certainty of pleasing, a costume adapted to his 
 character, which crushed all his rivals. Imagine 
 how Lucien, grim, solemn, stiff and new as his 
 clothes, would appear beside him ! De Marsay had 
 earned the right to say impertinent things by the
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 267 
 
 wit he imparted to them and by the charming man- 
 ners with which he accompanied them. The mar- 
 chioness's reception made clear at once to Madame 
 de Bargeton the power of the man. 
 
 The second was one of the two Vandenesses, he 
 who had caused the Lady Dudley scandal, a sweet- 
 tempered, clever, modest young man, whose success 
 was due to qualities diametrically opposed to those 
 upon which De Marsay plumed himself, and whom 
 the marchioness's cousin, Madame de Mortsauf, had 
 warmly recommended to her. 
 
 The third was General de Montriveau, author of 
 the ruin of the Duchesse de Langeais. 
 
 The fourth was Monsieur de Canalis, one of the 
 most illustrious poets of that epoch, a young man 
 still at the dawn of his renown, who, prouder of 
 being a gentleman than of his talent, posed as Ma- 
 dame d'Espard's devoted slave, in order to conceal 
 his passion for the Duchesse de Chaulieu. Despite 
 his charming manners, somewhat marred by affec- 
 tation, his friends already suspected the soaring 
 ambition that led him at a later period into the 
 tempests of political life. His almost girlish beauty 
 and his flattering ways hardly disguised his pro- 
 found selfishness and the constant scheming of an 
 existence which was at this time an unsolved prob- 
 lem ; but his choice of Madame de Chaulieu, a 
 woman past forty, secured for him the favor of the 
 court, the approbation of Faubourg Saint-Germain, 
 and the insults of the liberals, who called him a 
 poet of the sacristy.
 
 268 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 When she saw those four noteworthy faces, Ma- 
 dame de Bargeton understood the slight attention 
 the marchioness had paid to Lucien. And when the 
 conversation began, when each of those keen, subtle 
 minds made itself manifest by remarks that con- 
 tained more sense and more depth than all that 
 Anais heard in a month in Angouleme; when the 
 great poet especially uttered vibrating words that 
 reflected the positive character of the time, but 
 gilded with poesy, she realized the truth of what 
 Chatelet had said to her the day before: Lucien 
 was nothing at all. One and all glanced at the 
 unhappy stranger with such cruel indifference, his 
 position was so exactly that of a foreigner unac- 
 quainted with the language, that the marchioness 
 took pity on him. 
 
 "Permit me, monsieur," she said to Canalis, 
 "to present Monsieur de Rubempre. You occupy 
 too lofty a position in the literary world not to wel- 
 come a beginner. Monsieur de Rubempre is just 
 from Angouleme, and he will need your patronage, 
 I doubt not,with those whose business it is to bring 
 genius to light. He has as yet no enemies to make 
 his fortune by attacking him. Would it not be an 
 undertaking so original as to be worth trying, to 
 obtain for him through friendship, what you owe 
 to hatred?" 
 
 The four young men looked at Lucien while the 
 marchioness was speaking. Although he was with- 
 in two feet of the newcomer, De Marsay took his 
 monocle to look at him; his eyes went from Lucien
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 269 
 
 to Madame de Bargeton and from Madame de Barge- 
 ton to Lucien, coupling them together with a sneer- 
 ing glance that mortified them both cruelly; he 
 looked them over as if they were two strange ani- 
 mals, and he smiled. His smile was a dagger- 
 thrust to the provincial great man. Felix de 
 Vandenesse assumed a charitable expression. Mon- 
 triveau bestowed a glance upon Lucien that probed 
 him to the marrow. 
 
 "Madame," said Canalis, bowing, "I will obey 
 you, notwithstanding the personal interest that in- 
 clines us not to assist our rivals; but you have 
 accustomed us to miracles." 
 
 "Very well; give me the pleasure of your com- 
 pany at dinner with Monsieur de Rubempre on 
 Monday; you can then talk over literary matters 
 more comfortably than here; I will try to collect 
 some of the tyrants of literature and the celebrities 
 who take it under their wing; the author of Ourika 
 and some well-inclined young poets. 
 
 "Madame la Marquise," said De Marsay, "if you 
 take monsieur under your protection for his wit, I 
 will take him under mine for his beauty; I will 
 give him some good advice which will make him 
 the luckiest dandy in Paris. After that he can be 
 a poet if he chooses." 
 
 Madame de Bargeton thanked the marchioness by 
 a glance overflowing with gratitude. 
 
 "I didn't know that you were jealous of bright 
 men," said Montriveau to De Marsay. "Happiness 
 kills poets."
 
 270 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 "Is that why monsieur is anxious to marry?" 
 said the dandy, addressing Canalis, in order to see 
 if Madame d'Espard would be hit by the question. 
 
 Canalis shrugged his shoulders, and Madame 
 d'Espard, who was Madame de Chaulieu's niece, 
 began to laugh. 
 
 Lucien, who felt in his new clothes like an Egyp- 
 tian mummy in its sheath, was ashamed to make 
 no reply. At last he said to the marchioness in his 
 soft voice : 
 
 "Your kindness, madame, dooms me to have 
 nothing but success." 
 
 At that moment Chatelet, seizing the opportunity 
 by the hair to secure Montriveau, one of the kings 
 of Paris, as his sponsor with the marchioness, en- 
 tered the box. He bowed to Madame de Bargeton 
 and begged Madame d'Espard to forgive the liberty 
 he took in invading her box; it was so long since 
 he had seen his traveling companion! It was the 
 first time he and Montriveau had met since they 
 parted in the desert. 
 
 "To part in the desert and meet at the Opera!" 
 said Lucien. 
 
 "It's a genuine stage meeting," said Canalis. 
 
 Montriveau presented the Baron du Chatelet to 
 the marchioness, and the marchioness accorded the 
 ex-secretary of despatches to her Imperial Highness 
 the more flattering welcome, because she had seen 
 that he was well received in three boxes, because 
 Madame de Serizy admitted none but available 
 men, and lastly because he was Montriveau's
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 271 
 
 traveling companion. This last title to her regard 
 was so powerful that Madame de Bargeton could see 
 in the tone, the expressions and the manners of the 
 four men that they recognized Chatelet as one of 
 themselves without hesitation. The sultan-like 
 manner adopted by Chatelet in the provinces was 
 at once explained to Na'is. Lastly Chatelet recog- 
 nized Lucien and gave him one of those cool, abrupt 
 nods by which one man casts discredit upon another, 
 indicating to his fellows the infinitely humble posi- 
 tion that that other occupies in society. He accom- 
 panied his salutation with a sardonic smile, which 
 seemed to say : "How does he happen to be here ?" 
 Chatelet's manner was fully understood, for De 
 Marsay leaned over to Montriveau and whispered 
 in his ear, loud enough for the baron to hear: 
 
 "Ask him who this extraordinary young man is, 
 who looks like a manikin at a tailor's door." 
 
 Chatelet spoke for a moment aside with his old 
 friend, as if they were renewing their acquaintance, 
 and doubtless he cut his rival in small pieces. Sur- 
 prised by the ready wit, by the acuteness with which 
 these men shaped their replies, Lucien was bewil- 
 dered by what is called the trait, the mot, and es- 
 pecially by the freedom of their conversation and 
 their ease of manner. The luxury that had dis- 
 mayed him in the morning as applied to things, he 
 found now displayed in ideas. He asked himself by 
 what mysterious means these people always found 
 brilliant thoughts ready to their tongues, repartees 
 which he could not have invented except after long
 
 272 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 meditation. And then these five men of the world 
 were entirely at ease, not only in their speech, but 
 in their clothes; they wore nothing new and noth- 
 ing old. Nothing about them glistened with new- 
 ness, but everything attracted the eye. Their 
 splendor of to-day was that of yesterday and would 
 be that of to-morrow. Lucien realized that he acted 
 like a man who was dressed for the first time in his 
 life. 
 
 "My dear fellow," said De Marsay to Felix de 
 Vandenesse, "that young Rastignac is soaring like 
 a kite! there he is with the Marquise de Listomere, 
 he is making progress; he's looking at us! Doubt- 
 less he knows monsieur?" added the dandy, ad- 
 dressing Lucien but not looking at him. 
 
 "It is strange," said Madame de Bargeton, "if 
 the name of the great man of whom we are so proud 
 has not reached his ears ; his sister recently heard 
 Monsieur de Rubempre read some very beautiful 
 verses." 
 
 Felix de Vandenesse and De Marsay took leave 
 of the marchioness and went to the box of Madame 
 de Listomere, Vandenesse's sister. The second act 
 began and Madame d'Espard, her cousin and Lucien 
 were left alone. Some went to explain Madame 
 de Bargeton to the ladies who were puzzled by her 
 presence, others told of the poet's arrival and laughed 
 at his costume. Canalis returned to Madame de 
 Chaulieu's box and remained there. Lucien was 
 glad of the diversion afforded by the renewal of the 
 performance. Madame de Bargeton's apprehensions
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 273 
 
 relative to him were augmented by the attention 
 her cousin had paid to the Baron du Chatelet, which 
 was very different from her patronizing courtesy to 
 Lucien. During the second act, Madame de Listo- 
 mere's box continued full of people and its occupants 
 seemed excited by a conversation of which Madame 
 de Bargeton and Lucien were the theme. Young 
 Rastignac was evidently the entertainer of the party ; 
 he set the key for that Parisian laughter, which, 
 seeking every day a new feeding-ground, hastens 
 to exhaust the latest subject by converting it into 
 something old and worn out in a single moment. 
 Madame d'Espard, knowing that a person who is 
 wounded by a calumny is never left long in ignorance 
 of it, uneasily awaited the end of the act. 
 
 When the sentiments have begun to scrutinize 
 themselves as in the case of Lucien and Madame de 
 Bargeton, strange things come to pass in a short 
 time : moral revolutions are governed by the law of 
 swift results. Louise had always present in her 
 memory the wise and politic words concerning Lu- 
 cien that Chatelet had said to her in returning from 
 the Vaudeville. Every sentence was a prophecy, 
 and Lucien seemed to have undertaken to bring 
 them all to pass. 
 
 Losing his illusions concerning Madame de Barge- 
 ton as she lost hers concerning him, the poor fellow, 
 whose destiny was not unlike Jean-Jacques Rous- 
 seau's, imitated him to the extent of being fasci- 
 nated by Madame d'Espard, and he fell in love with 
 her at once. Young people and men who remember 
 18
 
 274 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 their youthful emotions, will understand how natural 
 and likely to be aroused that passion was. The 
 pretty little manners, the refined speech, the me- 
 lodious voice, the willowy, nobly-born woman, so 
 highly placed, so envied, a queen, appeared to the 
 poet as Madame de Bargeton appeared to him at 
 Angoul^me. The mobility of his character impelled 
 him strongly to desire such eminent patronage; the 
 surest way was to possess the woman, then he 
 would have everything! He had succeeded at An- 
 gouleme, why should he not succeed in Paris? In- 
 voluntarily, and despite the fascinations of the 
 Opera which were entirely novel to him, his eyes, 
 attracted by the magnificent Celimene, constantly 
 returned to her ; and the more he looked at her, the 
 more he longed to look at her ! Madame de Barge- 
 ton surprised one of his speaking glances; she 
 watched him and saw that he was more engrossed 
 by the marchioness than by the performance. She 
 would have resigned herself gracefully to be neg- 
 lected for the fifty daughters of Danaus ; but when 
 a more ambitious, more ardent, more significant 
 glance than the others told her what was taking 
 place in Lucien's heart, she became jealous, less for 
 the future than for the past. 
 
 "He never looked at me that way," she thought. 
 "Mon Dieu, Chatelet was right!" 
 
 She realized thereupon the error of her love. 
 When a woman reaches the point of repenting of 
 her weakness, she passes a sponge over her life, as 
 it were, to wipe it all out. Although every one of
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 275 
 
 Lucien's glances angered her, she remained out- 
 wardly calm. De Marsay returned between the 
 acts with Monsieur de Listomere. The middle-aged 
 man and the young fop lost no time in informing 
 the haughty marchioness that the wedding guest in 
 his Sunday clothes whom she had had the ill-fortune 
 to admit to her box was no more Monsieur de Ru- 
 bempre than a Jew has a baptismal name. Lucien 
 was the son of an apothecary named Chardon. 
 Monsieur de Rastignac, who was thoroughly posted 
 upon Angouleme affairs, had already amused two 
 boxes at the expense of the species of mummy 
 whom the marchioness called her cousin, and of 
 that lady's wise precaution in having an apothecary 
 always in attendance, for the evident purpose of 
 keeping up her artificial life with drugs. In a word, 
 De Marsay repeated a few of the innumerable jests 
 which amuse Parisians for a moment and are forgot- 
 ten as soon as made, but behind which was Cha- 
 telet, the artisan of this particular example of 
 Punic faith. 
 
 "My dear," said Madame d'Espard behind her 
 fan to Madame de Bargeton, "I pray you, tell me if 
 your protege is really named De Rubempre?" 
 
 "He has taken his mother's name," said the em- 
 barrassed Anais. 
 
 "But what is his father's name?" 
 
 "Chardon." 
 
 "And what does this Chardon do?" 
 
 "He was a druggist." 
 
 "1 was very sure, my dear friend, that all Paris
 
 276 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 would not make sport of a woman whom I take up. 
 I don't care about receiving visits here from jocose 
 young men, delighted to find me with an apothe- 
 cary's son; if you wish to gratify me, you will go 
 out with me, and at once." 
 
 Madame d'Espard assumed a decidedly imperti- 
 nent expression, Lucien being entirely unable to 
 guess in what way he had occasioned the alteration 
 in her features. He thought that his waistcoat 
 must be in bad taste, which was true; that the cut 
 of his coat exaggerated the prevailing fashion, 
 which was also true. He realized, with secret bit- 
 terness of heart, that he must procure his clothes 
 from a fashionable tailor, and he determined that 
 he would go the next day to the most famous of 
 them all, so that he might be able on the following 
 Monday to hold his own with the men he was to 
 meet at Madame d'Espard's. Although he was lost 
 in his reflections, he was interested in the third act, 
 and his eyes did not leave the stage. While he 
 watched the pompous progress of that unique spec- 
 tacle, he abandoned himself to his dream concern- 
 ing Madame d'Espard. He was in despair at her 
 sudden coldness, which thwarted sadly the intellec- 
 tual ardor with which he attacked this new passion, 
 heedless of the enormous difficulties which he per- 
 ceived in his path and which he vowed that he 
 would overcome. He roused himself from his pro- 
 found meditation to look again at his new idol ; but, 
 when he turned his head, he found that he was 
 alone; he had heard a slight noise, it was the door
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 277 
 
 closing behind Madame d'Espard and her cousin. 
 Lucien was surprised to the last degree by this sud- 
 den desertion, but he did not think about it long, 
 just because he found it inexplicable. 
 
 When the two women had entered their carriage 
 and were rolling through Rue de Richelieu toward 
 Faubourg Saint-Honore, the marchioness said, dis- 
 guising her wrath: 
 
 "My dear child, what are you thinking about? 
 pray wait till an apothecary's son is really famous 
 before taking an interest in him. The Duchesse 
 de Chaulieu doesn't acknowledge Canalis yet, and 
 he is famous and a gentleman. This fellow is 
 neither your son nor your lover, is he?" said the 
 haughty woman, darting a keen, piercing glance at 
 her cousin. 
 
 "How lucky for me that I always kept the little 
 fool at a distance and never granted him anything 
 
 >> 
 
 o» 
 
 thought Madame de Bargeton. 
 
 "Very well," continued the marchioness, taking 
 the expression in her cousin's eyes for a reply, 
 "drop him, I implore you. What presumption to 
 assume an illustrious name! — why, that's the kind 
 of audacity that society punishes. I admit that it's 
 his mother's name; but consider, my dear, that the 
 king alone has the right, by royal decree, to confer 
 the name of Rubempre on the son of a daughter of 
 that family; if she has married beneath her, it 
 would be a very great favor, and, to obtain it, one 
 must have immense wealth or very exalted patron- 
 age, or must have rendered some service to the
 
 278 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 government. That costume of a dressed-up shop- 
 keeper proves that the boy is neither rich nor of 
 gentle birth; he has a beautiful face, but he seems 
 to me a great booby; he doesn't know how to act 
 or speak ; in short, he has no breeding. How do you 
 happen to have him under your wing?" 
 
 Madame de Bargeton, who denied Lucien as Lu- 
 cien had denied her in his mind, shuddered to think 
 that her cousin might learn the truth touching her 
 journey. 
 
 "I am in despair at having compromised you, 
 my dear cousin." 
 
 "I am not to be compromised," said Madame 
 d'Espard with a smile. "I am thinking only of 
 you." 
 
 "But you invited him to dine with you Monday." 
 
 "I shall be ill," replied the marchioness, hastily; 
 "you must write and tell him of it and I will give 
 my people orders to keep him out whichever name 
 he gives."
 
