Lucien read the words through scalding tears.

Vernou touched elsewhere on Lucien’s gambling propensities, and spoke of the forthcoming Archer of Charles IX. as “anti-national” in its tendency, the writer siding with Catholic cut-throats against their Calvinist victims.

Another week found the quarrel embittered.  Lucien had counted upon his friend Etienne; Etienne owed him a thousand francs, and there had been besides a private understanding between them; but Etienne Lousteau during the interval became his sworn foe, and this was the manner of it.

For the past three months Nathan had been smitten with Florine’s charms, and much at a loss how to rid himself of Lousteau his rival, who was in fact dependent upon the actress.  And now came Nathan’s opportunity, when Florine was frantic with distress over the failure of the Panorama-Dramatique, which left her without an engagement.  He went as Lucien’s colleague to beg Coralie to ask for a part for Florine in a play of his which was about to be produced at the Gymnase.  Then Nathan went to Florine and made capital with her out of the service done by the promise of a conditional engagement.  Ambition turned Florine’s head; she did not hesitate.  She had had time to gauge Lousteau pretty thoroughly.  Lousteau’s courses were weakening his will, and here was Nathan with his ambitions in politics and literature, and energies strong as his cravings.  Florine proposed to reappear on the stage with renewed eclat, so she handed over Matifat’s correspondence to Nathan.  Nathan drove a bargain for them with Matifat, and took the sixth share of Finot’s review in exchange for the compromising billets.  After this, Florine was installed in sumptuously furnished apartments in the Rue Hauteville, where she took Nathan for her protector in the face of the theatrical and journalistic world.

Lousteau was terribly overcome.  He wept (towards the close of a dinner given by his friends to console him in his affliction).  In the course of that banquet it was decided that Nathan had not acted unfairly; several writers present—­Finot and Vernou, for instance,—­knew of Florine’s fervid admiration for dramatic literature; but they all agreed that Lucien had behaved very ill when he arranged that business at the Gymnase; he had indeed broken the most sacred laws of friendship.  Party-spirit and zeal to serve his new friends had led the Royalist poet on to sin beyond forgiveness.

“Nathan was carried away by passion,” pronounced Bixiou, “while this ‘distinguished provincial,’ as Blondet calls him, is simply scheming for his own selfish ends.”