sh; the modern
representatives of the school of Voltaire as opposed to the English and
German schools, even as the seventeen heroic deputies of the Left fought
the battle for the nation against the Ultras of the Right.

"And then, under cover of names respected by the immense majority of
Frenchmen (who will always be against the Government), you can crush
Nathan; for although his work is far above the average, it confirms
the bourgeois taste for literature without ideas. And after that, you
understand, it is no longer a question of Nathan and his book, but
of France and the glory of France. It is the duty of all honest
and courageous pens to make strenuous opposition to these foreign
importations. And with that you flatter your readers. Shrewd French
mother-wit is not easily caught napping. If publishers, by ways which
you do not choose to specify, have stolen a success, the reading public
very soon judges for itself, and corrects the mistakes made by some five
hundred fools, who always rush to the fore.

"Say that the publisher who sold a first edition of the book is
audacious indeed to issue a second, and express regret that so clever a
man does not know the taste of the country better. There is the gist of
it. Just a sprinkle of the salt of wit and a dash of vinegar to bring
out the flavor, and Dauriat will be done to a turn. But mind that you
end with seeming to pity Nathan for a mistake, and speak of him as of
a man from whom contemporary literature may look for great things if he
renounces these ways."

Lucien was amazed at this talk from Lousteau. As the journalist spoke,
the scales fell from his eyes; he beheld new truths of which he had
never before caught so much as a glimpse.

"But all this that you are saying is quite true and just," said he.

"If it were not, how could you make it tell against Nathan's book?"
asked Lousteau. "That is the first manner of demolishing a book, my
boy; it is the pickaxe style of criticism. But there are plenty of
other ways. Your education will complete itself in time. When you
are absolutely obliged to speak of a man whom you do not like, for
proprietors and editors are sometimes under compulsion, you bring out
a neutral special article. You put the title of the book at the head of
it, and begin with general remarks, on the Greeks and the Romans if you
like, and wind up with--'and this brings us to Mr. So-and-so's book,
which will form the subject of a second article.' The