The description contained in the little volume before us, the manner in which every petty scribbler of fiftieth-rate talent was transformed into a giant in the society of Nodier, is extremely curious and amusing, and the more so that it is strictly true, and tallies perfectly with the recollections of the individuals who, at the period mentioned, were admitted to the reunions of the Arsenal.

Every form of praise having been expended upon persons of infinitely small merit, what was to be done when those of real superiority entered upon the scene?  It was impossible to apply to them the forms of laudation adapted to their inferiors.  Well, then, a species of slang was invented, by which it was thought practicable to make the genuine great men conceive they had passed into the condition of demigods.  A language was devised that was to express the fervor of the adorers who were suddenly allowed to penetrate into Olympus, and the strange, misapplied terms whereof seemed to the uninitiated the language of insanity.  For instance, if, after a dozen little unshaved, unkempt poetasters had been called “sublime,” Victor Hugo vouchsafed to recite one of his really best Odes, what was the eulogistic form to be adopted?  Mme. Ancelot will tell us.

“A pause would ensue, and at the end of a silence of some minutes, when the echo of Hugo’s sonorous voice had subsided, one after another of the elect would rise, go up to the poet, take his hand with solemn emotion, and raise to the ceiling eyes full of mute enthusiasm.  The crowd of bystanders would listen all agape.  Then, to the surprise, almost to the consternation, of the uninitiated, one word only would be spoken,—­loudly, distinctly, and with strong, deep emphasis spoken; that word would be: 

  “Cathedral!!!

“The first orator, after this effort, would return to the place whence he had come, and another, succeeding to him, after repeating the same pantomime as the former, would exclaim: 

  “Ogive!!!

“Then a third would come forward, and, after looking all around, would risk the word: 

  “Pyramid-of-Egypt!!!

“And thereat the whole assembly would start off into frenzies of applause, and fifty or sixty voices would repeat in chorus the sacramental words that had just been pronounced separately.”

The degree of absurdity to which a portion of society must have attained before such scenes as the above could become possible may serve as a commentary and an explanation to half the literature which flooded the stage and the press in France for the first six or eight years after the Revolution of 1830.  However, to be just, we must, in extenuation of all these absurdities, cite one passage more from Mme. Ancelot’s book, in which, in one respect, at all events, the youth of twenty years ago in Paris are shown to have been superior to the youth of the present day.