“I am not quite a featherhead, my friends,” said Lucien, “though you may choose to see a poet in me.  Whatever may happen, I shall gain one solid advantage which no Liberal victory can give me.  By the time your victory is won, I shall have gained my end.”

“We will cut off—­your hair,” said Michel Chrestien, with a laugh.

“I shall have my children by that time,” said Lucien; “and if you cut off my head, it will not matter.”

The three could make nothing of Lucien.  Intercourse with the great world had developed in him the pride of caste, the vanities of the aristocrat.  The poet thought, and not without reason, that there was a fortune in his good looks and intellect, accompanied by the name and title of Rubempre.  Mme. d’Espard and Mme. de Bargeton held him fast by this clue, as a child holds a cockchafer by a string.  Lucien’s flight was circumscribed.  The words, “He is one of us, he is sound,” accidentally overheard but three days ago in Mlle. de Touches’ salon, had turned his head.  The Duc de Lenoncourt, the Duc de Navarreins, the Duc de Grandlieu, Rastignac, Blondet, the lovely Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, the Comte d’Escrignon, and des Lupeaulx, all the most influential people at Court in fact, had congratulated him on his conversion, and completed his intoxication.

“Then there is no more to be said,” d’Arthez rejoined.  “You, of all men, will find it hard to keep clean hands and self-respect.  I know you, Lucien; you will feel it acutely when you are despised by the very men to whom you offer yourself.”

The three took leave, and not one of them gave him a friendly handshake.  Lucien was thoughtful and sad for a few minutes.

“Oh! never mind those ninnies,” cried Coralie, springing upon his knee and putting her beautiful arms about his neck.  “They take life seriously, and life is a joke.  Besides, you are going to be Count Lucien de Rubempre.  I will wheedle the Chancellerie if there is no other way.  I know how to come round that rake of a des Lupeaulx, who will sign your patent.  Did I not tell you, Lucien, that at the last you should have Coralie’s dead body for a stepping stone?”

Next day Lucien allowed his name to appear in the list of contributors to the Reveil.  His name was announced in the prospectus with a flourish of trumpets, and the Ministry took care that a hundred thousand copies should be scattered abroad far and wide.  There was a dinner at Robert’s, two doors away from Frascati’s, to celebrate the inauguration, and the whole band of Royalist writers for the press were present.  Martainville was there, and Auger and Destains, and a host of others, still living, who “did Monarchy and religion,” to use the familiar expression coined for them.  Nathan had also enlisted under the banner, for he was thinking of starting a theatre, and not unreasonably held that it was better to have the licensing authorities for him than against him.