owever little that
success may conduce to--nay, however much it may militate against--the
objects to which their vanity itself devotes its more permanent desires.
A vain woman may be very anxious to win A------, the magnificent, as a
partner for life; and yet feel a certain triumph when a glance of her
eye has made an evening's conquest of the pitiful B-------, although
by that achievement she incurs the imminent hazard of losing A------
altogether. So, when Gustave Rameau quitted Isaura, his first feeling
was that of triumph. His eloquence had subdued her will; she had not
finally discarded him. But as he wandered abstractedly in the biting
air, his self-complacency was succeeded by mortification and discontent.
He felt that he had committed himself to promises which he was by no
means prepared to keep. True, the promises were vague in words; but in
substance they were perfectly clear--"to spare, nay, to aid all that
Isaura esteemed and reverenced." How was this possible to him? How could
he suddenly change the whole character of his writings?--how become the
defender of marriage and property, of church and religion?--how proclaim
himself so utter an apostate? If he did, how become a leader of
the fresh revolution? how escape being its victim? Cease to write
altogether?

But then how live? His pen was his sole subsistence, save 30 sous a-day
as a National Guard--30 sous a day to him, who, in order to be Sybarite
in tastes, was Spartan in doctrine. Nothing better just at that moment
than Spartan doctrine, "Live on black broth and fight the enemy." And
the journalists in vogue so thrived upon that patriotic sentiment, that
they were the last persons compelled to drink the black broth or to
fight the enemy.

"Those women are such idiots when they meddle in politics," grumbled
between his teeth the enthusiastic advocate of Woman's Rights on all
matters of love. "And," he continued, soliloquising, "it is not as if
the girl had any large or decent dot; it is not as if she said, 'In
return for the sacrifice of your popularity, your prospects, your
opinions, I give you not only a devoted heart, but an excellent table
and a capital fire and plenty of pocket-money.' Sacre bleu! when I think
of that frozen salon, and possibly the leg of a mouse for dinner, and a
virtuous homily by way of grace, the prospect is not alluring; and the
girl herself is not so pretty as she was--grown very thin. Sur mon ame,
I think she asks too much