As for Florine, Raoul’s power in the press was like a protecting sceptre; he spared her many cares and anxieties; she clung to him less as a lover than a prop; she took care of him like a father, she deceived him like a husband; but she would readily have sacrificed all she had to him.  Raoul could, and did do everything for her vanity as an actress, for the peace of her self-love, and for her future on the stage.  Without the intervention of a successful author, there is no successful actress; Champmesle was due to Racine, like Mars to Monvel and Andrieux.  Florine could do nothing in return for Raoul, though she would gladly have been useful and necessary to him.  She reckoned on the charms of habit to keep him by her; she was always ready to open her salons and display the luxury of her dinners and suppers for his friends, and to further his projects.  She desired to be for him what Madame de Pompadour was to Louis XV.  All actresses envied Florine’s position, and some journalists envied that of Raoul.

Those to whom the inclination of the human mind towards chance, opposition, and contrasts is known, will readily understand that after ten years of this lawless Bohemian life, full of ups and downs, of fetes and sheriffs, of orgies and forced sobrieties, Raoul was attracted to the idea of another love,—­to the gentle, harmonious house and presence of a great lady, just as the Comtesse Felix instinctively desired to introduce the torture of great emotions into a life made monotonous by happiness.  This law of life is the law of all arts, which exist only by contrasts.  A work done without this incentive is the loftiest expression of genius, just as the cloister is the highest expression of the Christian life.

On returning to his lodging from Lady Dudley’s ball, Raoul found a note from Florine, brought by her maid, which an invincible sleepiness prevented him from reading at that moment.  He fell asleep, dreaming of a gentle love that his life had so far lacked.  Some hours later he opened the note, and found in it important news, which neither Rastignac nor de Marsay had allowed to transpire.  The indiscretion of a member of the government had revealed to the actress the coming dissolution of the Chamber after the present session.  Raoul instantly went to Florine’s house and sent for Blondet.  In the actress’s boudoir, with their feet on the fender, Emile and Raoul analyzed the political situation of France in 1834.  On which side lay the best chance of fortune?  They reviewed all parties and all shades of party, —­pure republicans, presiding republicans, republicans without a republic, constitutionals without a dynasty, ministerial conservatives, ministerial absolutists; also the Right, the aristocratic Right, the legitimist, henriquinquist Right, and the carlest Right.  Between the party of resistance and that of action there was no discussion; they might as well have hesitated between life and death.

At this period a flock of newspapers, created to represent all shades of opinion, produced a fearful pell-mell of political principles.  Blondet, the most judicious mind of the day,—­judicious for others, never for himself, like some great lawyers unable to manage their own affairs,—­was magnificent in such a discussion.  The upshot was that he advised Nathan not to apostatize too suddenly.