of a 'dot,' I would not take him. You don't know what a young man is who
has been for ten years in the hands of a Duchesse de Chaulieu. None but
an old woman of sixty could put up with the little ailments of which,
they say, the great poet is always complaining,--a habit in Louis XIV.
that became a perfectly insupportable annoyance. It is true the duchess
does not suffer from it as much as a wife, who would have him always
about her."

Then, practising a well-known manoeuvre peculiar to her sex, Helene
d'Herouville repeated in a low voice all the calumnies which women
jealous of the Duchesse de Chaulieu were in the habit of spreading about
the poet. This little incident, common as it is in the intercourse of
women, will serve to show with what fury the hounds were after Modeste's
wealth.

Ten days saw a great change in the opinions at the Chalet as to the
three suitors for Mademoiselle de La Bastie's hand. This change,
which was much to the disadvantage of Canalis, came about through
considerations of a nature which ought to make the holders of any kind
of fame pause, and reflect. No one can deny, if we remember the passion
with which people seek for autographs, that public curiosity is greatly
excited by celebrity. Evidently most provincials never form an exact
idea in their own minds of how illustrious Parisians put on their
cravats, walk on the boulevards, stand gaping at nothing, or eat
a cutlet; because, no sooner do they perceive a man clothed in the
sunbeams of fashion or resplendent with some dignity that is more or
less fugitive (though always envied), than they cry out, "Look at
that!" "How queer!" and other depreciatory exclamations. In a word, the
mysterious charm that attaches to every kind of fame, even that which
is most justly due, never lasts. It is, and especially with superficial
people who are envious or sarcastic, a sensation which passes off with
the rapidity of lightning, and never returns. It would seem as though
fame, like the sun, hot and luminous at a distance, is cold as the
summit of an alp when you approach it. Perhaps man is only really great
to his peers; perhaps the defects inherent in his constitution disappear
sooner to the eyes of his equals than to those of vulgar admirers. A
poet, if he would please in ordinary life, must put on the fictitious
graces of those who are able to make their insignificances forgotten
by charming manners and complying speeches. The poet of the faubourg
S