 It occurred to Lucien to walk in the foyer be- 
 tween the acts, as he saw that everybody seemed 
 to do it. In the first place, none of the men who 
 had come to Madame d'Espard's box bowed to him 
 or seemed to pay any attention to him, a fact 
 which seemed most extraordinary to the provincial 
 poet. In the second place, Chatelet, to whom he 
 attempted to cling, watched him out of the corner 
 of his eye and constantly avoided him. Having 
 become further convinced, after watching the men 
 who were strolling about the foyer, that his costume 
 was absurd, Lucien returned to his place in the 
 corner of the box and, during the remainder of the 
 performance, his mind was engrossed in turn by the 
 magnificent spectacle of the ballet in the fifth act, 
 famous for its representation of Hell; by the audi- 
 torium, where his eyes wandered from box to box, 
 and by his own reflections, which were most pro- 
 found in the presence of Parisian society. 
 
 "This is my kingdom," he said; "this is the 
 world I must conquer!" 
 
 He returned home on foot, musing on all that 
 had been said by the people who came to pay court 
 to Madame d'Espard; their manner, their gestures, 
 their way of entering and leaving the box, every- 
 thing came back to his memory with astonishing 
 accuracy. The next day, toward noon, he made it 
 
 (279)
 
 280 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 his business to call upon Staub, the most celebrated 
 tailor of the time. By dint of entreaties and by 
 the persuasive power of cash, he obtained a promise 
 that his clothes should be ready for the famous 
 Monday. Staub went so far as to promise him a 
 beautiful redingote, a waistcoat and a pair of 
 trousers for the decisive day. Lucien ordered 
 shirts and handkerchiefs, in short, a complete little 
 trousseau at a haberdasher's, and was measured for 
 boots and shoes by a famous bootmaker. He pur- 
 chased a pretty cane at Verdier's, gloves and shirt 
 buttons at Madame Irlande's; in a word, he tried to 
 place himself on the level of the dandies. When 
 he had satisfied all his fancies, he went to Rue 
 Neuve-de-Luxembourg and found that Louise had 
 gone out. 
 
 "She dines with Madame la Marquise d'Espard 
 and will not return till late," said Albertine. 
 
 Lucien dined for forty sous at a restaurant in the 
 Palais Royal and went to bed early. On Sunday 
 he called upon Louise about eleven o'clock; she had 
 not risen. He returned at two o'clock. 
 
 "Madame does not receive yet," said Albertine, 
 "but she gave me a little note for you." 
 
 "She doesn't receive yet?" Lucien repeated. 
 "But I am not—" 
 
 "I don't know," said Albertine with an imperti- 
 nent toss of her head. 
 
 Lucien, less surprised at Albertine's reply than 
 to receive a letter from Madame de Bargeton, took 
 the note and read these crushing words:
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 28 1 
 
 " Madame d'Espard is not well, she will not be able to re- 
 ceive you on Monday ; I am not well myself, and yet I am 
 going to dress and go and sit with her. I am in despair at 
 this difficulty ; but I am comforted when I think of your tal- 
 ents ; you will make your way without charlatanism." 
 
 "No signature!" said Lucien to himself, finding 
 himself in the Tuileries without any consciousness 
 of having walked thither. 
 
 The gift of second sight that talented men pos- 
 sess, made him suspect the catastrophe foreshadowed 
 by this cold note. Lost in his thoughts, he walked 
 straight ahead, staring at the monuments on Place 
 Louis XV. It was a beautiful day. Handsome 
 carriages rolled by him in endless succession on 
 their way to the broad Avenue des Champs-Elysees. 
 He followed the throng of promenaders and saw the 
 three or four thousand carriages that always drive 
 back and forth on a pleasant Sunday and make of 
 it an improvised Longchamp. Dazzled by the mag- 
 nificence of the horses, the toilets and the liveries, 
 he went on and on until he reached the Arc de Tri- 
 omphe, recently begun. What were his thoughts 
 when, as he turned back, he saw Madame de Barge- 
 ton and Madame d'Espard driving toward him in an 
 admirably appointed caleche, behind which appeared 
 the waving plumes of the footman, whose gold-em- 
 broidered green coat first drew his attention to them. 
 The long line of carriages stopped in consequence 
 of a block, and Lucien saw Louise in her trans- 
 formed state ; she was hardly recognizable : the colors 
 of her costume were chosen to suit her complexion;
 
 282 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 her dress was lovely; her hair was beautifully 
 arranged and became her wonderfully, and her 
 hat, which was in exquisite taste, was noticeable 
 even beside Madame d'Espard's, who ruled the 
 fashion. There is an indescribable way of wearing 
 a hat: put it a little too far back and you have a 
 brazen look; put it too far forward and you have a 
 cunning look ; on one side, your appearance becomes 
 rakish; but comme il faut women wear their hats 
 as they please and always look well. Madame de 
 Bargeton had instantly solved that curious problem. 
 A pretty girdle encircled her slender waist. She 
 had copied her cousin's manners and gestures; sit- 
 ting in the same attitude, she was playing with a 
 dainty smelling-bottle, attached to one of the fingers 
 of her right hand by a gold chain, and in that way 
 exhibited her shapely, well-gloved hand without 
 apparently intending to show it. In short, she had 
 made herself like Madame d'Espard without simply 
 aping her; she was the worthy cousin of the mar- 
 chioness, who seemed to be proud of her pupil. 
 The men and women who were walking on the foot- 
 way stared at the superb carriage with the arms of 
 the D'Espards and the Blamont-Chauvrys, the two 
 escutcheons being placed back to back. 
 
 Lucien was amazed at the great number of per- 
 sons who bowed to the cousins; he was not aware 
 that all Paris, which consists of about twenty 
 salons, already knew all about the relationship 
 between Madame de Bargeton and Madame d'Espard. 
 Young men on horseback, among whom Lucien
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 283 
 
 recognized De Marsay and Rastignac, rode beside 
 the caleche, to escort the cousins to the Bois. It 
 was easy for Lucien to see, by the actions of the 
 two fops, that they were complimenting Madame 
 de Bargeton on her metamorphosis. Madame 
 d'Espard was glowing with grace and health; her 
 indisposition therefore was simply a pretext for not 
 receiving Lucien, as she did not fix another day for 
 the dinner. The poet, in a frenzy, approached the 
 carriage, walking very slowly, and, when he was 
 within the two ladies' range of vision, bowed to 
 them: Madame de Bargeton pretended not to see 
 him, the marchioness stared at him through her 
 glass and did not acknowledge his salutation. The 
 reprobation of the Parisian aristocracy was not like 
 that of the sovereigns of Angouleme: by putting 
 themselves out to wound Lucien, the provincial 
 clodhoppers acknowledged his power and admitted 
 that he was a man; whereas, to Madame d'Espard, 
 he simply did not exist. It was not a decree, it 
 was a denial of justice. A deathly chill seized the 
 poor poet when De Marsay put his glass to his eye 
 and stared at him ; the Parisian let his glass drop 
 in such a peculiar way that it seemed to Lucien 
 like the knife of the guillotine. The caleche passed 
 on. Impotent rage, a mad thirst for vengeance, 
 seized upon the disdained youth; if he had had his 
 hands upon Madame de Bargeton, he would have 
 strangled her; he imagined himself Fouquier-Tin- 
 ville in order to have the pleasure of sending Ma- 
 dame d'Espard to the scaffold; he would have liked
 
 284 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 to subject De Marsay to one of the refined torments 
 invented by savages. He saw Canal is pass on 
 horseback, elegantly attired as befitted the most 
 flattering of poets, and saluting the prettiest women. 
 
 "My God! I must have money at any cost!" 
 cried Lucien; "Money is the only power at whose 
 feet these people kneel." — "No!" cried his con- 
 science, "but glory, and glory means work! Work! 
 that is David's watchword." — "My God! why am 
 I here? But I will triumph! I will drive along 
 this avenue with a carriage and footmen! I will 
 have Marquises d'Espard!" 
 
 With these frantic words on his lips, he dined at 
 Hurbain's for forty sous. The next morning at nine 
 o'clock, he called upon Louise to reproach her 
 for her barbarity; not only was Madame de Barge- 
 ton not at home to him, but the concierge would not 
 even admit him; he remained in the street, watch- 
 ing until noon. At noon, Chatelet came out, saw 
 the poet out of the corner of his eye and tried to 
 avoid him. Lucien, cut to the quick, pursued his 
 rival ; Chatelet, finding that he was hard pressed, 
 turned and bowed, with the evident intention of 
 making sail again at once after this act of courtesy. 
 
 "In pity's name, monsieur," said Lucien, "give 
 me one second of your time; I have a few words to 
 say to you. You have manifested some friendliness 
 to me, and I invoke your friendship to confer upon 
 me the most trivial of favors. You have just left 
 Madame de Bargeton ; tell me why I am in disgrace 
 with her and Madame d'Espard."
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 285 
 
 "Monsieur Chardon," replied Chatelet with 
 feigned kindliness, "do you know why those ladies 
 left you at the Opera?" 
 
 "No," said the poor poet. 
 
 "Well, you have been badly served from the be- 
 ginning by Monsieur de Rastignac. That young 
 dandy, when he was questioned about you, answered 
 baldly that your name was Chardon and not De 
 Rubempre; that your mother was a monthly nurse; 
 that your father in his lifetime was an apothecary 
 at L'Houmeau, a suburb of Angouleme; that your 
 sister was a charming girl who laundered shirts 
 beautifully, and that she was going to marry a 
 printer named Sechard. That is society! Put 
 yourself forward and it picks you to pieces. Mon- 
 sieur de Marsay came and laughed about you with 
 Madame d'Espard, and the two ladies took flight at 
 once, thinking that they would be compromised by 
 remaining with you. Don't try to call upon either 
 of them. Madame de Bargeton would not be re- 
 ceived by her cousin if she continued to see you. 
 You have genius, try to take your revenge. Society 
 looks down on you, look down on society. Take 
 refuge in an attic, produce a few masterpieces there, 
 seize upon power of some sort and you will see so- 
 ciety at your feet; then you will repay the wounds 
 it has inflicted on you in the same place where they 
 were so inflicted. The more friendship Madame 
 de Bargeton has shown you heretofore, the more 
 she will hold aloof from you now. That's the way 
 with a woman's sentiments. But at this moment,
 
 286 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 it's not a question of winning back Anais's friend- 
 ship, but of not making an enemy of her, and I will 
 tell you how to avoid it. She has written to you; 
 send back all her letters and she will appreciate 
 such a chivalrous proceeding; and later, if you need 
 her assistance, she won't be hostile to you. As for 
 myself, I have such an exalted opinion of your future, 
 that I have taken your part everywhere, and from 
 this time on, if I can do anything for you here, you 
 will find me always ready to do you a service." 
 
 Lucien was so dejected, so pale, so crushed, that 
 he did not return the parting salutation bestowed 
 upon him by the old beau, rejuvenated by the at- 
 mosphere of Paris. He returned to his hotel, where 
 he found Staub in person, who had come less for 
 the purpose of trying on his clothes, which however 
 he did try on, than to find out from the landlady of 
 the Gaillard-Bois, the financial standing of his un- 
 known customer. Lucien had arrived in Paris by 
 post, Madame de Bargeton had brought him home 
 from the Vaudeville in her carriage the preceding 
 Thursday. This information was satisfactory. 
 Staub called Lucien "Monsieur le Comte, " and 
 called his attention to the skill with which he had 
 set off his shapely figure. 
 
 "A young man dressed like that, can walk in the 
 Tuileries gardens," he said, "and marry a rich 
 Englishwoman in a fortnight." 
 
 The German tailor's pleasantry and the perfect 
 fit of his clothes, the fineness of the materials, the 
 grace which he discovered in his own person as he
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 287 
 
 looked himself over in the mirror, all these trifles 
 tended to make Lucien less melancholy. He said 
 to himself, vaguely, that Paris was the capital city 
 of chance, and for a moment he believed in chance. 
 Had he not a volume of poems and a magnificent 
 romance, the Archer de Charles IX., in manuscript? 
 He had great hopes of his destiny. Staub promised 
 the redingote and all the other garments for the next 
 day. The next day the bootmaker, the haberdasher 
 and the tailor appeared, all armed with their bills. 
 Lucien, not knowing how else to get rid of them, 
 and being still under the spell of provincial customs, 
 paid them ; but after he had paid them, he had but 
 three hundred and sixty francs left of the two thou- 
 sand francs he had brought from Angouleme; and 
 he had been in Paris a week ! However, he dressed 
 and went to take a turn on the Terrasse des Feuil- 
 lants. There he had his first taste of revenge. He 
 was so well dressed, so graceful, so handsome, that 
 several women looked at him, and two or three were 
 sufficiently impressed by his beauty to turn around. 
 Lucien studied the gait and the bearing of the young 
 men, and took his lesson in refined manners, think- 
 ing all the time of his three hundred and sixty 
 francs. In the evening, as he sat alone in his room, 
 it occurred to him that he might speedily solve the 
 problem of living at the Gaillard-Bois, where he 
 breakfasted on the simplest dishes, thinking that he 
 was economizing. He asked for his account, saying 
 that he proposed to change his quarters, and found 
 that he owed about a hundred francs.
 
 288 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 The next day he went to the Latin Quarter, 
 which David had recommended to him for cheap- 
 ness. After looking about a long while, he finally 
 found, on Rue de Cluny, near the Sorbonne, a 
 wretched, furnished hotel, where he hired a room 
 for the price he wanted to pay. He returned to the 
 Gaillard-Bois, paid his bill there, and took up his 
 abode on Rue de Cluny during the day. His change 
 of quarters cost him only one cab fare. 
 
 After he had taken possession of his poor room, 
 he put all Madame de Bargeton's letters together, 
 tied them in a little bundle, placed it on the table, 
 and, before writing to her, thought over the events 
 of that fatal week. He did not reflect that he him- 
 self had been the first to deny his love, when he 
 did not know what would become of his Louise in 
 Paris; he did not realize his own offence against 
 her, he simply saw his present situation, for which 
 he blamed Madame de Bargeton : instead of assist- 
 ing him, she had ruined him. He flew into a rage, 
 the rage of wounded pride, and wrote the following 
 letter in the paroxysm of his wrath: 
 
 "What would you say, madame, of a woman who had 
 been attracted by some poor, timid child, full of those noble 
 beliefs which, later in life, men call illusions, and who had 
 exerted the fascinations of coquetry, all the resources of her 
 wit and the most seductive pretence of maternal love to lead 
 that child astray? Neither the most flattering promises, nor 
 the card-houses which aroused his wondering admiration, 
 cost her anything ; she leads him away, she takes possession 
 of him, she scolds him for his lack of confidence and flatters 
 him turn and turn about ; when the child deserts his family
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 289 
 
 and follows her blindly, she leads him to the shore of a vast 
 sea, smilingly launches him upon it in a frail skiff and forces 
 him to meet its storms, alone and without resource ; then, 
 from the cliff where she stands, she laughs at him and wishes 
 him good luck. You are that woman; I am that child. In 
 that child's hands is a souvenir which might betray the 
 crimes of your benevolence and the blessing of your deser- 
 tion. You might have to blush when you see the child strug- 
 gling with the waves, if you should remember that you had 
 held him upon your bosom. When you read this letter, you 
 will have that souvenir in your hands. You are free to forget 
 everything. After the radiant hopes that your finger pointed 
 out to me in the sky, I see the reality of poverty in the gut- 
 ters of Paris. While you, brilliant and adored, journey 
 through the grandeurs of that world to whose threshold you 
 led me by the hand, I shall shiver with cold in the miserable 
 garret to which you have banished me. But perhaps remorse 
 will lay hold of you amid your festivities and your pleasures; 
 perhaps you will think of the child you have cast into an 
 abyss. If so, madame, think of him without, remorse ! From 
 the depths of his misery that child offers you the only thing 
 he has to offer, his forgiveness in one last glance. Yes, 
 madame, thanks to you, I have nothing left. Nothing ! But 
 was not the world made from nothing ? Genius should imi- 
 tate God : I begin by imitating His clemency, uncertain 
 whether I shall have His strength. You will have occasion 
 to tremble only if I go to the bad : then you will be accessory 
 to my sins. Alas ! I pity you because you cannot now count 
 for aught in the renown toward which my steps are tending 
 under the guidance of hard work." 
 
 Having indited this emphatic epistle, full of the 
 gloomy dignity which an artist of twenty-one often 
 exaggerates, Lucien's thoughts turned to his family : 
 he saw in his mind's eye the attractive apartments 
 that David had fitted up for him, sacrificing a part 
 19
 
 29O LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 of his fortune for that purpose ; he had a vision of 
 the tranquil, modest, bourgeois pleasures that he 
 had once enjoyed; the figures of his mother and 
 sister and David gathered about him, he heard again 
 the tears they shed at the time of his departure, 
 and he wept himself, for he was alone in Paris, 
 without friends, without protectors. 
 
