owledge separately for lack of time."

But this was not all. There was really a good excuse for Eugene Sue "se
prenant au serieux," seeing that some of the most eminent magistrates
looked upon him in that light and opened a correspondence with him,
submitting their ideas about reforming such criminals as "le maitre
d'ecole," and praising Prince Rodolph, or rather Eugene Sue under that
name, for "his laudable efforts in the cause of humanity." In reality,
Sue was in the position of Moliere's "bourgeois gentilhomme" who spoke
prose without being aware of it; for there was not the smallest evidence
from his former work that he intended to inaugurate any crusade, either
socialistic or philanthropic, when he began his "Mysteres de Paris." He
simply wanted to write a stirring novel. But, unlike M. Jourdain, he did
not plead ignorance of his own good motives when congratulated upon
them. On the contrary, he gravely and officially replied in the _Debats_
without winking. Some of the papers, not to be outdone, gravely
recounted how whole families had been converted from their evil ways by
the perusal of the novel; how others, after supper, had dropped on their
knees to pray for their author; how one working man had exclaimed, "You
may say what you like, it would be a good thing if Providence sent many
men like M. Sue in this world to take up the cudgels of the honest and
struggling artisan." Thereupon Beranger, who did not like to be
forgotten in this chorus of praise, paid a ceremonious visit to Sue, and
between the two they assumed the protectorship of the horny-handed son
of toil.

It must not be supposed that I am joking or exaggerating, and that the
_engoument_ was confined to the lower classes, and to provincial and
metropolitan faddists. Such men as M. de Lourdoueix, the editor of the
_Gazette de France_, fell into the trap. I have pointed out elsewhere
that the republicans and socialists of those days were not necessarily
godless folk, and M. de Lourdoueix fitly concluded that a socialistic
writer like Sue might become a powerful weapon in his hands against the
Jesuits. So he went to the novelist, and gave him a commission to that
effect. The latter accepted, and conceived the plot of "The Wandering
Jew." When it was sketched out, he communicated it to the editor; but
whether that gentleman had reconsidered the matter in the interval, or
whether he felt frightened at the horribly tragic conception with
scarcely any reli