“We are the attorneys of public opinion.”

The other kind of criticism is a science.  It necessitates a thorough comprehension of each work, a lucid insight into the tendencies of the age, the adoption of a system, and faith in fixed principles—­that is to say, a scheme of jurisprudence, a summing-up, and a verdict.  The critic is then a magistrate of ideas, the censor of his time; he fulfils a sacred function; while in the former case he is but an acrobat who turns somersaults for a living so long as he had a leg to stand on.  Between Claude Vignon and Lousteau lay the gulf that divides mere dexterity from art.

Dinah, whose mind was soon freed from rust, and whose intellect was by no means narrow, had ere long taken literary measure of her idol.  She saw Lousteau working up to the last minute under the most discreditable compulsion, and scamping his work, as painters say of a picture from which sound technique is absent; but she would excuse him by saying, “He is a poet!” so anxious was she to justify him in her own eyes.  When she thus guessed the secret of many a writer’s existence, she also guessed that Lousteau’s pen could never be trusted to as a resource.

Then her love for him led her to take a step she would never had thought of for her own sake.  Through her mother she tried to negotiate with her husband for an allowance, but without Etienne’s knowledge; for, as she thought, it would be an offence to his delicate feelings, which must be considered.  A few days before the end of July, Dinah crumbled up in her wrath the letter from her mother containing Monsieur de la Baudraye’s ultimatum: 

“Madame de la Baudraye cannot need an allowance in Paris when she can live in perfect luxury at her Chateau of Anzy:  she may return.”

Lousteau picked up this letter and read it.

“I will avenge you!” said he to Dinah in the ominous tone that delights a woman when her antipathies are flattered.

Five days after this Bianchon and Duriau, the famous ladies’ doctor, were engaged at Lousteau’s; for he, ever since little La Baudraye’s reply, had been making a great display of his joy and importance over the advent of the infant.  Monsieur de Clagny and Madame Piedefer—­sent for in all haste were to be the godparents, for the cautious magistrate feared lest Lousteau should commit some compromising blunder.  Madame de la Baudraye gave birth to a boy that might have filled a queen with envy who hoped for an heir-presumptive.

Bianchon and Monsieur de Clagny went off to register the child at the Mayor’s office as the son of Monsieur and Madame de la Baudraye, unknown to Etienne, who, on his part, rushed off to a printer’s to have this circular set up: 

  "Madame la Baronne de la Baudraye is happily delivered of a son.

  “Monsieur Etienne Lousteau has the pleasure of informing you of
  the fact.

  “The mother and child are doing well."_