 A few days later, he wrote as follows to his 
 sister: 
 
 "MY DEAR EVE, 
 
 " Sisters enjoy the melancholy privilege of espousing more 
 disappointments than pleasures when they share the exist- 
 ence of brothers devoted to art, and I begin to dread that I 
 may become a heavy burden to you. Have I not already im- 
 posed upon you all, who have sacrificed yourselves for me? 
 The memory of my past, replete with family joys, has helped 
 me to bear my present solitude. With what great rapidity, 
 like an eagle returning to his nest, have I traversed the dis- 
 tance that separates us, in order to find myself once more in 
 the sphere of genuine affection, after experiencing the first 
 miseries and the first disillusionment of Parisian society ! 
 Have your lights flickered? Have the firebrands on the 
 hearth turned over? Have your ears burned? Has my 
 mother said: ' Lucien is thinking of us?' Has David an- 
 swered : ' He is fighting against men and things ?' Dear 
 Eve, I am writing this letter to you alone. To you alone 
 should I dare to confide the good and the evil that may fall 
 to my lot, blushing equally for either, for the good is as rare 
 as the evil ought to be. I can tell you much in a few words : 
 Madame de Bargeton was ashamed of me, denied me, dis- 
 missed me, repudiated me the ninth day after my arrival. 
 When she saw me, she turned her head ; and I, in order to 
 follow her into the social set to which she proposed to intro- 
 duce me, had spent seventeen hundred and sixty francs out
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 291 
 
 of the two thousand I brought from Angouleme, after all the 
 difficulty we had in obtaining them ! — ' Spent for what?' you 
 will say. Ah! my poor sister, Paris is a terrible gulf: you 
 can dine here for eighteen sous, and the simplest dinner at a 
 fashionable restaurat costs fifty francs ; there are waistcoats 
 and trousers for four francs and for forty sous ; the fashion- 
 able tailors won't make them for less than a hundred francs. 
 It costs a sou to cross the gutters in the street, when it rains. 
 The very lowest cab fare is thirty-two sous. After living for 
 a while in the best quarter of the city, I am now at the Hotel 
 de Clutiy, Rue de Cluny, one of the meanest and darkest 
 little streets in Paris, cooped up between three churches and 
 the old buildings of the Sorbonne. 1 have a furnished room 
 on the fourth floor, and although it is very bare and dirty, I 
 pay fifteen francs a month for it. I breakfast on a two-sou 
 loaf and a sou's worth of milk, but I dine very comfortably 
 for twenty-two sous at the restaurat of one Flicoteaux, right 
 on the Place de la Sorbonne. Until winter comes, my ex- 
 penses won't exceed sixty francs a month, everything in- 
 cluded — at least I hope so. So my two hundred and forty 
 francs will be enough for the first four months. Between now 
 and then I have no doubt I shall sell the Archer de Charles IX. 
 and the Marguerites. So don't be at all alarmed on my ac- 
 count. Although the present is cold and bare and shabby, the 
 future is blue and rich and splendid. Most great men have 
 known the vicissitudes which disturb but do not crush me. 
 Plautus, a great comic poet, was a mill hand. Machiavelli 
 wrote The Prince in the evenings, after working with his 
 hands, on equal terms with other mechanics, during the day. 
 And the great Cervantes, too, who lost his arm in the battle 
 of Lepanto while contributing to that world-famous victory, 
 who was called an old one-armed wretch by the scribblers of his 
 day, allowed ten years to elapse between the first and second 
 parts of his Don Quixote, for lack of a publisher. We are 
 beyond that to-day. Disappointment and want fall to the lot 
 of none but unknown talents ; but, when they have forced 
 themselves into the light, authors become rich, and I shall be
 
 292 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 rich. I am living in my thoughts too. I pass half the day at 
 the Bibliotheque Sainte-Genevieve, where I am acquiring such 
 information as 1 lack, without which I could make little prog- 
 ress. To-day, therefore, I am almost happy. Within a few 
 days I have joyously adapted my life to my circumstances. I 
 devote myself from daybreak to work that I love ; my ma- 
 terial wants are certainly provided for ; I meditate much, I 
 study, I do not see how I can now be wounded, after renoun- 
 cing society, where my vanity might suffer at any moment. 
 The illustrious men of any age are bound to live by them- 
 selves. Are they not the birds of the forest? they sing, they 
 charm nature, and no one can see them. So will I do, pro- 
 vided that I can realize the ambitious projects 1 have formed. 
 I do not regret Madame de Bargeton. A woman who acts as 
 she acted, does not deserve to be remembered. Nor do I regret 
 having left Angouleme. That woman did well in casting me 
 loose in Paris and leaving me to my own resources. This is 
 the land of writers, of thinkers, of poets. Here only can the 
 seeds of glory be sown, and I know of fair crops that they 
 are producing to-day. Here only can writers find, in museums 
 and collections, the ever-living works of the geniuses of the 
 past, who kindle and stimulate the imagination. Here only 
 do enormous libraries, always accessible, afford the mind in- 
 formation and abundant pasturage. Lastly, there is in Paris, 
 in the air and in the most trifling details, a living inspiration 
 that leaves its mark upon literary productions. One can 
 learn more in conversation at the cafe' or the theatre in half 
 an hour, than in the provinces in ten years. Here, in truth, 
 everything is spectacular, everything is comparison and in- 
 struction. Excessive cheapness and excessive dearness, that 
 is Paris in a nutshell, a place where every bee finds its cell, 
 where every mind assimilates whatever is adapted to it. 
 Therefore, although I suffer at this moment, I do not repent. 
 On the contrary, a glorious future is unfolding before me and 
 consoles my heart in this moment of sorrow. Adieu, my 
 dear sister. Do not expect letters from me regularly : one of 
 the peculiarities of Paris is that one never realizes how time
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 293 
 
 flies. Life moves at an alarming speed. I embrace my 
 mother, David and yourself more lovingly than ever." 
 
 Flicoteaux is a name inscribed in many memories. 
 There were few students who boarded in the Latin 
 Quarter during the first twelve years of the Resto- 
 ration who did not resort to that temple of hunger 
 and want. The dinner, consisting of three courses, 
 cost eighteen sous with a quarter of a bottle of wine or 
 a bottle of beer, and twenty-two sous with a bottle of 
 wine. The thing that undoubtedly prevented this 
 friend of youth from making a colossal fortune was 
 an item of the bill of fare printed in great letters in 
 the advertisements of his rivals, and thus con- 
 ceived: Bread at your discretion, that is to 
 say, to indiscretion. Many great reputations have 
 had Flicoteaux for foster-father. Certainly the 
 heart of more than one illustrious man must be joy- 
 fully conscious of innumerable pleasant recollections 
 as he sees the cafe front with little square windows 
 looking on Place de la Sorbonne and Rue Neuve-de- 
 Richelieu, which Flicoteaux II. or III. had left un- 
 touched, before the days of July, allowing it to 
 retain the dingy hue, the ancient and respectable 
 air which denoted profound contempt for the char- 
 latanism of the outer world, a sort of advertisement 
 for the eyes at the expense of the stomach adopted 
 by almost all the restaurateurs of to-day. Instead 
 of the quantities of stuffed birds, not intended to be 
 cooked, instead of the impossible fishes which jus- 
 tify the clown's jest: "I have seen a fine carp and
 
 294 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 1 mean to buy it a week hence;" instead of the 
 early fruit, which should be called late fruit, dis- 
 played in fallacious tiers for the pleasure of cor- 
 porals and their sweethearts, honest Flicoteaux 
 exhibited divers salad-bowls embellished with many 
 a patch, wherein stewed prunes rejoiced the gaze of 
 the customer, who was assured that the word des- 
 sert, which was too lavishly used in other advertise- 
 ments, was not a delusion and a snare. The 
 six-pound loaves, cut in four pieces, removed all 
 doubt as to the unlimited supply of bread. Such 
 were the luxurious surroundings of an establishment 
 which, had it existed in his time, Moliere would 
 have made famous, so amusing is the epigram of 
 the name. Flicoteaux still lives; he will live as 
 long as students desire to live. They go there to 
 eat, nothing less, nothing more; but they eat there 
 as they work, with gloomy or joyous activity, ac- 
 cording to their dispositions or the circumstances of 
 their lives. 
 
 This celebrated establishment consisted at this 
 time of two long, narrow, low rooms, at right angles 
 to each other, one on Place de la Sorbonne, the 
 other on Rue Neuve-de-Richelieu; both were sup- 
 plied with tables from some abbey refectory, for 
 their length was decidedly monastic, and they were 
 always laid for one meal or another, with the nap- 
 kins of the regular customers in numbered tin nap- 
 kin-rings. Flicoteaux I. changed the table linen on 
 Sundays only; but Flicoteaux II. changed it twice 
 a week, so it was said, as soon as his supremacy
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 295 
 
 was threatened by his rivals. The restaurant is a 
 workshop with its tools rather than a banquet hall 
 with its luxury and its aids to enjoyment; everyone 
 leaves it as promptly as possible. Within, every- 
 thing is swift movement. The waiters come and 
 go without sauntering, they are all busy, all neces- 
 sary. The dishes show but little variety. The 
 potato is everlasting; if there were no potatoes in 
 Ireland, if the crop should fail everywhere else, you 
 would still find them at Flicoteaux's. They have 
 been served there for thirty years, of the blond hue 
 affected by Titian, surrounded by chopped herbs, 
 and they enjoy a privilege much desired by women : 
 as you found them in 1814, so you will find them in 
 1840. Mutton cutlets and filet of beef are to the 
 menu of that establishment what woodcock and filet 
 of sturgeon are to Very's, special dishes which must 
 be ordered in the morning. The female of the ox 
 is the principal resource, and her son is much in 
 evidence in the most ingenious shapes. When the 
 whiting and mackerel make their appearance off 
 shore they bob up in Flicoteaux's larder. There 
 everything corresponds with the vicissitudes of 
 agriculture and the caprice of the French seasons. 
 You can learn there things that are not even sus- 
 pected by the wealthy, the indolent and those who 
 are indifferent to nature's varying phases. The 
 student who is penned up in the Latin Quarter can 
 obtain there the most exact knowledge of the crops: 
 he knows when it is a good year for beans and peas, 
 when the market is overflowing with cabbage, what
 
 296 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 material for salad is most abundant and whether the 
 beet-root has failed. An old calumny, revived 
 about the time Lucien first went there, consisted in 
 attributing the appearance of beefsteaks to some 
 epidemic among horses. 
 
 Few Parisian restaurants present such a fine 
 spectacle. There you find only youth and confi- 
 dence, poverty cheerfully endured, although there 
 are not lacking ardent and sober faces and clouded 
 and anxious ones. The costumes are generally 
 careless. For that reason well-dressed customers 
 attract attention. Everyone knows that the un- 
 usual garb means: an appointment with a mistress, 
 a theatre party or a call in a higher sphere. It is 
 said that friendships have been cemented there be- 
 tween students who have subsequently become 
 famous, as we shall see in the course of this narra- 
 tive. Nevertheless, except for the young men from 
 the same province grouped at one end of a table, 
 the diners, generally speaking, have a gravity of 
 demeanor which is not easily melted, perhaps be- 
 cause of the catholicity of the wine, which is not 
 calculated to cause a flow of spirits. Those who 
 have patronized Flicoteaux's will remember several 
 dark-browed mysterious personages, enveloped in 
 the mists of utter destitution, who dined there per- 
 haps for two years and disappeared, without a ray 
 of light concerning these Parisian jack-o'-lanterns 
 having ever reached the eyes of the most inquisitive 
 habitues. The friendships begun at Flicoteaux's 
 are cemented in the neighboring cafes with the
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 297 
 
 flames of a glowing punch, or the heat of a small 
 cup of coffee, laced with some fiery liqueur. 
 
 During the early days of his abode at the Hotel 
 de Cluny, Lucien, like all neophytes, was regular 
 and modest in his habits. After the sad experience 
 of fashionable life that had absorbed all his capital, 
 he plunged into work with the initial ardor that is 
 so quickly cooled by the obstacles and distractions 
 which Paris presents to all lives, the most luxurious 
 as well as the poorest, and which, in order to be 
 overcome, demand the savage energy of real talent 
 or the dogged persistence of ambition. Lucien 
 would drop in at Flicoteaux's about half-past four, 
 having discovered the advantage of being among the 
 first to arrive; the dishes were then more varied, 
 and one's favorite was not likely to be exhausted. 
 Like all poetic minds, he had taken a fancy to a 
 particular location, and his choice exhibited much 
 discernment. On his first visit to the place, he had 
 noticed, near the desk, a certain table at which the 
 faces of the guests, as well as such snatches of their 
 conversation as he could catch on the wing, betrayed 
 comrades in the literary profession. Moreover, he 
 instinctively guessed that by taking a seat near the 
 desk, he would have an opportunity to talk with the 
 proprietors. Sooner or later he would make their 
 acquaintance, and then, if he should become em- 
 barrassed pecuniarily, doubtless he would be able 
 to obtain such credit as he might need. He had 
 taken his seat therefore at a small square table 
 beside the desk, where he saw only two covers
 
 298 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 supplied with white napkins without rings, and 
 intended probably for transient guests. Lucien's 
 vis-a-vis was a thin, pale, young man, probably as 
 poor as himself, whose handsome face, already 
 pinched by want, announced that vanished hopes 
 had fatigued his brow and left in his heart furrows 
 wherein the seeds sown did not take root. Lucien 
 felt impelled toward the stranger by these vestiges 
 of a poetic nature and by an irresistible outflow of 
 sympathy. 
 
 This young man, the first with whom the An- 
 goule'me poet succeeded in opening a conversation 
 after a week of polite attentions, words and brief 
 sentences exchanged, was named Etienne Lousteau. 
 Some two years before, Etienne, like Lucien, had 
 left his native province, Berri. His animated ges- 
 tures, his gleaming eyes, his sometimes abrupt 
 speech, indicated a bitter acquaintance with literary 
 life. Etienne had come from Sancerre, his tragedy 
 in his pocket, attracted by the same things that 
 pointed the way to Lucien : glory, power, wealth. 
 At first he dined at the restaurant several days in 
 succession, but before long he appeared only at in- 
 tervals. When Lucien met his poet again after 
 five or six days' absence, he hoped to see him the 
 next day as well, but the next day his place was 
 taken by a stranger. When two young men have 
 met and conversed yesterday, the flame of that 
 day's conversation is reflected upon to-day's; but 
 these long intervals compelled Lucien to break the 
 ice anew every time, and retarded the progress of
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 299 
 
 an intimacy that advanced but slowly during the 
 first weeks. By dint of questioning the female at the 
 desk, Lucien learned that his future friend was the 
 manager of a small newspaper, for which he wrote 
 reviews of new books and acted as critic at the 
 Ambigu-Comique, the Gaiete and the Panorama- 
 Dramatique. The young man suddenly became a 
 personage in Lucien's eyes, who determined to be a 
 little more personal in his next attempt at conver- 
 sation, and to make some sacrifices in order to ob- 
 tain a friendship so necessary to a beginner. 
 
 The journalist was absent a fortnight. Lucien 
 did not as yet know that Etienne dined at Flico- 
 teaux's only when he had no money, a circum- 
 stance that accounted for the gloomy, discontented 
 expression, the coldness of manner, which Lucien 
 met with flattering smiles and soft words. Never- 
 theless, this connection demanded mature reflection, 
 for this obscure journalist seemed to lead an ex- 
 travagant life, a succession of petits verres, cups of 
 coffee, bowls of punch, plays and supper-parties. 
 Now, during the early days of his sojourn in the 
 quarter, Lucien's conduct was that of a poor child 
 bewildered by his first experience of Parisian life. 
 And so, after he had studied the price of the differ- 
 ent articles of food and weighed his purse, Lucien 
 did not dare adopt Etienne's ways, dreading to be- 
 gin again the blunders that he still repented. Still 
 under the yoke of provincial customs, his two 
 guardian angels, Eve and David, appeared before 
 him at the least evil thought, and reminded him of
 
 300 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 the hopes reposed in him, his responsibility for his 
 old mother's happiness, and all the promises of his 
 genius. He passed his mornings at the Bibliotheque 
 Sainte-Genevieve studying history. His first re- 
 searches had shown him horrible errors in his 
 Archer de Charles IX. When the library closed, 
 he returned to his damp, cold room to correct his 
 work, rearrange it, suppress whole chapters. After 
 dining atFlicoteaux's, he went down to the Passage 
 du Commerce, to Blosse's bookstall, and read the 
 recent publications, the newspapers, the reviews 
 and the new poems, in order to keep abreast of the 
 intellectual movement of the time, and returned to 
 his wretched hotel about midnight, having used no 
 fuel or light. All this reading wrought such a 
 change in his ideas, that he reviewed his collection 
 of sonnets upon flowers, his cherished Marguerites, 
 and worked them over so thoroughly that not a hun- 
 dred lines were retained. 
 
