We had exchanged visiting-cards several times, and a few letters, but I
did not as yet know him. I was attracted to him by the very contrasts
which existed between us. My elegant and delicate nature (as the
newspapers then styled it: they _now_ call it my weak and morbid nature)
seemed in absolute contradiction to that robust frame, that oaken
solidity, which revealed beneath its rugged bark its virile juices. His
masculine and potent ugliness reminded me of Mirabeau, of a plebeian
Mirabeau with straight black hair, of a Mirabeau who had found at the
foot of the altar calmness for his tempest-tossed soul. His conversation
delighted and fascinated me. One felt (despite some coarseness in minor
details, and which almost seemed to be assumed) that there glowed within
him the energetic convictions of an honest man and a Christian, who had
at command the most stinging language that ever wrung the withers of
Voltaire's pale successors. No man among our contemporaries has been
more hated than Monsieur Louis Veuillot. He has flagellated, kicked,
cuffed, jeered, mocked, humiliated, exasperated, better than anybody
else, the writers I most detest. He has given them wounds which will
forever rankle. He has indelibly branded these miserable actors who play
upon the theatre of their vices the comedy of their vanity. We together
examined the pages where I had expressed my opinion upon contemporary
authors.

"Are these," said Monsieur Louis Veuillot, speaking severely to me,
"are these all your sacrifices to the truth? Praises to that one,
flattery to this one, soft words to him, compliments to another? You
blame them just enough to incite people to buy their books. Is that what
you call serving our noble and austere cause? Oh, Sir! Sir!" ...

He lectured me long and well. He spoke with the edification of a sermon
and the brilliancy of a satire. At last, ashamed of my weakness,
electrified by his language, burning to repair lost time, I said to him,
pressing his hands in mine,--

"I am dwelling amid the luxuries of Capua; when next you hear from me, I
shall be in the midst of the field of battle."

I at once began my campaign. I made war upon Voltaire, Beranger, Eugene
Sue, De Balzac, George Sand, Victor Hugo, Michelet, Quinet; and as for
the small fry of literature, I showed them no mercy. War was soon
declared on _me_,--war without quarter.

My first adversary was little Monsieur Paulin Limayrac. He has become
the most accom