A fatal event occurred on the evening before Coralie’s debut.  D’Arthez’s book had appeared; and the editor of Merlin’s paper, considering Lucien to be the best qualified man on the staff, gave him the book to review.  He owed his unlucky reputation to those articles on Nathan’s work.  There were several men in the office at the time, for all the staff had been summoned; Martainville was explaining that the party warfare with the Liberals must be waged on certain lines.  Nathan, Merlin, all the contributors, in fact, were talking of Leon Giraud’s paper, and remarking that its influence was the more pernicious because the language was guarded, cool, moderate.  People were beginning to speak of the circle in the Rue des Quatre-Vents as a second Convention.  It had been decided that the Royalist papers were to wage a systematic war of extermination against these dangerous opponents, who, indeed, at a later day, were destined to sow the doctrines that drove the Bourbons into exile; but that was only after the most brilliant of Royalist writers had joined them for the sake of a mean revenge.

D’Arthez’s absolutist opinions were not known; it was taken for granted that he shared the views of his clique, he fell under the same anathema, and he was to be the first victim.  His book was to be honored with “a slashing article,” to use the consecrated formula.  Lucien refused to write the article.  Great was the commotion among the leading Royalist writers thus met in conclave.  Lucien was told plainly that a renegade could not do as he pleased; if it did not suit his views to take the side of the Monarchy and Religion, he could go back to the other camp.  Merlin and Martainville took him aside and begged him, as his friends, to remember that he would simply hand Coralie over to the tender mercies of the Liberal papers, for she would find no champions on the Royalist and Ministerial side.  Her acting was certain to provoke a hot battle, and the kind of discussion which every actress longs to arouse.

“You don’t understand it in the least,” said Martainville; “if she plays for three months amid a cross-fire of criticism, she will make thirty thousand francs when she goes on tour in the provinces at the end of the season; and here are you about to sacrifice Coralie and your own future, and to quarrel with your own bread and butter, all for a scruple that will always stand in your way, and ought to be got rid of at once.”

Lucien was forced to choose between d’Arthez and Coralie.  His mistress would be ruined unless he dealt his friend a death-blow in the Reveil and the great newspaper.  Poor poet!  He went home with death in his soul; and by the fireside he sat and read that finest production of modern literature.  Tears fell fast over it as the pages turned.  For a long while he hesitated, but at last he took up the pen and wrote a sarcastic article of the kind that he understood so well, taking the book as children