 Thus Lucien at first led the pure and innocent 
 life of poor boys from the provinces, who find the 
 Flicoteaux fare luxurious when compared with the 
 paternal table, whose recreation consists in slow 
 promenades through the paths at the Luxembourg, 
 casting sheep's eyes at the pretty women while 
 the blood beats madly in their veins, who never 
 leave the quarter and who devote themselves re- 
 ligiously to hard work, thinking of their future. 
 But Lucien, a born poet, often the victim of most 
 intense longings, was powerless against the seduc- 
 tions of the theatre posters. The Theatre-Francais,
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 301 
 
 the Vaudeville, the Varietes, the Opera-Comique, 
 where he sat in the pit, relieved him of about 
 sixty francs. What student could resist the joy of 
 seeing Talma in the roles he has made famous? 
 The theatre, the first love of all poetic minds, fas- 
 cinated Lucien. The actors and actresses seemed 
 to him imposing personages; he did not believe in 
 the possibility of passing the footlights and knowing 
 them familiarly. The authors of his pleasure were 
 to him marvelous beings whom the newspapers 
 treated like important affairs of state. To be a dra- 
 matic author, to see one's works performed — what 
 a fondly cherished dream ! Some audacious mortals, 
 like Casimir Delavigne, had seen that dream come 
 true ! These pregnant thoughts, these moments of 
 faith in himself, followed by despair, acted power- 
 fully upon Lucien, and kept him in the blessed path 
 of work and economy, despite the sullen grumbling 
 of more than one frenzied desire. With excessive 
 prudence he made it his rule never to enter the 
 Palais-Royal, that abode of perdition, where, in a 
 single day, he had spent fifty francs at Very's and 
 nearly five hundred francs in clothes. And so, 
 when he yielded to the temptation to see Talma, 
 the two Baptistes, Fleury or Michot, he went no 
 farther than the dark gallery where people stood in 
 line from half-past five and where belated ones were 
 obliged to pay ten sous a place in the line near the 
 office. Often the words : There are no more tickets ! 
 rang in the ears of more than one disappointed 
 student, who had stood there more than two hours.
 
 302 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 After the play, Lucien would return home, with 
 downcast eyes, paying no heed to the scenes in the 
 streets, which were well supplied with living 
 seductions. Perhaps some of those adventures may 
 have happened to him, which, though exceedingly 
 simple, occupy an enormous place in young and 
 timorous imaginations. Alarmed by the rapid 
 diminution of his capital, one day when he was 
 counting over his remaining stock, Lucien had a 
 cold shiver at the thought that he must make in- 
 quiries for a publisher and seek work for which he 
 would be paid. The young journalist, who was 
 the only friend he had made, no longer came to 
 Flicoteaux's. Lucien awaited some lucky chance 
 which did not turn up. At Paris there is no such 
 thing as chance except for people who have a very 
 wide circle of acquaintance; the chances of success 
 in every direction increase in proportion to the 
 number of one's relations, and chance too is on the 
 side of the larger battalions. Like a man in whom 
 the proverbial forehandedness of provincials was 
 not yet extinct, Lucien did not choose to wait until 
 he had only a crown or two left; he determined 
 to confront the publishers.
 
 One sharp morning in the month of September, 
 he walked down Rue de la Harpe, his two manu- 
 scripts under his arm. He went as far as Quai 
 des Augustins and along the sidewalk there, looking 
 alternately at the waters of the Seine and the book- 
 shops, as if some kind spirit were advising him to 
 plunge into the water rather than to plunge into 
 literature. After much painful hesitation, after a 
 profound scrutiny of the faces, more or less amiable, 
 attractive, repellent, cheerful or dejected, which he 
 saw through the windows or standing in the door- 
 ways, he pitched upon a house in front of which 
 several clerks were busily engaged packing books. 
 Business was very brisk; the walls were covered 
 with placards: 
 
 FOR SALE: 
 Le Solitaire, by Monsieur le Vicomte d'Arlin- 
 court, 3d edition. 
 
 LEONIDE, by Victor Ducange, 5 volumes, i2mo, 
 printed on superfine paper. Price, 12 francs. 
 
 Inductions Morales, by Keratry. 
 
 "Those men are fortunate!" cried Lucien. 
 
 The poster, a new and original creation of the 
 famous Ladvocat, had recently made its first appear- 
 ance on the walls. Paris was soon bespangled by 
 
 (303)
 
 304 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 advertisements of this sort, one of the sources of 
 public revenue. At last, his heart swollen with 
 excitement and anxiety, Lucien, lately such a great 
 man in Angouleme and now so small in Paris, 
 glided along by the intervening houses and mustered 
 up courage to enter the shop, which was crowded 
 with clerks, customers and booksellers. "And per- 
 haps with authors!" thought Lucien. 
 
 "I would like to speak with Monsieur Vidal or 
 Monsieur Porchon," he said to a clerk. 
 
 He had read in great letters on the sign: 
 
 Vidal and Porchon, 
 
 Booksellers on Commission for France and Foreign 
 
 Countries. 
 
 "Both those gentlemen are engaged," said the 
 clerk. 
 
 "I will wait." 
 
 They left the poet in the shop examining the 
 books; he passed nearly two hours looking at titles, 
 opening books, reading a page here and there. At 
 last he rested his shoulder against a glass door with 
 little green curtains, behind which he suspected 
 that either Vidal or Porchon was, and overheard the 
 following conversation: 
 
 "Will you take five hundred copies ? In that case, 
 I will let you have them at five francs and give you 
 the double thirteenth." 
 
 "What price does that make them?" 
 
 "Sixteen sous less."
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 305 
 
 "Four francs four sous," said either Vidal or Por- 
 chon to the man who was offering his books. 
 
 "Yes," the vender replied. 
 
 "On credit?" queried the purchaser. 
 
 "You old rascal! and you would settle with me 
 eighteen months hence with notes to run a year, 
 eh?" 
 
 "No, to be adjusted at once," replied Vidal or 
 Porchon. 
 
 "On what time? Nine months?" inquired the 
 author or publisher who seemed to have a book to 
 sell. 
 
 "No, my dear man, a year," replied that one of 
 the commission merchants with whom he was 
 talking. 
 
 There was silence for a moment. 
 
 "You have me by the throat!" cried the un- 
 known. 
 
 "But do you suppose we shall have disposed of 
 five hundred copies of Leonide in a year?" retorted 
 the commission merchant to Victor Ducange's pub- 
 lisher. "If books sold as publishers would like to 
 have them, we should all be millionaires, my dear 
 master; but they sell to suit the public. Walter 
 Scott's novels are sold at eighteen sous the volume, 
 three francs twelve the whole work, and do you 
 suppose 1 can sell your trash at a higher price? If 
 you want me to push your story for you, make it 
 an object for me. — Vidal !" 
 
 A fat man left the desk and approached, with a 
 pen behind his ear. 
 20
 
 306 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 "In your last trip, how many copies of Ducange's 
 books did you sell?" Porchon asked him. 
 
 "I sold two hundred of the Petit Vieillard de 
 Calais ; but in order to do it I had to cry down two 
 other works on which we didn't get such good com- 
 missions, and which afterwards became very pretty 
 rossignols." 
 
 Later Lucien learned that this sobriquet of ros- 
 signol — literally, nightingale, — was given by book- 
 sellers to works which remained stowed away upon 
 shelves in the dark depths of their shops. 
 
 "You know, too," added Vidal, "that Picard has 
 novels in press. They promise us twenty per cent 
 commission on the regular bookseller's price, in 
 order to give them a successful start." 
 
 "Well, let it be for a year then," replied the 
 publisher piteously, crushed by this last confidential 
 remark of Vidal to Porchon. 
 
 "Is it agreed?" Porchon asked him abruptly. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 The publisher took his leave, and Lucien heard 
 Porchon say to Vidal : 
 
 "We have three hundred copies ordered; we'll 
 postpone his settlement, we'll sell the ttonide at a 
 hundred sous a copy, we'll make the purchasers 
 settle in six months, and — " 
 
 "And there are fifteen hundred francs in our 
 pockets," rejoined Vidal. 
 
 "Oh! I saw that he was very hard up." 
 
 "He's in trouble up to his ears ! he pays Ducange 
 four thousand francs for two thousand copies."
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 307 
 
 Lucien stopped Vidal as he came out through the 
 little door of the cage. 
 
 "Messieurs," he said to the partners, "I have the 
 honor to salute you." 
 
 The commission merchants hardly returned his 
 salutation. 
 
 "I am the author of a historical romance after 
 the style of Walter Scott, entitled L' Archer de 
 Charles IX. I should be very glad if you would 
 purchase it." 
 
 Porchon glanced coldly at Lucien and laid his pen 
 on his desk. Vidal looked at the poet with a brutal 
 expression and replied: 
 
 "Monsieur, we are not publishers, we are com- 
 mission merchants. When we print a book on our 
 own account, it is an undertaking that we enter 
 into only with well-known names. Furthermore, we 
 purchase none but serious books, histories, sum- 
 maries." 
 
 "But my book is very serious; it is an attempt 
 to depict in its true light the struggle between the 
 Catholics who adhered to the absolute monarchy, 
 and the Protestants who wished to establish a re- 
 public." 
 
 "Monsieur Vidal!" cried a clerk. 
 
 Vidal disappeared. 
 
 "I don't undertake to say, monsieur, that your 
 book may not be a masterpiece," Porchon con- 
 tinued, with a decidedly discourteous gesture, "but 
 we deal only in books that are already printed. Go 
 and see the men who buy manuscripts: Pere
 
 308 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 Doguereau, Rue du Coq, near the Louvre; he's one 
 of those who go in for novels. If you had spoken 
 sooner, you might have seen Pollet, the rival of 
 Doguereau and of the booksellers of the wooden 
 galleries." 
 
 "Monsieur, I have a collection of poems — " 
 
 "Monsieur Porchon!" some one called. 
 
 "Poetry!" cried Porchon angrily. "What do 
 you take me for, eh?" he added, laughing in his 
 face, as he disappeared in his back shop. 
 
 Lucien crossed Pont Neuf, buried in thought. 
 The little that he had understood of this commercial 
 jargon led him to believe that, in the eyes of those 
 dealers, books were what cotton nightcaps are to 
 capmakers, — simply an article of merchandise to be 
 bought cheap and sold dear. 
 
 "I have made a mistake," he said, impressed 
 nevertheless by the brutal and material aspect his 
 late experience imparted to literature. 
 
 He spied on Rue du Coq a modest shop which he 
 had already passed, bearing these words in yellow 
 letters on a green background : DOGUEREAU, BOOK- 
 SELLER. He remembered that he had seen those 
 words at the foot of the title page in several of the 
 novels he had glanced over at Blosse's bookstall. 
 He entered, not without that internal trepidation 
 which the certainty of a conflict causes in all men of 
 imagination. He found in the shop an old man of cu- 
 rious appearance, one of the original figures of the 
 book trade under the Empire. Doguereau wore a 
 black coat with enormous square skirts, whereas it
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 309 
 
 was the prevailing fashion to cut frockcoats in the 
 shape of a codfish's tail. He had a waistcoat of 
 cheap material with squares of various colors, from 
 which hung, in the region of the fob, a steel chain and 
 a copper key, which dangled against his very full 
 black breeches. The watch must have been of the 
 size of an onion. His costume was completed by iron- 
 gray milled stockings, and shoes embellished with 
 silver buckles. The old man's bare head was 
 decorated with grizzly locks, poetically sparse in 
 quantity. 
 
 Pere Doguereau, as Porchon called him, suggested 
 the professor of belles-letters by his coat, his 
 breeches and his shoes, and the tradesman by his 
 waistcoat, his watch and his stockings. His coun- 
 tenance did not contradict that strange combination: 
 he had the magisterial, dogmatic air, the wrinkled 
 face of the instructor in rhetoric, and the bright 
 eyes, the suspicious mouth, the vague restlessness 
 of the publisher. 
 
 "Monsieur Doguereau?" queried Lucien. 
 
 "I am the man, monsieur." 
 
 "I am the author of a novel," said Lucien. 
 
 "You are very young," replied the bookseller. 
 
 "But my age has nothing to do with the matter, 
 monsieur." 
 
 "True," said the old man taking the manuscript. 
 "Ah! deuce take me! L' Archer de Charles IX.! a 
 good title. Come, young man, tell me your sub- 
 ject in two words." 
 
 "It is a historical work, monsieur, after the
 
 310 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 style of Walter Scott, in which the struggle between 
 the Protestants and Catholics is presented as a con- 
 flict between two systems of government, in which 
 the throne was seriously threatened. I have taken 
 sides with the Catholics." 
 
 "An original idea, young man, on my word! 
 Well, I will read your book, I promise you. I should 
 have preferred a novel after the style of Madame 
 Radcliffe; but if you are a worker, if you have a 
 little style, originality, ideas, and the art of giving 
 them the proper stage-setting, I ask nothing better 
 than to be of service to you. What do we need ? — 
 good manuscripts." 
 
 "When may I come again?" 
 
 "I am going to the country this evening and shall 
 return the day after to-morrow; I shall have read 
 your work meanwhile, and if it suits me, we can 
 come to terms that same day." 
 
 Lucien, finding him such an agreeable old fellow, 
 conceived the fatal idea of producing the manuscript 
 of Les Marguerites. 
 
 "I have also written a number of poems, mon- 
 sieur — " 
 
 "Ah! you're a poet! I want nothing to do with 
 your novel then," said the old man, handing him 
 the manuscript. "Rhymesters make a mess of it 
 when they try to write prose. In prose, there's no 
 poetic license, you must really say something." 
 
 "But, monsieur, Walter Scott wrote verses too — " 
 
 "So he did," said Doguereau, and he softened 
 his tone, guessed at the young man's penurious
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 311 
 
 condition and kept the manuscript. "Where do you 
 live? I will come and see you." 
 
 Lucien gave his address without the least sus- 
 picion of any hidden motive on the old man's part; 
 he did not recognize in him the publisher of the old 
 school, a survivor of the days when publishers 
 strove to keep Voltaire and Montesquieu under lock 
 and key in an attic, dying of hunger. 
 
 "I have just this moment come through the Latin 
 Quarter," said the old man after he had read the 
 address. 
 
 "What a fine fellow!" thought Lucien as he took 
 leave of the bookseller. "I have fallen in with a 
 friend of young men, a connoisseur who knows 
 something. Talk to me! It's just as I told David, 
 true talent makes its way easily enough in Paris." 
 
 Lucien returned home happy and light of heart; 
 he was dreaming of glory. Forgetting the words 
 of sinister import that had fallen upon his ear in 
 Vidal and Porchon's counting-room, he fancied him- 
 self already in possession of twelve hundred francs. 
 Twelve hundred francs represented a year's stay 
 in Paris, a year, during which he would produce 
 new works. How many projects did he build upon 
 that hope ! How many sweet dreams did he dream, 
 when he saw his livelihood fairly established upon 
 hard work! He arranged his rooms to the best ad- 
 vantage, and was very near making some pur- 
 chases. He allayed his impatience only by reading 
 incessantly at Blosse's bookstall. Two days later 
 old Doguereau, surprised at the style displayed by
 
 312 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 Lucien in his first work, enchanted by the exagger- 
 ation of the characters, quite permissible in dealing 
 with the epoch in which the scene of the romance 
 was laid, and impressed by the imaginative ardor 
 with which a young author sketches his first plot — 
 Pere Doguereau was not spoiled ! — came to the hotel 
 where his Walter Scott in germ had his abode. He 
 had decided to pay a thousand francs outright for 
 the manuscript of L' Archer de Charles IX., and to 
 bind Lucien by an agreement for several works to 
 be produced. When he saw the hotel, the old fox 
 revised his decision. 
 
 "A young man who lives in such a place as 
 that has only modest tastes; he loves study and 
 hard work; I need give him only eight hundred 
 francs." 
 
 The landlady, when he inquired for Monsieur Lu- 
 cien de Rubempre, replied: 
 
 "Fourth floor." 
 
 The bookseller looked up and saw nothing but the 
 sky above the fourth floor. 
 
 "This young man," he thought, "is a pretty 
 fellow, indeed he's very handsome; if he should 
 earn too much money, he would plunge into dissi- 
 pation and wouldn't work. In our common interest, 
 I will offer him six hundred francs; but in cash, not 
 notes." 
 
 He ascended the stairs and knocked thrice on Lu- 
 cien's door, which was opened by Lucien himself. 
 The room was desperately bare. There was a bowl 
 of milk and a two-sou roll on the table. Goodman
 
 L'ARCHER DE CHARLES IX. 
 
 When he saw the hotel, the old fox revised his 
 decision. 
 
 "A young man who lives in such a place as that 
 has only modest tastes; he loves study and hard 
 work ; I need give him only eight hundred francs? 
 ********* 
 
 He ascended the stairs and knocked thrice on 
 Lucia? s door, which was opened by Lucien himself. 
 The room was desperately bare.
 
 , '
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 3 13 
 
 Doguereau was deeply impressed to find genius in 
 such destitute circumstances. 
 
