joyous over the wine.  His wrongs had just been avenged.  There were two for whom he had vainly striven to fill the cup of humiliation and pain which he had been made to drink to the dregs, and now to-morrow they should receive a stab in their very hearts.  “Here is a real friend!” he thought, as he looked at Lousteau.  It never crossed his mind that Lousteau already regarded him as a dangerous rival.  He had made a blunder; he had done his very best when a colorless article would have served him admirably well.  Blondet’s remark to Finot that it would be better to come to terms with a man of that calibre, had counteracted Lousteau’s gnawing jealousy.  He reflected that it would be prudent to keep on good terms with Lucien, and, at the same time, to arrange with Finot to exploit this formidable newcomer—­he must be kept in poverty.  The decision was made in a moment, and the bargain made in a few whispered words.

“He has talent.”

“He will want the more.”

“Ah?”

“Good!”

“A supper among French journalists always fills me with dread,” said the German diplomatist, with serene urbanity; he looked as he spoke at Blondet, whom he had met at the Comtesse de Montcornet’s.  “It is laid upon you, gentlemen, to fulfil a prophecy of Blucher’s.”

“What prophecy?” asked Nathan.

“When Blucher and Sacken arrived on the heights of Montmartre in 1814 (pardon me, gentlemen, for recalling a day unfortunate for France), Sacken (a rough brute), remarked, ‘Now we will set Paris alight!’ —­’Take very good care that you don’t,’ said Blucher.  ’France will die of that, nothing else can kill her,’ and he waved his hand over the glowing, seething city, that lay like a huge canker in the valley of the Seine.—­There are no journalists in our country, thank Heaven!” continued the Minister after a pause.  “I have not yet recovered from the fright that the little fellow gave me, a boy of ten, in a paper cap, with the sense of an old diplomatist.  And to-night I feel as if I were supping with lions and panthers, who graciously sheathe their claws in my honor.”

“It is clear,” said Blondet, “that we are at liberty to inform Europe that a serpent dropped from your Excellency’s lips this evening, and that the venomous creature failed to inoculate Mlle. Tullia, the prettiest dancer in Paris; and to follow up the story with a commentary on Eve, and the Scriptures, and the first and last transgression.  But have no fear, you are our guest.”

“It would be funny,” said Finot.

“We would begin with a scientific treatise on all the serpents found in the human heart and human body, and so proceed to the corps diplomatique,” said Lousteau.

“And we could exhibit one in spirits, in a bottle of brandied cherries,” said Vernou.

“Till you yourself would end by believing in the story,” added Vignon, looking at the diplomatist.

“Gentlemen,” cried the Duc de Rhetore, “let sleeping claws lie.”