y and night for several years, his
forehead, metaphorically, bathed in a painful perspiration alleviated
only by hopes far away. At last the untiring worker's drill struck the
underground spring over which so many noble ones breathlessly bend,
although their thirst is never quenched. At this victorious stroke, glory
burst forth, falling in luminous sparks, making this new name--his
name--flash with a brilliancy too dearly paid for not to be lasting.

At the time of which we speak, Octave had conquered every obstacle in the
literary field. With a versatility of talent which sometimes recalled
Voltaire's "proteanism," he attacked in succession the most difficult
styles. Besides their poetic value, his dramas had this positive merit,
the highest in the theatre world they were money-makers; so the managers
greeted him with due respect, while collaborators swarmed about him. The
journals paid for his articles in their weight in gold; reviews snatched
every line of his yet unfinished novels; his works were illustrated by
Porret and Tony Johannot--the masters of the day--and shone resplendent
behind the glass cases in the Orleans gallery. Gerfaut had at last made a
place for himself among that baker's dozen of writers who call
themselves, and justly, too, the field-marshals of French literature, of
which Chateaubriand was then commander-in-chief.

What was it that had brought such a person a hundred leagues from the
opera balcony, to put on a pretty woman's slipper? Was the fair lady one
of those caprices, so frequent and fleeting in an artist's thoughts, or
had she given birth to one of those sentiments that end by absorbing the
rest of one's life?

The young man seated opposite Gerfaut was, physically and morally, as
complete a contrast to him as one could possibly imagine. He was one of
the kind very much in request in fashionable society. There is not a
person who has not met one of these worthy fellows, destined to make good
officers, perfect merchants, and very satisfactory lawyers, but who,
unfortunately, have been seized with a mania for notoriety. Ordinarily
they think of it on account of somebody else's talent. This one is
brother to a poet, another son-in-law to a historian; they conclude that
they also have a right to be poet and historian in their turn. Thomas
Corneille is their model; but we must admit that very few of our writers
reach the rank attained by Corneille the younger.

Marillac was train-bearer to