 "Let him preserve these simple manners," he 
 thought, "this frugality, these modest needs. — It 
 gives me pleasure to see you," he said to Lucien. 
 "This, monsieur, is the way Jean- Jacques lived, 
 whose career yours is likely to resemble in more 
 ways than one. In such lodgings as these, the fire 
 of genius burns and great works are produced. 
 This is how men of letters ought to live, instead of 
 gormandizing in cafes and restaurants, and wasting 
 their time and talent and our money there." 
 
 He sat down. 
 
 "Young man, your novel is not bad. I have 
 been a professor of rhetoric and I know the history 
 of France; there are some excellent things in it. 
 In fact, you have a future." 
 
 "Ah! monsieur." 
 
 "I tell you, we can afford to do business together. 
 1 will buy your novel — " 
 
 Lucien's heart expanded, he breathed freely; he 
 was about to enter the world of literature, his work 
 would be printed at last. 
 
 "1 will buy it of you for four hundred francs," 
 said Doguereau sweetly, glancing at Lucien with 
 an expression that seemed to proclaim a great ex- 
 hibition of generosity. 
 
 "Four hundred francs the volume?" queried 
 Lucien. 
 
 "The whole novel," said Doguereau, betraying 
 no astonishment at Lucien's surprise. "But," he
 
 314 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 added, "it will be cash down. You will undertake 
 to write two novels a year for me for six years. 
 If the first is exhausted in six months, I will pay 
 you six hundred francs for those that come after. 
 Thus, by writing two a year, you will have a 
 hundred francs a month, your living will be assured 
 and you will be very fortunate. 1 have some authors 
 to whom I pay only three hundred francs a novel. I 
 give two hundred francs for a translation from the 
 English. Formerly this price would have been 
 considered exorbitant." 
 
 "We cannot make a bargain, monsieur; I beg 
 you to return my manuscript," said Lucien, in a 
 freezing tone. 
 
 "There you are," said the old bookseller. "You 
 know nothing about business, monsieur. In pub- 
 lishing an author's first novel, a publisher has to 
 risk sixteen hundred francs for the paper and print- 
 ing. It's easier to write a novel than to find such 
 a sum of money as that. I have the manuscripts of 
 a hundred novels at my shop, and I haven't a hun- 
 dred and sixty thousand francs in my cash-box. 
 Alas ! I haven't made as much as that in the twenty 
 years I've been in the business. Fortunes are not 
 to be made at the trade of publishing novels. Vidal 
 and Porchon won't take them from us except on 
 conditions that become every day more burdensome 
 to us. Where you risk only your time, I have to 
 put out two thousand francs. If we make a mis- 
 take — for habent sua fata libelli — I lose two thou- 
 sand francs, while you have simply to dash off an
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 315 
 
 ode on the subject of public stupidity. After you 
 have meditated upon what I have the honor to say 
 to you, you will come and see me again. — You will 
 come to me again," the bookseller repeated author- 
 itatively, in reply to a gesture of superb disdain on 
 Lucien's part. "Far from finding a publisher who 
 will risk two thousand francs for a young and un- 
 known man, you won't find a clerk who will take 
 the trouble to read your scrawl. I, who have read 
 it, can point out several errors in your French. 
 You have put observer for faire observer, and you 
 say malgr'e que : Malgre takes a direct object." 
 
 Lucien seemed humiliated. 
 
 "When I see you again, you will have lost a 
 hundred francs," added Doguereau, "for then I 
 will give you only three hundred." 
 
 He rose and bowed, but on the threshold he 
 stopped and said : 
 
 "If you had not talent and a future, if I were not 
 interested in studious young men, I would not have 
 proposed such advantageous terms. A hundred 
 francs a month! Think of it. After all, a novel in 
 a drawer isn't like a horse in the stable, it doesn't 
 eat any food. Upon my word, they don't give as 
 much for them now!" 
 
 Lucien took his manuscript and threw it on the 
 floor, crying: 
 
 "I would rather burn it, monsieur!" 
 
 "You have a poet's head," said the old man. 
 
 Lucien devoured his roll, swallowed his milk and 
 went downstairs. His room was not large enough;
 
 316 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 he could do nothing there but pace back and forth 
 like a lion in its cage at the Jardin des Plantes. 
 At the Bibliotheque Sainte-Genevieve, whither he 
 purposed going, he had often noticed, always in the 
 same corner, a young man of about twenty-five 
 years, working with that sustained application 
 which nothing distracts or disturbs, and by which 
 genuine literary workmen can always be recognized. 
 Evidently the young man had long been a frequenter 
 of the library, for the attendants and the librarian 
 himself were most obliging to him; the librarian 
 allowed him to take away books which Lucien saw 
 the studious stranger bring back the next morning. 
 He recognized in him a brother in poverty and 
 hope. Short, slender and pale, this persistent toiler 
 concealed a fine forehead beneath a mass of un- 
 kempt black hair; he had shapely hands, he at- 
 tracted the notice of the indifferent by a vague 
 resemblance to the engraving of the portrait of 
 Bonaparte by Robert Lefebvre. The engraving in 
 question is in itself a whole poem of glowing mel- 
 ancholy, of restrained ambition, of concealed activity. 
 Examine it carefully; you will find therein genius 
 and discretion, tact and grandeur. The eyes are as 
 bright as a woman's. The glance is greedy of 
 space and longs for difficulties to overcome. Even 
 if Bonaparte's name were not written beneath it, 
 you would gaze as long upon it. 
 
 The young man whose face so resembled that 
 face, ordinarily wore trousers made with feet like 
 stocking feet, in thick-soled shoes, a frockcoat of
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 3 17 
 
 very ordinary material, a black cravat, a gray 
 and white mixed waistcoat buttoned to the neck, 
 and a cheap hat. His contempt for everything use- 
 less in the way of dress was perceptible. Lucien 
 found this mysterious stranger, marked with the seal 
 that genius stamps upon the brows of its slaves, 
 the most regular of all the habitues of Flicoteaux's; 
 he ate there to live, heedless of the various dishes 
 with which he seemed familiar, and he drank noth- 
 ing but water. At Flicoteaux's, as at the library, 
 he displayed a sort of dignity, due without doubt 
 to the consciousness of a life intent upon something 
 great, which made him unassailable. His expres- 
 sion was pensive. Meditation dwelt upon his nobly- 
 proportioned, handsome forehead. His bright black 
 eyes, which saw clearly and quickly, denoted a 
 habit of going to the bottom of things. Simple in 
 his bearing, he had a grave and thoughtful face. 
 Lucien had an involuntary feeling of respect for 
 him. Several times already, they had looked at 
 each other as if on the point of speaking, as they 
 went in or out of the library or restaurant, but 
 neither had thus far ventured. The silent young 
 man sat at the farther end of the room, in the part 
 that ran at right angles to Place de la Sorbonne; 
 Lucien therefore had been unable to form an ac- 
 quaintance with him, although he felt drawn toward 
 him, for his whole appearance exhibited unmistak- 
 able symptoms of superiority. As they came to 
 realize later, they were two untried, inexperienced, 
 retiring natures, subject to all the apprehensions
 
 318 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 whose emotions amuse solitary men. Had it not 
 been for their sudden meeting at the moment of 
 Lucien's disastrous experience, perhaps they would 
 never have become acquainted. But, as he turned 
 into Rue des Gres, Lucien saw the young stranger 
 coming from Sainte-Genevieve. 
 
 "The library is closed, monsieur, I don't know 
 why," he said. 
 
 At that moment Lucien had tears in his eyes; 
 he thanked the unknown with one of those gestures 
 which are more eloquent than speech, and which, 
 as between young man and young man, open hearts 
 at once. They walked together down Rue des Gres 
 toward Rue de la Harpe. 
 
 "Then 1 will go and walk in the Luxembourg 
 garden," said Lucien. "When one has once come 
 out, it is hard to return and work." 
 
 "One is no longer in the current of necessary 
 ideas, ' ' observed the stranger. ' ' You seem unhappy, 
 monsieur?" 
 
 "I have just had a singular experience," said 
 Lucien. 
 
 He described his visit to the quay, then to the 
 old bookseller and the proposition he had made; he 
 told his name and said a few words as to his situa- 
 tion. In about a month, he had spent sixty francs 
 for board, thirty francs at the hotel, twenty francs 
 at the theatre, ten francs at the bookstall — in all a 
 hundred and twenty francs, — and he had only a 
 hundred and twenty francs left. 
 
 "Monsieur," said the stranger, "your story is
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 319 
 
 identical with my own and with those of a thousand 
 to twelve hundred young men who come to Paris 
 every year from the provinces. We are not the 
 most unfortunate men in the world. Do you see 
 that theatre?" he said, pointing to the turrets of 
 the Odeon. "One day a man of talent who had 
 wallowed in the slough of absolute destitution, took 
 up his abode in one of the houses on the square; 
 married to a woman he loved — a refinement of 
 misery by which neither of us is as yet oppressed; 
 poor or rich, as you choose, in the possession of 
 two children ; over head and ears in debt, but with 
 full confidence in his pen. He offers at the Odeon 
 a comedy in five acts, it is accepted, it has a favor- 
 able reception, the actors rehearse it and the man- 
 ager hurries forward the rehearsals. These five 
 pieces of good fortune constitute five dramas even 
 more difficult of realization than the task of writing 
 five acts. The poor author, living in an attic that 
 you can see from here, exhausts his last remaining 
 resources in order to live during the preparations 
 for the performance of his play, his wife carries his 
 clothes to the Mont-de-Piete, the family eats noth- 
 ing but bread. On the day of the last rehearsal, 
 the eve of the first performance, they owed fifty 
 francs in the quarter, to the baker, the milkwoman 
 and the concierge. The poet had retained what 
 was absolutely necessary, a coat, shirt, waistcoat, 
 trousers and boots. Sure of success, he embraces 
 his wife and tells her that the end of their misery 
 is at hand. 'Indeed there is no longer a chance
 
 320 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 against us!' he cries. — 'There is fire,' says the 
 wife; 'look, the Odeon is burning!' Monsieur, 
 the Odeon was burning. So don't complain. You 
 have clothes, you have no wife or children, you 
 have luck to the amount of a hundred and twenty 
 francs in your pocket and you owe nothing to any- 
 body. The play was finally performed a hundred 
 and fifty times at the Theatre Louvois. The king 
 bestowed a pension on the author. As Buffon has 
 said, genius is patience. Patience is, in truth, that 
 quality in man which most nearly resembles the 
 process that nature employs in her creations. 
 What is art, monsieur? it is nature in a concen- 
 trated form." 
 
 The two young men were by this time at the 
 Luxembourg. Lucien learned the name, since be- 
 come famous, of the person who strove to comfort 
 him. The young man was Daniel d'Arthez, to-day 
 one of the most illustrious writers of our age, and 
 one of those rare beings, who, as a poet has so finely 
 said, present "the perfect union of a noble charac- 
 ter and noble talent." 
 
 "One cannot be a great man for nothing," said 
 Daniel in his soothing voice. "Genius waters her 
 works with her tears. Talent is a moral being, 
 which has, like all beings, a childhood subject to 
 childish maladies. Society spurns incomplete 
 talents, as nature makes way with feeble or ill- 
 developed creatures. The man who would soar 
 above his fellows must make ready for a struggle, 
 recoil at no obstacle. A great writer is a martyr 
 
 u
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 321 
 
 who will not die, that's the whole of it. You have 
 on your forehead the stamp of genius," said D'Ar- 
 thez to Lucien, with a glance that enveloped him 
 from head to foot; "if you have not her strong will 
 in your heart, if you have not her angelic patience, 
 if, however far from your goal you may be driven 
 by the caprice of destiny, you do not constantly 
 resume the road to your infinitude of glory, as the 
 tortoise, in whatever country he may be, resumes 
 the road to his beloved Ocean, — then do you re- 
 nounce the pursuit to-day." 
 
 "Do you too expect suffering, pray, monsieur?" 
 said Lucien. 
 
 "Trials of every sort; slander, treachery, injus- 
 tice on the part of my rivals; the insults, the cun- 
 ning, the sharp dealing of tradesmen," the young 
 man replied in a resigned voice. "If your work is 
 worthy, what matters a loss at first?" 
 
 "Will you read mine and pass judgment on it?" 
 said Lucien. 
 
 "I will," said D'Arthez. "I live on Rue des 
 Quatre-Vents, in a house where one of the most 
 illustrious men, one of the greatest geniuses of our 
 day, a phenomenon in science, Desplein, the greatest 
 surgeon ever known, suffered his first martyrdom, 
 struggling with the initial difficulties of life and glory 
 in Paris. That remembrance gives me every night 
 the dose of courage of which I stand in need every 
 morning. I am in the room where he, like Rousseau, 
 has so often eaten bread and cherries, but without 
 Therese. Come in an hour; I will be there." 
 21
 
 322 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 The two poets parted, pressing each other's hands 
 with an indescribable effusion of melancholy emo- 
 tion. Lucien went to get his manuscript. Daniel 
 d'Arthez went to the Mont-de-Piete to pawn his 
 watch and buy a couple of bundles of wood, so that 
 his new friend should find a fire in his room, for it 
 was quite cold. 
 
 Lucien was punctual to his appointment; first of 
 all, he saw a house of less respectable aspect than 
 his own hotel; a house with a dark passage, at the 
 end of which he could distinguish an ill-lighted 
 staircase. Daniel d'Arthez's room, on the fifth 
 floor, had two wretched windows between which 
 stood a bookcase blackened by time and use and 
 filled with ticketed boxes. A poor cot-bed of painted 
 wood, not unlike those seen in college rooms, a 
 night-table purchased at second hand and two horse- 
 hair covered armchairs stood in the back part of the 
 room, the walls of which were covered with a Scotch 
 paper varnished by smoke and by time. A long 
 table covered with papers stood between the fire- 
 place and the two windows. Opposite the fireplace 
 was a dilapidated mahogany commode. A second- 
 hand carpet entirely covered the floor. That neces- 
 sary luxury saved fuel. In front of the table was a 
 common desk-chair covered with red sheepskin 
 worn white by long use, which with six other com- 
 mon chairs completed the furnishing of the room. 
 Lucien noticed an old metal candlestick with a 
 screen, provided with four wax candles. When 
 he asked for an explanation of the wax candles,
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 323 
 
 detecting on all sides symptoms of extreme poverty, 
 D'Arthez replied that it was absolutely impossible 
 for him to endure the odor of a tallow-dip. This 
 circumstance indicated a most delicate sense of 
 smell, the sure indication of exquisite sensitiveness. 
 
 The reading lasted seven hours. Daniel listened 
 religiously, without making a remark of any sort, 
 one of the rarest proofs of refined taste that an 
 auditor can give. 
 
 "Well?" said Lucien, placing the manuscript on 
 the mantelpiece. 
 
 "You have started upon a noble and glorious 
 road, " said the young man gravely ; "but your work 
 must be rewritten. If you don't want to be Walter 
 Scott's mimic and nothing else, you must form a 
 different style, for you have palpably imitated him. 
 You begin, as he does, with long conversations to 
 explain the position of your characters; when they 
 have had their talk, you begin the description and 
 action. That antagonism which is essential to 
 every dramatic work comes in last of all. Reverse 
 the terms of the problem. Replace these diffuse 
 conversations, which are magnificent in Scott's 
 hands but colorless in yours, with descriptive pas- 
 sages, to which our language is so well adapted. 
 Let the dialogue in your case be the natural conse- 
 quence that crowns your preparations. Enter upon 
 the action of the drama first of all. Take your sub- 
 ject sometimes around the body, sometimes by the 
 tail; in a word, vary your plots so that you may 
 never be twice the same. You will do a new thing
 
 324 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 in adapting to the history of France the form of the 
 Scotchman's dramatic dialogue. Walter Scott is 
 entirely without passion; he knows nothing of it, 
 or perhaps it is forbidden him by the hypocritical 
 customs of his country. In his view, woman is 
 duty incarnate. With rare exceptions, his heroines 
 are absolutely the same ; he had but one sketch for 
 them all, as painters say. They are all based upon 
 Clarissa Harlowe; as he refers them all to one idea, 
 he could do no more than make many copies of the 
 same type, varied by the more or less vivid color- 
 ing. Woman sows discord in society through pas- 
 sion. Passion has an infinite number of accidents. 
 Depict the passions then ; you will have vast stores 
 to draw upon, of which that great genius deprived 
 himself in order that he might be read in all the 
 families of prudish England. In France, you will 
 find fascinating peccadilloes, and manners and cus- 
 toms glowing with Catholicism to contrast with the 
 sombre figures of Calvinism during the most impas- 
 sioned period of our history. Each authenticated 
 reign, from Charlemagne down, will require at 
 least one work, and some will require four or five, 
 as those of Louis XIV., Henri IV. and Francois I. 
 Thus you will write a picturesque history of 
 France, in which you will depict the costumes, the 
 furniture, the houses, without and within, and the 
 details of private life, at the same time imparting 
 to your work the spirit of the time of which it 
 treats, instead of laboriously working over known 
 facts. You have a means of being original by
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 325 
 
 sweeping away the popular errors that disfigure the 
 memories of most of our kings. Dare, in your first 
 work, to rehabilitate the grand and magnificent 
 figure of Catherine, whom vou have sacrificed to 
 the prejudices that are still hovering over her. 
 Lastly, paint Charles IX. as he was, not as Protes- 
 tant writers have made hfm. After ten years of 
 persistent toil, you will attain glory and fortune." 
 It was then nine o'clock. Lucien imitated the 
 secret action of his future friend by asking him to 
 dine with him at Edon's, where he spent twelve 
 francs. During the dinner, Daniel confided the 
 secret of his hopes and his labors to Lucien. 
 D'Arthez would not admit the possibility of any 
 extraordinary talent without profound knowledge of 
 metaphysics. He was engaged at that moment in 
 despoiling ancient and modern times of all their 
 treasures of philosophy, in order to assimilate them 
 to one another. He desired, like Moliere, to be a 
 profound philosopher before writing comedies. 
 He studied the written world and the living 
 world, thought and deed. He had for friends, 
 learned naturalists, young doctors, political writers 
 and artists, a society of studious, serious-minded 
 men with brilliant futures. He made his living by 
 conscientious and poorly paid articles, written for 
 biographical dictionaries, encyclopaedias or diction- 
 aries of the natural sciences; he wrote neither more 
 nor less than it was necessary for him to do in order 
 to live and to be able to follow out his thought. He 
 had an imaginative work, undertaken solely for the
 
 326 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 purpose of studying the resources of the language. 
 This book, still unfinished, taken up and laid aside 
 capriciously, he kept for days of great distress. It 
 was a psychological work of lofty purpose under 
 the form of a novel. 
 
