d salvos. Martainville applauded bravely;
Nathan, Merlin, and the treacherous Florine followed his example; but
it was clear that the piece was a failure. A crowd gathered in
Coralie's dressing-room and consoled her, till she had no courage
left. She went home in despair, less for her own sake than for
Lucien's.

"Braulard has betrayed us," Lucien said.

Coralie was heartstricken. The next day found her in a high fever,
utterly unfit to play, face to face with the thought that she had been
cut short in her career. Lucien hid the papers from her, and looked
them over in the dining-room. The reviewers one and all attributed the
failure of the piece to Coralie; she had overestimated her strength;
she might be the delight of a boulevard audience, but she was out of
her element at the Gymnase; she had been inspired by a laudable
ambition, but she had not taken her powers into account; she had
chosen a part to which she was quite unequal. Lucien read on through a
pile of penny-a-lining, put together on the same system as his attack
upon Nathan. Milo of Crotona, when he found his hands fast in the oak
which he himself had cleft, was not more furious than Lucien. He grew
haggard with rage. His friends gave Coralie the most treacherous
advice, in the language of kindly counsel and friendly interest. She
should play (according to these authorities) all kind of roles, which
the treacherous writers of these unblushing _feuilletons_ knew to be
utterly unsuited to her genius. And these were the Royalist papers,
led off by Nathan. As for the Liberal press, all the weapons which
Lucien had used were now turned against him.

Coralie heard a sob, followed by another and another. She sprang out
of bed to find Lucien, and saw the papers. Nothing would satisfy her
but she must read them all; and when she had read them, she went back
to bed, and lay there in silence.

Florine was in the plot; she had foreseen the outcome; she had studied
Coralie's part, and was ready to take her place. The management,
unwilling to give up the piece, was ready to take Florine in Coralie's
stead. When the manager came, he found poor Coralie sobbing and
exhausted on her bed; but when he began to say, in Lucien's presence,
that Florine knew the part, and that the play must be given that
evening, Coralie sprang up at once.

"I will play!" she cried, and sank fainting on the floor.

So Florine took the part, and made her reputation in it; for the piece
suc