t," added the
speaker, holding out the sheets of Lucien's article. "You call yourself
a Royalist, sir, and you are on the staff of that detestable paper which
turns the Minister's hair gray, harasses the Centre, and is dragging the
country headlong to ruin? You breakfast on the _Corsair_, the _Miroir_,
the _Constitutionnel_, and the _Courier_; you dine on the _Quotidienne_
and the _Reveil_, and then sup with Martainville, the worst enemy of the
Government! Martainville urges the Government on to Absolutist measures;
he is more likely to bring on another Revolution than if he had gone
over to the extreme Left. You are a very clever journalist, but you will
never make a politician. The Minister denounced you to the King, and
the King was so angry that he scolded M. le Duc de Navarreins, his
First Gentleman of the Bedchamber. Your enemies will be all the more
formidable because they have hitherto been your friends. Conduct that
one expects from an enemy is atrocious in a friend."

"Why, really, my dear fellow, are you a child?" said des Lupeaulx.
"You have compromised me. Mme. d'Espard, Mme. de Bargeton, and Mme. de
Montcornet, who were responsible for you, must be furious. The Duke is
sure to have handed on his annoyance to the Marquise, and the Marquise
will have scolded her cousin. Keep away from them and wait."

"Here comes his lordship--go!" said the Secretary-General.

Lucien went out into the Place Vendome; he was stunned by this bludgeon
blow. He walked home along the Boulevards trying to think over his
position. He saw himself a plaything in the hands of envy, treachery,
and greed. What was he in this world of contending ambitions? A child
sacrificing everything to the pursuit of pleasure and the gratification
of vanity; a poet whose thoughts never went beyond the moment, a moth
flitting from one bright gleaming object to another. He had no definite
aim; he was the slave of circumstance--meaning well, doing ill.
Conscience tortured him remorselessly. And to crown it all, he was
penniless and exhausted with work and emotion. His articles could not
compare with Merlin's or Nathan's work.

He walked at random, absorbed in these thoughts. As he passed some
of the reading-rooms which were already lending books as well as
newspapers, a placard caught his eyes. It was an advertisement of a book
with a grotesque title, but beneath the announcement he saw his name in
brilliant letters--"By Lucien Chardon de Rubempre." S