 Although Daniel displayed his talent modestly, 
 he assumed gigantic proportions in Lucien's eyes. 
 When they left the restaurant, at eleven o'clock, 
 Lucien had conceived a strong friendship for this 
 unobtrusive virtue, for this unconsciously sublime 
 nature. The poet did not discuss Daniel's advice, 
 he followed it to the letter. His eminent talent, 
 already matured by thought and by a single, un- 
 published criticism, made for his own benefit, not 
 for another's, had suddenly opened before him the 
 doors of the most magnificent palaces of the imagi- 
 nation. The provincial's lips had been touched by a 
 glowing coal and the words of the hard-working 
 Parisian found the soil all prepared in the brain of 
 the poet of Angouleme. Lucien set about recasting 
 his work.
 
 * 
 
 Overjoyed to have met in the Parisian desert a 
 heart overflowing with generous sentiments in 
 harmony with his own, the provincial great man 
 did what all young men do who are hungering for 
 affection: he clung to D'Arthez like a chronic dis- 
 ease, he called for him to go to the library, he 
 walked with him at the Luxembourg when the 
 weather was fine, he went with him every evening 
 to his poor room, after dining with him at Flico- 
 teaux's, — in short, he pressed close to his side as 
 the troops pressed close to one another in the frozen 
 plains of Russia. 
 
 During the early days of his acquaintance with 
 Daniel, Lucien noticed with pain that his presence 
 caused a certain amount of embarrassment when his 
 new friend and his chosen intimates were together. 
 The conversation of those superior beings, of whom 
 D'Arthez spoke to him with heartfelt enthusiasm, 
 was confined within the limits of a reserve quite 
 out of harmony with their demonstrations of warm 
 friendships. Lucien would discreetly take his leave 
 at such times, conscious of something like grief at 
 the ostracism to which he was subjected, and at the 
 interest aroused in him by these unknown person- 
 ages; for they all called one another by their 
 Christian names. All, like D'Arthez, bore upon 
 their foreheads the hall-mark of genius. After 
 
 (327)
 
 328 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 some secret opposition, which Daniel, unknown to 
 Lucien, exerted himself to overcome, he was deemed 
 worthy to enter this brotherhood of great minds. 
 He was thus enabled to make the acquaintance of 
 these men, who were bound together by the keenest 
 sympathy, by the seriousness of their intellectual 
 existence, and who met almost every evening at 
 D'Arthez's room. One and all felt that he was to 
 be a great writer; they had looked upon him as 
 their leader since they had lost one of the most ex- 
 ceptional minds of the age, their first leader, a 
 mystical genius who, for reasons which it would be 
 useless to give, had returned to his province, and 
 whom Lucien had often heard spoken of by the 
 name of Louis. One will readily understand to 
 how great an extent these men were likely to 
 arouse the interest and curiosity of a poet, if we 
 give the names of those who, like D'Arthez, have 
 since won renown; for several of them succumbed. 
 
 Among those who are still living was Horace 
 Bianchon, at that time a house-surgeon at the Hotel- 
 Dieu, who has since become one of the brilliant 
 lights of the Parisian school of medicine, and who 
 is now so well known that it is unnecessary to de- 
 scribe his personal appearance or to discuss his 
 character and the nature of his mind. 
 
 Then there was Leon Giraud, that profound 
 philosopher, that bold theorist who dissects all sys- 
 tems, passes judgment on them, expresses them by 
 new formulas and drags them at the feet of his 
 idol, HUMANITY; always great, even in his errors,
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 329 
 
 ennobled by his perfect good faith. This intrepid 
 worker, this conscientious scholar, has become the 
 leader of a school of politics and morals upon the 
 merits of which time alone can pronounce. Although 
 his convictions have cast his lines in regions far 
 removed from those in which his comrades have 
 followed their destinies, he has none the less re- 
 mained their faithful friend. Art was represented 
 by Joseph Bridau, one of the best painters of the 
 younger school. Except for the unavowed misfor- 
 tunes to which his too impressionable nature con- 
 demns him, Joseph, whose last word has not yet 
 been said, by the way, might have proved a worthy 
 successor of the great masters of the Italian school; 
 he has the Roman skill in drawing and the Vene- 
 tian genius for color ; but love kills him and does 
 not pierce his heart alone : love shoots his arrows 
 into his brain, disturbs the current of his life and 
 makes his work strangely uneven. When his 
 ephemeral mistress makes him either too happy or 
 too wretched, Joseph will sometimes send to the 
 Exposition sketches in which the colors are laid on 
 so thick as to mar the outlines, or, it may be, a pic- 
 ture which he has tried to finish while laboring 
 under the burden of imaginary sorrows, and in 
 which he has paid such close attention to the out- 
 lines that the coloring, in which he is a master, is 
 entirely forgotten. He constantly disappoints both 
 the public and his friends. Hoffman would have 
 adored him for his bold advances in the field of art, 
 for his caprices, for his imagination. When he is
 
 330 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 at his best, he arouses admiration; he relishes it, 
 and loses his head when he fails to receive praise 
 for abortive works, in which the eyes of his soul 
 see all that is not apparent to the eyes of the public. 
 Capricious to the last degree, his friends have 
 sometimes seen him destroy a completed picture 
 which it seemed to him that he had elaborated too 
 much. 
 
 "There's too much work in it," he would say; 
 "it's too much like a student." 
 
 Original always and sometimes sublime, he has 
 all the drawbacks and all the advantages of nervous 
 organizations, in which perfection changes to 
 disease. His mind is a twin-brother to Sterne's, 
 but without the taste for literary toil. His witty 
 remarks, his flashes of thought, are indescribably 
 delicious. He is eloquent and knows how to love, 
 with due allowance for his caprices, which he car- 
 ries into affairs of the heart as well as into his 
 work. He was dear to the club by reason of those 
 very qualities which bourgeois society would have 
 called his failings. Lastly, there was Fulgence 
 Ridal, one of the authors of our day who possess 
 the greatest genius for humor, a poet indifferent to 
 fame, who tosses to the stage only his most com- 
 monplace productions, and retains the most attrac- 
 tive scenes in the seraglio of his brain, for himself 
 and his friends; who seeks from the public only 
 so much money as is essential to his independence, 
 and, when he has obtained it, no longer chooses to 
 work. Slothful and prolific as Rossini, obliged,
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 33 1 
 
 like all great comic poets, like Moliere and Rabelais, 
 to look at everything from every point of view, he 
 was a confirmed sceptic, he could and did laugh at 
 everything. Fulgence Ridal is a great practical 
 philosopher. His knowledge of the world, his 
 genius for observation, his contempt for renown, 
 which he calls ostentation, have not withered his 
 heart. As active in behalf of others as he is in- 
 different to his own interests, if he takes a step for- 
 ward, it is for a friend. In order not to belie his 
 truly Rabelaisian mask, he does not despise good 
 cheer nor does he seek it; he is at once sad and 
 joyous. His friends call him the dog of the regi- 
 ment, and nothing could describe him better than 
 that sobriquet. 
 
 Three others there were, at least as superior in 
 mental endowment as the four friends whose profiles 
 we have painted, who fell by the roadside one after 
 another. First, Meyraux, who died after setting in 
 motion the celebrated dispute between Cuvier and 
 Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, — a great question which 
 was destined to divide the scientific world into par- 
 tisans of one or the other of those two men of equal 
 genius, a few months before the death of him who 
 maintained the superiority of a narrow, analytical 
 science against the pantheist, who still lives and 
 whom Germany reveres. Meyraux was the friend 
 of that Louis who was soon to be snatched away 
 from the intellectual world by a premature death 
 which he had foreseen. To these two men, both 
 marked as victims by death, both unknown to-day
 
 332 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 despite the immense extent of their learning and 
 their genius, we must add Michel Chrestien, a re- 
 publican of lofty aims who dreamed of the federa- 
 tion of Europe, and who counted for much in the 
 moral movement of theSaint-Simonists in 1830. A 
 politician of the force of Danton or Saint- Just, but 
 as simple and gentle as a girl, full of illusions and 
 of love, endowed with a melodious voice that would 
 have enraptured Mozart, Weber or Rossini and with 
 which he sang certain of Beranger's ballads in a 
 way to make the heart drunk with poesy, with love 
 or with hope, Michel Chrestien, poor like Lucien, 
 like Daniel, like all the rest, earned his living with 
 Diogenes-like recklessness. He made indexes for 
 great works, prospectuses for publishers, and was 
 as mute concerning his own doctrines as a tomb is 
 mute concerning the secrets of its dead. This joy- 
 ous intellectual Bohemian, this great statesman, 
 who might perhaps have changed the face of the 
 world, died in the cloister of Saint-Merri like a 
 common soldier. Some tradesman's bullet there 
 laid low one of the noblest creatures who trod the 
 soil of France. Michel Chrestien died for other 
 doctrines than his own. His contemplated federa- 
 tion was a much greater menace than the republican 
 propaganda to European aristocracy; it was more 
 rational and less insane than the shocking ideas of 
 indefinite freedom proclaimed by the young mad- 
 men who put themselves forward as heirs of the 
 Convention. The noble plebeian was mourned by 
 all who knew him; there is not one of them who
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 333 
 
 does not to this day think often of that great, un- 
 known politician. 
 
 These nine persons composed a club in which 
 esteem and friendship kept the peace between the 
 most contradictory ideas and doctrines. Daniel 
 d'Arthez, a Picardian of gentle birth, adhered to the 
 monarchy with a depth of conviction equal to that 
 with which Michel Chrestien clung to his idea of 
 European federalism. Fulgence Ridal laughed at 
 the philosophical doctrines of Leon Giraud, who, 
 in turn, predicted to D'Arthez the end of Chris- 
 tianity and of the family. Michel Chrestien, who 
 believed in the religion of Christ, the divine artisan 
 of the law of equality, defended the immortality of 
 the soul against the scalpel of Bianchon, the analyst 
 par excellence. They all discussed without disput- 
 ing. They had no vanity, each having only the 
 others for auditors. They told one another of their 
 works, and consulted one another with the adorable 
 good faith of youth. If any serious matter came 
 up, any one of them would lay aside his own opin- 
 ion in order to enter into the ideas of his friend, 
 the more apt to assist him because he was impartial 
 in relation to a cause or a work outside of his own 
 ideas. Almost all of them showed a yielding, tol- 
 erant spirit, two qualities which demonstrated their 
 superiority. Envy, that ghastly treasure of our 
 disappointed hopes, our abortive talents, our fail- 
 ures, our wounded self-esteem, was unknown to 
 them. Moreover, all of them were walking in dif- 
 ferent paths. Thus, they who, like Lucien, were
 
 334 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 admitted to their companionship, felt perfectly at 
 ease. 
 
 True talent is always kindly and sincere, frank 
 and not stiff and formal ; its epigrams give pleasure 
 to the mind and do not seek to wound the self-esteem. 
 When the first emotion caused by involuntary re- 
 spect had passed away, one experienced infinite 
 delight in the company of these choice spirits. 
 Familiarity did not lessen each one's consciousness 
 of his own worth, and each felt a profound respect 
 for his neighbor; lastly, as each was conscious of 
 his ability to be in his turn benefactor or bene- 
 ficiary, they all accepted favors without ceremony. 
 Their conversation, always delightful to listen to 
 and never tiresome, embraced the most varied range 
 of subjects. The shafts of wit, as light as arrows, 
 always went straight and swift to the mark. The 
 great external misery and the splendor of intellec- 
 tual riches produced a strange contrast. No one 
 thought of the realities of life except as a source of 
 friendly jesting. 
 
 One day when the cold season gave premature 
 warning of its approach, five of D'Arthez's friends 
 made their appearance, each with a parcel of wood 
 under his cloak, one and all having had the same 
 thought; as if at a picnic where every guest was 
 expected to bring refreshment, every one should 
 contribute a pie. Being all endowed with that 
 moral beauty that reacts upon form and, no less 
 than midnight toil, gilds youthful faces with a divine 
 shade, they presented those somewhat irregular
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 335 
 
 features to which a pure life and the fire of thought 
 impart regularity and purity. Their foreheads were 
 remarkable for their poetic amplitude. Their 
 bright, sparkling eyes bore witness to their spotless 
 lives. The sufferings of poverty, when they made 
 themselves felt, were endured so cheerfully, shared 
 with such eagerness by all, that they did not mar 
 the serenity peculiar to the faces of young men still 
 free from serious faults, who have not demeaned 
 themselves by the base paltering with vice induced 
 by poverty endured with ill grace, by the longing 
 to succeed without choice of means and by the read- 
 iness with which men of letters accept or forgive 
 treachery. 
 
 The thing that makes friendships indissoluble 
 and increases their charm twofold is a feeling that 
 is lacking in love — certainty. These young men 
 were sure of themselves; the enemy of one became 
 the enemy of all, and they would have sacrificed 
 their most pressing interests to maintain the holy 
 union of their hearts unbroken. All being incapa- 
 ble of a base act, they could meet every accusation 
 with a peremptory denial and defend one another 
 with perfect security. Equally noble in heart and 
 equally strong in matters of sentiment, they could 
 think and say to one another whatever they chose, 
 within the domain of knowledge and intelligence; 
 hence the innocence of their intercourse, the light- 
 headedness of their speech. Certain of under- 
 standing one another, their minds wandered at 
 will; they were entirely unceremonious in their
 
 336 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 dealings, they confided their sorrows and joys to 
 one another, and thought and suffered without con- 
 cealment The exquisite delicacy that makes the 
 fable of the Two Friends a treasury for great minds, 
 was habitual among them. Their strictness in the 
 matter of admitting a new dweller to their sphere 
 can be imagined; they were too conscious of their 
 greatness and their happiness to disturb the latter 
 by opening the door to new and unknown elements. 
 This federation of sentiments and interests en- 
 dured without clash or misunderstanding for twenty 
 years. Death alone, which removed Louis Lam- 
 bert, Meyraux and Michel Chrestien from the cir- 
 cle, could diminish the number of stars in that 
 noble constellation. When the last named fell, in 
 1832, Horace Bianchon, Daniel d'Arthez, Leon 
 Giraud, Joseph Bridau and Fulgence Ridal, heedless 
 of the dangers of the undertaking, went to Saint- 
 Merri to recover his body in order to pay it the last 
 earthly honors, although the political furnace was 
 white hot. They escorted the cherished remains to 
 the cemetery of Pere-Lachaise during the night. 
 Horace Bianchon was daunted by no obstacle and 
 surmounted them all; he made a personal applica- 
 tion to the ministers, avowing to them his long and 
 enduring friendship for the deceased federalist. It 
 was a touching scene, engraved forever in the 
 memory of the few friends who assisted the five 
 famous men. As you walk through the beautiful 
 cemetery, you will notice a lot, purchased in per- 
 petuity, in the centre of which rises a turf-covered
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 337 
 
 mound surmounted by a cross of black wood upon 
 which this name is carved in red letters: MICHEL 
 CHRESTIEN. It is the only monument of that de- 
 scription. The five friends thought it fitting to do 
 homage to that simple-minded man in this simple 
 way. 
 
