“We will pay the Liberals out,” cried Merlin.

“Gentlemen,” said Nathan, “if we are for war, let us have war in earnest; we must not carry it on with pop-guns.  Let us fall upon all Classicals and Liberals without distinction of age or sex, and put them all to the sword with ridicule.  There must be no quarter.”

“We must act honorably; there must be no bribing with copies of books or presents; no taking money of publishers.  We must inaugurate a Restoration of Journalism.”

“Good!” said Martainville. “Justum et tenacem propositi virum!  Let us be implacable and virulent.  I will give out La Fayette for the prince of harlequins that he is!”

“And I will undertake the heroes of the Constitutionnel,” added Lucien; “Sergeant Mercier, M. Jouy’s Complete Works, and ’the illustrious orators of the Left.’”

A war of extermination was unanimously resolved upon, and by one o’clock in the morning all shades of opinion were merged and drowned, together with every glimmer of sense, in a flaming bowl of punch.

“We have had a fine Monarchical and Religious jollification,” remarked an illustrious reveler in the doorway as he went.

That comment appeared in the next day’s issue of the Miroir through the good offices of a publisher among the guests, and became historic.  Lucien was supposed to be the traitor who blabbed.  His defection gave the signal for a terrific hubbub in the Liberal camp; Lucien was the butt of the Opposition newspapers, and ridiculed unmercifully.  The whole history of his sonnets was given to the public.  Dauriat was said to prefer a first loss of a thousand crowns to the risk of publishing the verses; Lucien was called “the Poet sans Sonnets;” and one morning, in that very paper in which he had so brilliant a beginning, he read the following lines, significant enough for him, but barely intelligible to other readers: 

*** “If M. Dauriat persistently withholds the Sonnets of the future Petrarch from publication, we will act like generous foes.  We will open our own columns to his poems, which must be piquant indeed, to judge by the following specimen obligingly communicated by a friend of the author.”

And close upon that ominous preface followed a sonnet entitled “The Thistle” (le Chardon): 

  A chance-come seedling, springing up one day
  Among the flowers in a garden fair,
  Made boast that splendid colors bright and rare
  Its claims to lofty lineage should display.

  So for a while they suffered it to stay;
  But with such insolence it flourished there,
  That, out of patience with its braggart’s air,
  They bade it prove its claims without delay.

  It bloomed forthwith; but ne’er was blundering clown
  Upon the boards more promptly hooted down;
  The sister flowers began to jeer and laugh.

  The owner flung it out.  At close of day
  A solitary jackass came to bray—­
  A common Thistle’s fitting epitaph.