This visit of the great surgeon was the event of the day, and it left a luminous trace in Modeste’s soul.  The young enthusiast ardently admired the man whose life belonged to others, and in whom the habit of studying physical suffering had destroyed the manifestations of egoism.  That evening, when Gobenheim, the Latournelles, and Butscha, Canalis, Ernest, and the Duc d’Herouville were gathered in the salon, they all congratulated the Mignon family on the hopes which Desplein encouraged.  The conversation, in which the Modeste of her letters was once more in the ascendant, turned naturally on the man whose genius, unfortunately for his fame, was appreciable only by the faculty and men of science.  Gobenheim contributed a phrase which is the sacred chrism of genius as interpreted in these days by public economists and bankers,—­

“He makes a mint of money.”

“They say he is very grasping,” added Canalis.

The praises which Modeste showered on Desplein had annoyed the poet.  Vanity acts like a woman,—­they both think they are defrauded when love or praise is bestowed on others.  Voltaire was jealous of the wit of a roue whom Paris admired for two days; and even a duchess takes offence at a look bestowed upon her maid.  The avarice excited by these two sentiments is such that a fraction of them given to the poor is thought robbery.

“Do you think, monsieur,” said Modeste, smiling, “that we should judge genius by ordinary standards?”

“Perhaps we ought first of all to define the man of genius,” replied Canalis.  “One of the conditions of genius is invention,—­invention of a form, a system, a force.  Napoleon was an inventor, apart from his other conditions of genius.  He invented his method of making war.  Walter Scott is an inventor, Linnaeus is an inventor, Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire and Cuvier are inventors.  Such men are men of genius of the first rank.  They renew, increase, or modify both science and art.  But Desplein is merely a man whose vast talent consists in properly applying laws already known; in observing, by means of a natural gift, the limits laid down for each temperament, and the time appointed by Nature for an operation.  He has not founded, like Hippocrates, the science itself.  He has invented no system, as did Galen, Broussais, and Rasori.  He is merely an executive genius, like Moscheles on the piano, Paganini on the violin, or Farinelli on his own larynx,—­men who have developed enormous faculties, but who have not created music.  You must permit me to discriminate between Beethoven and la Catalani:  to one belongs the immortal crown of genius and of martyrdom, to the other innumerable five-franc pieces; one we can pay in coin, but the world remains throughout all time a debtor to the other.  Each day increases our debt to Moliere, but Baron’s comedies have been overpaid.”