 Thus the fairest dreams of sentiment were realized 
 in that cold attic. There a band of brothers, all 
 equally strong in different branches of knowledge, 
 mutually enlightened one another with perfect good 
 faith, telling one another everything, even their 
 unworthy thoughts; all were men of great learning 
 and all had been tried in the crucible of poverty. 
 Having once been admitted among these chosen 
 mortals and accepted as their equal, Lucien repre- 
 sented poetry and beauty there. He read sonnets 
 which were much admired. They asked him for a 
 sonnet as he asked Michel Chrestien to sing him a 
 chanson. Thus Lucien found in Rue des Quatre- 
 Vents, an oasis in the Parisian desert. 
 
 In the early days of October, Lucien, having ex- 
 pended what remained of his money for a little 
 wood, was left penniless while he was engaged 
 most intently upon the recasting of his book. 
 Daniel d'Arthez burned peat and endured poverty, 
 he was as prudent as an old maid, and resembled 
 a miser, so methodical was he in his habits. His 
 courage spurred on Lucien's, who, being a new- 
 comer in the club, felt an invincible repugnance to 
 speak of his destitution. One morning he went to 
 the Rue du Coq to sell L' Archer de Charles IX. to 
 
 22
 
 338 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 Doguereau, but did not find him. He did not realize 
 how indulgent great minds are. Each one of his 
 friends could imagine the weaknesses peculiar to 
 men of poetic nature, the depression that follows 
 the efforts of the mind overexcited by the contem- 
 plation of that nature which it is their mission to 
 reproduce. Those men, so strong in the face of 
 their own misfortunes, were moved by Lucien's 
 sufferings. They understood his lack of money. 
 So it was that the club supplemented the evenings 
 passed in pleasant conversation, in profound medi- 
 tation, in listening to poetry, in exchanging confi- 
 dences, in soaring on unfettered wings through the 
 realms of the intellect, through the future of nations, 
 through the vast domains of history, by a proceed- 
 ing that shows how little Lucien understood his 
 new friends. 
 
 "Lucien, my friend," said Daniel, "you didn't 
 come to Flicoteaux's to dinner yesterday, and we 
 know why." 
 
 Lucien could not restrain the tears that rolled 
 down his cheeks. 
 
 "You lacked confidence in us," said Michel 
 Chrestien; "we will make a cross on the mantel- 
 piece, and when we have reached ten — " 
 
 "We have all had some extra work to do," said 
 Bianchon; "I have been looking after a rich patient 
 for Desplein; D'Arthez has written an article for 
 the Revue Encyclopedique ; Chrestien undertook to 
 sing one evening in the Champs-Elysees with a 
 handkerchief and four candles; but he found a
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 339 
 
 pamphlet to write for a man who wants to become 
 a statesman, and he gave him six hundred francs' 
 worth of Machiavelli; Leon Giraud has borrowed 
 fifty francs from his publisher, Joseph has sold some 
 sketches, and Fulgence had his play given on Sun- 
 day to a full house." 
 
 "Here are two hundred francs," said Daniel; 
 "take them and see that you don't get caught 
 again." 
 
 "Upon my word, if he isn't going to kiss us, as 
 if we had done something extraordinary!" said 
 Chrestien. 
 
 To convey an idea of the pleasure Lucien enjoyed 
 in the midst of that living encyclopaedia of angelic 
 spirits, of young men instinct with the varied forms 
 of originality that each of them derived from the 
 branch of learning which he cultivated, it will be 
 sufficient to quote the replies Lucien received, on 
 the following day, to a letter written to his family, 
 a masterpiece of affection and wounded sensitive- 
 ness, a pitiful cry torn from him by his distress: 
 
 David Sechard to Lucien. 
 " my dear lucien : 
 
 " You will find enclosed a ninety days' draft, to your order, 
 for two hundred francs. You can negotiate it at our cor- 
 respondent's, Monsieur Metivier, dealer in paper, Rue Ser- 
 pente. My dear Lucien, we have absolutely nothing. My 
 wife has undertaken to manage the printing office and acquits 
 herself of the task with a devotion, patience and zeal that 
 make me bless God for having given me such an angel for a
 
 340 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 wife. Even she realizes how impossible it is for us to send 
 you the slightest assistance. But my dear boy, I believe 
 you to be embarked upon such a promising career, accom- 
 panied by such great and noble hearts, that you cannot fail 
 to fulfil your glorious destiny, assisted by the almost divine 
 intellects of Messieurs Daniel d'Arthez, Michel Chrestien 
 and Le'on Giraud, and advised by Messieurs Meyraux, Bian- 
 chon and Ridal, whom we know through your dear letter. I 
 have made this draft, therefore, without Eve's knowledge, 
 and I will find some way to pay it when it is due. Do not 
 turn aside from the path you have chosen : it is rough, but it 
 will be glorious. I would rather suffer untold ills than know 
 that you had fallen into some slough in Paris, where I have 
 seen so many. Have the courage to avoid, as you are doing, 
 bad places and bad men, light-headed fools and men of letters 
 of a certain type whom 1 learned to appraise at their real 
 value during my stay in Paris. In short, be the worthy 
 emulator of those celestial minds whom your letter has made 
 dear to us. Your conduct will soon be rewarded. Adieu, my 
 beloved brother ; you have rejoiced my heart, for I did not 
 anticipate so much courage on your part. 
 
 " DAVID." 
 
 Eve Sechard to Lucien. 
 "my dear brother: 
 
 " Your letter has made us all weep. May the noble hearts 
 to whom your good angel has guided you, know that a 
 mother and a poor young wife will pray to God morning and 
 evening for them ; and if the most fervent prayers ascend as 
 far as His throne, they will obtain some blessings for you 
 all. Yes, my brother, their names are written on my heart. 
 Ah ! 1 shall see them some day. Even though 1 have to 
 make the journey on foot, I will go and thank them for their 
 friendship for you, for it has spread a balm upon my open 
 wounds. Here, my dear, we are working like poor mechanics. 

 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 341 
 
 My husband, that great, unappreciated man whom I love 
 more every day as I discover from moment to moment fresh 
 treasures in his heart, has abandoned his printing office, and 
 I can guess why : your poverty, ours and our mother's, are 
 killing him. Our adored David is devoured like Prometheus 
 by a vulture, a ghastly, sharp-beaked sorrow. As for him, 
 the noble-hearted man, he hardly heeds it. He is engrossed 
 by the hope of a fortune in store. He passes all his time ex- 
 perimenting in paper-making ; he has asked me to attend to 
 the business in his place and he assists me as much as his 
 preoccupation permits. Alas ! I am enceinte. This fact, 
 which would under certain circumstances have overwhelmed 
 me with joy, makes me very sad in our present situation. My 
 poor mother has become young again, she has recovered all 
 her old strength for her fatiguing occupation of nurse. If it 
 were not for anxiety about money, we should be very happy. 
 Old Pere Sechard will not give his son a hard ; David has 
 been to see him to borrow a few sous to send you, for your 
 letter drove him to despair. ' I know Lucien, he will lose his 
 head and do something foolish,' he said. I scolded him. 
 ' My brother, fail to do what he ought, whatever happens ! ' 
 I replied. ' Lucien knows that I should die of grief if he 
 did.' Mother and I have pawned some little things, but 
 David has no suspicion of it ; mother will redeem them as 
 soon as she gets a little money. In that way, we have ob- 
 tained a hundred francs which I am sending you by express. 
 Don't think ill of me for not answering your first letter, my 
 dear. We were in a position where we had to drudge at 
 night, and I was working like a man. Ah ! I didn't know I 
 had so much strength. Madame de Bargeton is a heartless, 
 soulless woman ; even if she had ceased to love you, she 
 owed it to herself to protect you and help you after tearing 
 you from our arms to cast you into that horrible Parisian 
 ocean, where one needs a special blessing from God to fall in 
 with true friends amid those seas of men and interests. She 
 is not to be regretted. I did wish that you had some devoted 
 woman with you, a second myself; but now that I know you
 
 342 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 have friends who have the same feelings for you that we 
 have, my mind is at rest. Spread your wings, my noble, be- 
 loved genius ! You will be our glory as you already are our 
 love. 
 
 "EVE." 
 
 "MY DARLING CHILD: 
 
 " After what your sister has written, I can only give you 
 my blessing and assure you that my prayers and my thoughts 
 are full of you alone, alas ! to the detriment of those I have 
 before my eyes ; for there are hearts in which the absent are 
 always right, and so it is with the heart of 
 
 "YOUR MOTHER." 
 
 Thus, two days later, Lucien was able to repay 
 his friends the loan they had offered him with such 
 delicacy. Never perhaps had life seemed fairer to 
 him, but the impulsive movement of his self-esteem 
 did not escape the profound gaze of his friends or 
 their delicate perception. 
 
 "One would say you were afraid to owe us any- 
 thing," cried Fulgence. 
 
 "Oh! the pleasure he manifests is a very serious 
 thing in my eyes," said Chrestien; "it confirms 
 my observations; Lucien is vain." 
 
 "He is a poet," said D'Arthez. 
 
 "Do you bear me ill-will for a feeling as natural 
 as mine?" 
 
 "We must give him credit for not concealing from 
 us what he felt," said Leon Giraud, "he is still 
 frank; but I'm afraid that he will suspect us sooner 
 or later."
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 343 
 
 "Why, pray?" Lucien asked. 
 
 "We can read your heart," replied Joseph Bridau. 
 
 "You have within you," said Michel Chrestien, 
 "a diabolic wit with which you will justify in your 
 own eyes, things that are most opposed to our prin- 
 ciples: instead of being a sophist in ideas, you will 
 be a sophist in action." 
 
 "Yes, I am afraid of it," said D'Arthez. "Lu- 
 cien, you will have admirable discussions with 
 yourself, in which you will be great, but which will 
 lead to blameworthy acts. You will never be in 
 accord with yourself." 
 
 "Upon what do you base your diagnosis, pray?" 
 queried Lucien. 
 
 "Your vanity is so great, my dear poet, that you 
 show it even in your friendship!" cried Fulgence. 
 "All vanity of that sort indicates deplorable egotism, 
 and egotism is the bane of friendship." 
 
 "Great God!" cried Lucien, "is it possible that 
 you don't know how dearly I love you?" 
 
 "If you loved us as we love each other, would 
 you have shown so much eagerness and emphasis 
 in returning what it gave us such pleasure to give 
 you?" 
 
 "We don't lend one another anything here, we 
 give," said Joseph Bridau bluntly. 
 
 "Don't think us rough, my dear child," said 
 Michel Chrestien, "we look ahead. We are afraid 
 of seeing you some day prefer the pleasure of petty 
 revenge to the pleasure of our pure friendship. 
 Read Goethe's Tasso, the greatest work of that
 
 344 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 great genius, and you will learn there that the poet 
 loves bright-colored stuffs, festivals, triumphs, 
 parade; be Tasso without his folly. Do society 
 and its pleasures beckon to you ? Remain here. 
 Transport to the region of ideas, all that you ask 
 of your vanity. Folly for folly, be virtuous in act 
 and vicious in thought, instead of thinking worthy 
 thoughts and behaving ill, as D'Arthez said." 
 
 Lucien hung his head: his friends were right. 
 
 "I confess that I am not so strong as you are," he 
 said looking up at them with a winning expression. 
 "I haven't the loins and the shoulders with which 
 to sustain the weight of Paris or to struggle cour- 
 ageously. Nature has given us temperaments and 
 faculties of a different order, and you know better 
 than anyone, the reverse side of virtue and vice. 
 I am already tired out, I tell you in confidence." 
 
 "We will sustain you," said D'Arthez; "that 
 is just what faithful friends are good for." 
 
 "The help I have just received cannot be de- 
 pended upon, and we are all equally poor; I shall 
 soon be pursued again by want. Chrestien, who 
 is at the beck and call of the first comer, can do 
 nothing with publishers. Bianchon's pursuits lie 
 in an entirely different direction. D'Arthez knows 
 only the publishers of scientific works or specialties, 
 who have no influence with the publishers of nov- 
 elties. Horace, Fulgence, Ridal and Bridau work 
 on lines that take them a hundred leagues from 
 bookshops. I must make up my mind to some- 
 thing."
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 345 
 
 "Make up your mind to do as we do, suffer !" said 
 Bianchon; "suffer with a brave heart and trust to 
 hard work!" 
 
 "But that which is only suffering to you is death 
 to me," said Lucien earnestly. 
 
 "Before the cock crows thrice," said Leon Gi- 
 raud with a smile, "this man will have betrayed 
 the cause of hard work for that of sloth and the 
 vices of Paris." 
 
 "To what has hard work brought you?" laughed 
 Lucien. 
 
 "When one leaves Paris for Italy, one doesn't 
 find Rome half way," said Joseph Bridau. "You 
 would have peas grow all dressed with butter." 
 
 "They don't grow that way for anybody except 
 the eldest sons of peers of France," said Chrestien. 
 "But we poor fellows plant them and water them, 
 and we relish them all the more." 
 
 The conversation took a jocose turn and the sub- 
 ject was changed. Those far-seeing minds, those 
 kindly hearts, tried to make Lucien forget this little 
 quarrel, but he understood thenceforth how hard it 
 was to deceive them. He soon reached a despairing 
 frame of mind which he carefully concealed from 
 his friends, deeming them implacable mentors. His 
 southern nature, which ran so readily over the 
 whole keyboard of emotions, led him to form the 
 most contrary resolutions. 
 
 Several times he spoke of trying his hand at 
 writing for the newspapers, and his friends invari- 
 ably said:
 
 346 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 "Do nothing of the kind!" 
 
 "It would be the tomb of the comely, the gentle 
 Lucien whom we know and love," said D'Arthez. 
 
 "You would not resist the constant conflict be- 
 tween work and pleasure that is found in the lives 
 of journalists; and resistance is the corner-stone of 
 virtue. You would be so enchanted with the exer- 
 cise of power, with the right of life and death over 
 works of the mind, that you would be a journalist 
 in two months. To be a journalist is to become 
 proconsul in the republic of letters. He who can 
 say whatever he chooses soon reaches the point of 
 doing whatever he chooses ! That is a maxim of Na- 
 poleon's and is easy to understand." 
 
 "Would you not be with me?"said Lucien. 
 
 "We should not be there," cried Fulgence. "As 
 a journalist, you would no more think of us than the 
 brilliant, courted dancer at the Opera, in her silk- 
 lined carriage, thinks of her native village, her cows 
 and her wooden shoes. You have the qualities of 
 the journalist, brilliancy and promptness of thought, 
 in only too great measure. You would never deny 
 yourself the pleasure of letting fly a shaft of wit, 
 though it should make your friend weep. I see 
 journalists in the theatre lobbies, and they make 
 me shudder. Journalism is a hell, a pit of iniquity, 
 falsehood, treachery, which one cannot pass through, 
 and from which one can emerge unscathed only 
 when protected, as Dante was, by Virgil's divine 
 laurel-wreath." 
 
 The more the club argued with Lucien against
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 347 
 
 that course, the more his longing to become ac- 
 quainted with the danger impelled him to take the 
 risk and he began to question himself: was it not 
 absurd to allow himself to be surprised again by 
 want without having taken any steps to avert it? 
 In view of the failure of his attempts to find a pur- 
 chaser for his first novel, Lucien felt but slightly 
 tempted to write a second. Moreover, what could 
 he live on while he was writing it? He had ex- 
 hausted his stock of patience during a month of pri- 
 vation. Why should not he do nobly what journalists 
 did in a conscienceless, undignified way? His 
 friends insulted him with their suspicions and he 
 would prove to them his strength of mind. Per- 
 haps he would assist them some day and be the 
 herald of their renown! 
 
 "After all, what does friendship amount to that 
 draws back at the idea of becoming an accomplice?" 
 he asked Michel Chrestien one evening, when he 
 and Leon Giraud had walked home with him. 
 
 "We draw back at nothing," replied Chrestien. 
 ' ' If you were unfortunate enough to kill your m istress, 
 I would help you to conceal your crime and might 
 perhaps esteem you still ; but if you should become 
 a spy, I would shun you with horror, for then you 
 would be an infamous coward with premeditation. 
 That is journalism in two words. Friendship par- 
 dons the misstep, the irreflective impulse of pas- 
 sion ; but it must be implacable to one who has 
 deliberately resolved to barter his soul and mind 
 and thought"
 
 348 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 ''May I not become a journalist in order to sell 
 my collection of poems and my novel, and then 
 abandon the trade at once?" 
 
 "Machiavelli might act so, but not Lucien de 
 Rubempre," said Leon Giraud. 
 
 "Very well," cried Lucien, "I will show you that 
 I am the equal of Machiavelli." 
 
 "Ah!" cried Michel, pressing Leon's hand, "you 
 have destroyed him. — Lucien," he continued, "you 
 have three hundred francs and that is enough to 
 live on comfortably for three months; very good, 
 set to work and write another novel ; D'Arthez and 
 Fulgence will help you with the plot; you will im- 
 prove, you will become a genuine novelist. I will 
 find my way into one of those lupanars of thought, 
 I will be a journalist for three months, I will sell 
 your books for you to some bookseller whose publi- 
 cations I will attack, I will write articles and will 
 have others written for you; we will make the book 
 a great success, you will be a great man, and you 
 will still be our Lucien." 
 
