l his attacks.

Coralie, Berenice, and Bianchon might shut the door on Lucien's
so-called friends, who raised a great outcry, but it was impossible to
keep out creditors and writs. After the failure of Fendant and Cavalier,
their bills were taken into bankruptcy according to that provision of
the Code of Commerce most inimical to the claims of third parties, who
in this way lose the benefit of delay.

Lucien discovered that Camusot was proceeding against him with great
energy. When Coralie heard the name, and for the first time learned the
dreadful and humiliating step which her poet had taken for her sake,
the angelic creature loved him ten times more than before, and would not
approach Camusot. The bailiff bringing the warrant of arrest shrank
back from the idea of dragging his prisoner out of bed, and went back to
Camusot before applying to the President of the Tribunal of Commerce for
an order to remove the debtor to a private hospital. Camusot hurried at
once to the Rue de la Lune, and Coralie went down to him.

When she came up again she held the warrants, in which Lucien was
described as a tradesman, in her hand. How had she obtained those papers
from Camusot? What promise had she given? Coralie kept a sad, gloomy
silence, but when she returned she looked as if all the life had gone
out of her. She played in Camille Maupin's play, and contributed not a
little to the success of that illustrious literary hermaphrodite; but
the creation of this character was the last flicker of a bright, dying
lamp. On the twentieth night, when Lucien had so far recovered that he
had regained his appetite and could walk abroad, and talked of getting
to work again, Coralie broke down; a secret trouble was weighing upon
her. Berenice always believed that she had promised to go back to
Camusot to save Lucien.

Another mortification followed. Coralie was obliged to see her part
given to Florine. Nathan had threatened the Gymnase with war if the
management refused to give the vacant place to Coralie's rival. Coralie
had persisted till she could play no longer, knowing that Florine was
waiting to step into her place. She had overtasked her strength. The
Gymnase had advanced sums during Lucien's illness, she had no money to
draw; Lucien, eager to work though he was, was not yet strong enough to
write, and he helped besides to nurse Coralie and to relieve Berenice.
From poverty they had come to utter distress; but in Bianchon they
found