 "You must have a very low opinion of me, if you 
 think that I would succumb where you would be 
 safe," said the poet. 
 
 "O mon Dieu, forgive him, for he is a mere 
 child!" cried Michel Chrestien. 
 
 Having polished up his mind during the evenings 
 passed with D'Arthez and his friends, Lucien began 
 to study the articles, humorous and otherwise, in 
 the less important newspapers. Confident that he 
 could prove himself at least the equal of their
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 349 
 
 cleverest editors, he tried his hand secretly at that 
 gymnastic form of thought and went out one morn- 
 ing with the brilliant idea of going to some colonel 
 of those light horse of the press and asking for em- 
 ployment. He arrayed himself in his most distin- 
 guished costume and as he crossed the bridges, he 
 thought that authors, journalists, writers, his future 
 brethren in short, would show a little more consid- 
 eration and unselfishness than the two varieties of 
 publisher with whom his hopes had come in con- 
 tact. He would surely meet with sympathy, 
 perhaps with true, comforting affection like that he 
 had found in the club on Rue des Quartre-Vents. 
 A prey to the emotion aroused by a presentiment 
 listened to but resisted — a form of emotion to which 
 men of imagination are much addicted — he reached 
 Rue Saint-Fiacre, near Boulevard Montmartre, and 
 halted in front of a building containing the offices 
 of a small newspaper, a building whose outward 
 appearance caused his heart to beat fast like that 
 of a young man about to enter an evil place. 
 Nevertheless, he went up to the offices, which were 
 located in the entresol. In the first room, which 
 was divided into two equal parts by a partition 
 reaching to the ceiling consisting in part of boards 
 and in part of an iron grating, he found a one-armed 
 veteran who was holding several reams of paper 
 steady on his head with his only hand, and had be- 
 tween his teeth the certificate required by the 
 Stamp Office. This poor man, whose face was of 
 a yellowish hue and studded with red protuberances,
 
 350 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 to which he owed his sobriquet, Coloquinte, pointed 
 out to him the Cerberus of the paper behind the 
 grating. He was an old officer, decorated with the 
 Cross, his nose enveloped in gray moustaches, a 
 black silk cap on his head, and buried in a blue 
 frockcoat of ample proportions like a turtle under its 
 shell. 
 
 "With what number does monsieur wish his sub- 
 scription to begin?" asked the officer of the Empire. 
 
 "I didn't come to subscribe," Lucien replied. 
 
 As he spoke, he glanced at a sign on the door op- 
 posite that by which he had entered and read these 
 words: EDITORIAL OFFICE; and beneath them: 
 The public is not admitted. 
 
 "A claim then, no doubt?" rejoined Napoleon's 
 former trooper. "We were a little hard on Mariette, 
 I admit. But what do you expect! I don't even 
 know why it was as yet. But if you demand sat- 
 isfaction, I am ready," he added, glancing at a col- 
 lection of foils and pistols, the modern stand of arms, 
 heaped together in a corner. 
 
 "Still less do I come for that, monsieur. I desire 
 to speak with the editor in chief." 
 
 "There's never anyone here before four o'clock." 
 
 "Here, my old Giroudeau, 1 make it eleven 
 columns, which at a hundred sous each, comes to 
 fifty-five francs ; I have had forty, so, you see, you 
 still owe me fifteen francs as 1 said." 
 
 These words came from a little pinched face, 
 transparent as the half-cooked white of an egg, 
 pierced by a pair of eyes of a soft shade of blue
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 35 1 
 
 but with a horribly malignant expression — a face 
 that belonged to a thin young man who was hidden 
 behind the old soldier's opaque body. The voice 
 made Lucien's blood run cold; it was half way be- 
 tween the mewing of a cat and the hoarse asthmatic 
 howl of the hyena. 
 
 "Very true, my little warrior," said the retired 
 trooper, "but you count titles and blank spaces; my 
 orders from Finot are to take the whole number of 
 lines and divide by the number of lines in a column. 
 If you perform that compressing operation upon 
 your article, you will make it three columns less." 
 
 "What! he doesn't pay for blank spaces, the 
 .Turk! but he reckons them when he settles with 
 his partner for all the editorial articles in bulk. 
 I'm going to see Etienne Lousteau, Vernou — " 
 
 "I can't go behind my orders, my boy," said the 
 officer. "What! for fifteen francs will you turn 
 against your nurse, when you can write articles 
 as easily as I smoke a cigar! Why! you can 
 just pay for one bowl less of punch for your friends, 
 or win an extra game of billiards, and you're all 
 right." 
 
 "Finot is saving money by means that will cost 
 him very dear," said the editor, as he rose and left 
 the room. 
 
 "Wouldn't one think he was Voltaire or Rous- 
 seau?" said the cashier to himself, glancing at the 
 provincial poet. 
 
 "I will call again about four o'clock, monsieur," 
 said Lucien.
 
 352 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 During the discussion he had noticed on the 
 walls, portraits of Benjamin Constant, General Foy 
 and the seventeen illustrious orators of the liberal 
 party, mingled with caricatures against the govern- 
 ment. He had looked with especial interest at the 
 door of the sanctuary whence the clever sheet was 
 issued that amused him every day and that enjoyed 
 the right of casting ridicule upon kings, upon the 
 most important events — the right, in short, of dis- 
 missing the most solemn subjects with a jest. He 
 went out and strolled along the boulevards, a novel 
 form of entertainment to him, and so attractive 
 that the hands of the clocks in the watchmaker's 
 windows pointed to four o'clock before he realized, 
 that he had not breakfasted. He hurried back to 
 Rue Saint-Fiacre, climbed the stairs, did not find 
 the old officer, but saw the veteran sitting on his 
 pile of stamped paper, eating a crust of bread and 
 doing his sentry duty with a resigned air, worn as 
 naturally in the service of the paper as in the old 
 days of extra picket duty, and with as little com- 
 prehension of what he was doing as he formerly had 
 of the reasons for the Emperor's rapid marches. 
 
 Lucien conceived the audacious idea of deceiving 
 this redoubtable official; he pulled his hat down 
 over his eyes and opened the door of the sanctum 
 just as if he belonged to the establishment. 
 
 The editorial office presented to his greedy eyes 
 a round table covered with a green cloth, and six 
 chairs of cherry wood covered with straw seats that 
 were still fresh and new. The floor of the room,
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 353 
 
 painted in colors, had not been polished, but it was 
 clean — a fact indicating that callers were few. On 
 the mantelpiece were a mirror, a grocer's clock 
 covered with dust, two candlesticks in which two 
 tallow-dips were carelessly stuck, and a few visit- 
 ing cards. On the table some old newspapers lay- 
 about an inkstand in which the ink had dried up 
 and resembled lacquer; it was supplied with quills 
 twisted into curious shapes. He read several arti- 
 cles written in an almost illegible, hieroglyphic 
 handwriting upon stray bits of paper, and torn at 
 the top by the compositors at the printing office, 
 who use that method of marking articles that are in 
 type. Here and there he saw and admired carica- 
 tures drawn upon colored paper with much skill, by 
 men who had evidently been trying to kill time 
 and keep their hand in by killing something or 
 somebody. 
 
 Pinned to the wall-paper of a watery green color 
 were nine caricatures drawn with the pen during 
 office hours, all referring to the Solitaire, a book 
 which was then enjoying unheard-of popularity in 
 Europe and had probably became a bore to news- 
 paper men: — "The Solitaire, appearing in the prov- 
 inces, astonishes the ladies." — "Effect of reading 
 the Solitaire in a chateau." — "Effect of the Solitaire 
 upon domestic animals." — "The Solitaire, having 
 been explained to savage tribes, achieves a most 
 brilliant triumph. " — "The Solitaire translated into 
 Chinese, and presented by the author to the Em- 
 peror at Pekin. " — "Elodie ravished by Mont 
 23
 
 354 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 Sauvage. " — This caricature seemed very immodest 
 to Lucien, but it made him laugh. — "The Solitaire 
 carried in procession by the newspapers under a 
 canopy." — "The Solitaire, causing a press to burst, 
 wounds the bears." — "The Solitaire read backward 
 astonishes the academicians by its superior beau- 
 ties." — Lucien discovered on the wrapper of a news- 
 paper, a drawing representing an editor holding out 
 his hat, and beneath it the words : Finot, my hun- 
 dred francs! signed by a name that has since be- 
 come famous but will never be illustrious. Between 
 the mantelpiece and the window were a secretaire, 
 a mahogany armchair, a waste-paper basket and an 
 oblong hearth rug, the whole covered with a thick 
 layer of dust. There were only draw-curtains at 
 the windows. On top of the desk there were about 
 twenty works that had been placed there during the 
 day, engravings, music, snuff-boxes a la Charte, 
 a copy of the ninth edition of the Solitaire, still the 
 great joke of the moment, and ten or twelve sealed 
 letters. 
 
 When Lucien had made an inventory of this ex- 
 traordinary furniture and had thought and thought 
 until his head swam, five o'clock having struck, he 
 returned to the veteran to question him. Coloquinte 
 had finished his crust and was awaiting with the 
 patience of a soldier on sentry-go the return of his 
 decorated superior, who was walking on the boule- 
 vard perhaps. At that moment a woman appeared 
 in the doorway, having given notice of her approach 
 by the rustle of her dress on the stairway and the
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 355 
 
 light feminine step so easily recognized. She was 
 quite pretty. 
 
 "Monsieur," she said to Lucien, "I know why 
 you puff up Mademoiselle Virginie's hats so, and I 
 have come, first of all, to subscribe for a year ; but 
 tell me the terms — " 
 
 "I am not employed on the paper, madame. " 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 "Do you want your subscription to begin with 
 the month of October?" the veteran asked. 
 
 "What is madame's business?" inquired the old 
 officer, entering at that moment. 
 
 He held a conference with the fair milliner. When 
 Lucien, tired of waiting, returned to the outer room, 
 he heard these concluding words : "Why, I shall be 
 delighted, monsieur. Mademoiselle Florentine may 
 come to my shop and choose whatever she wants. I 
 keep ribbons. So it's all agreed; you won't have 
 anything more to say about Virginie, a bungler, in- 
 capable of inventing a style, while I inventall mine !" 
 
 Lucien heard the chinking sound of a number of 
 coins falling into the cash-box. Then the officer 
 began to make up his daily account. 
 
 "Monsieur, I have been here an hour," said the 
 poet, with some irritation. 
 
 "Haven't they come?" said the Napoleonic vet- 
 eran, showing some interest as a matter of courtesy. 
 "I'm not surprised. It's some time since I've seen 
 them. It's the middle of the month, you see! Those 
 fellows only come around on pay-day, the twenty- 
 ninth or thirtieth."
 
 356 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 "And Monsieur Finot?" queried Lucien, who had 
 remembered the manager's name. 
 
 "He's at home, Rue Feydeau. Coloquinte, old 
 boy, take him everything that has come to-day, as 
 you carry the paper to the printing office. 
 
 "Where in the deuce is the paper made up?" 
 said Lucien, speaking to himself. 
 
 "The paper?" said the clerk, as Coloquinte 
 handed him the change from the Stamp Office; "the 
 paper? — broum! broum! — Be at the printing office 
 at six o'clock to-morrow morning, old fellow, to 
 keep the carriers up to their work. — The paper, 
 monsieur, is made up in the street, at the authors' 
 homes, at the printing office, between eleven o'clock 
 and midnight. In the Emperor's day, monsieur, 
 these shops for scribbling on paper weren't known. 
 Ah ! he would have shaken them up with four men 
 and a corporal, and not have let himself be hood- 
 winked by fine phrases as these other people are. 
 But enough said. If my nephew finds it profitable 
 and if he writes for the other's son, why, after all — 
 broum ! broum ! — there's no harm done. Well, 
 well! subscribers don't seem to be coming in in 
 regiments, and I think I'll leave the guard-house." 
 
 "You seem to be well posted on the subject of 
 editing a newspaper, monsieur," said Lucien. 
 
 "On the financial side, broum! broum!" said the 
 officer, noisily clearing his throat. "A hundred sous 
 or three francs, according to the talent displayed, — 
 for a column of fifty lines of forty letters each, not 
 counting blank spaces — that's the rule. As for the
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 357 
 
 editors, they're a curious lot, young fellows I 
 wouldn't have for camp followers, and, just because 
 they make fly tracks on white paper, they seem to 
 look down on an old captain of dragoons of the 
 Garde Imperiale, retired with the rank of major, 
 who entered every capital in Europe with Na- 
 poleon — " 
 
 Lucien, finding that he was being edged toward 
 the door by the ex-trooper, who was brushing his 
 blue coat and manifested an intention of leaving 
 the office, had the courage to stand firm. 
 
 "I came here to be employed as an editor," he 
 said, "and I promise you that I am filled with respect 
 for one of the captains of the Garde Imperiale, those 
 men of bronze — " 
 
 "Well said, my little pekin," rejoined the officer. 
 "But which class of editors do you want to enter?" 
 he added, passing over Lucien's body, so to speak, 
 and descending the stairs. 
 
 He stopped at the porter's lodge to light his cigar. 
 
 "If any subscriptions come in, Mere Chollet," he 
 said, "take them and make a note of them. — Always 
 subscriptions, I think of nothing but subscriptions," 
 he continued, turning to Lucien, who had followed 
 him. "Finot is my nephew, the only one of my 
 family who has done anything to make my position 
 more comfortable. So whoever seeks a quarrel with 
 Finot, finds old Giroudeau, captain in the dragoons 
 of the guard, who began as a common soldier in the 
 army of Sambre-et-Meuse, was five years master-at- 
 arms in the First Hussars, in the army of Italy!
 
 358 LOST ILLUSIONS 
 
 One, two, and it's all up with the fault-finder!" he 
 added, making a pass with an imaginary sword. 
 "Now then, my boy, we have different classes of 
 editors: there's the editor who edits and gets his 
 pay, the editor who edits and gets nothing — him 
 we call a volunteer; lastly, there's the editor who 
 edits nothing and who isn't the biggest fool of the 
 lot, for he makes no mistakes; he passes for a 
 writer, he belongs to the paper, he pays for our 
 dinner, he loiters about the theatres, he keeps an 
 actress, he's very fortunate. Which do you want 
 to be?" 
 
 "Why, an editor who works hard and, on that 
 account, is well paid." 
 
 "Yes, you're just like all raw recruits, wanting 
 to be marshals of France! Take old Giroudeau's 
 advice, — file left, slow time, — and go and pick up 
 nails in the gutter like yonder youth who has been 
 in the service, you can tell by his carriage. — Isn't 
 it an outrage that an old soldier, who has marched 
 up to the cannon's mouth a thousand times, should 
 be picking up nails in Paris? Dieu de Dieu, you're 
 a rascal, you didn't support the Emperor! — Look 
 you, my boy, that man you saw this morning has 
 earned forty francs this month. Could you do any 
 better ? And, according to Finot, he's the brightest 
 of all his editors." 
 
 "When you joined the Sambre-et-Meuse, didn't 
 they tell you there was danger ahead?" 
 
 "Parbleu! yes." 
 
 "Very good."
 
 LOST ILLUSIONS 359 
 
 "Well, go and see my nephew Finot, a good fel- 
 low, the squarest man you will ever meet, if you 
 can succeed in meeting him ; for he wriggles about 
 like a fish. In his trade, you see, he doesn't write 
 himself, but keeps others writing. It seems that 
 his parishioners prefer amusing themselves with 
 actresses to soiling paper. Oh! they're a queer 
 lot! Farewell, until I have the honor of meeting 
 you again." 
 
 The cashier began to twirl his redoubtable leaded 
 cane, one of Germanicus's protectors, and left Lu- 
 cien standing on the boulevard, as perplexed by 
 this sketch of the editorial function as he had been 
 by the definitive results of his literary venture 
 with Porchon and Vidal. Ten times Lucien called 
 on Andoche Finot, manager of the paper, at his 
 house on Rue Feydeau, without finding him. Early 
 in the morning, Finot had not returned home. At 
 noon, Finot was out: breakfasting, they said, at 
 some cafe. Lucien went to that cafe, and, sur- 
 mounting an invincible repugnance, inquired for 
 Finot of the proprietress; Finot had just gone. At 
 last Lucien, thoroughly weary of his quest, came to 
 look upon Finot as an apocryphal, fabulous person- 
 age, and he decided that it was a simpler matter to 
 keep watch upon Etienne Lousteau at Flicoteaux's. 
 That young journalist would doubtless explain the 
 mystery that surrounded the existence of the paper 
 with which he was connected.

 
 LIST OF ETCHINGS 
 
 VOLUME XXX 
 
 PAGE 
 
 IN FINOT'S OFFICE Fronts. 
 
 ANDRE DE CHENIER 40 
 
 EVE AND DAVID 156 
 
 MME. DE BARGETON'S BOUDOIR 204 
 
 H ARCHER DE CHARLES IX. 312 
 
 30 C. H., L. I., i, N. & R. 361
 
 Cb^A 
 
 11
 
 
 

 
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