18. Lost Illusions, by Honoré de Balzac, pp. 463-476

Part Two: A Great Man in Embryo, 39. Skulduggery; 40. Farewells

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Coralie takes a minor role in a play and succeeds, which leads the theater manager, who has learned about the plot against Coralie, to offer her a role in a new play by Camille Maupin (Mademoiselle des Touches' nom de plume). But Lucien is seriously wounded in his duel with Michel Chrestien, and recuperation takes four months. Meanwhile, Fendant and Cavalier go broke, and Lucien's book is relegated to the second-hand bookshops where it receives no notice and few sales. Even the one favorable review of the book, by Martainville, does more harm than good, by turning the leftist papers more firmly against Lucien. The bankruptcy of Fendant and Cavalier also makes the notes held by Camusot worthless, so he files suit against Lucien. This time Coralie saves Lucien, but by making some deal with Camusot that she remains silent about.

Coralie is having a great success in Camille Maupin's play, but just as Lucien is finally recovering from his wound, she falls ill, and her role is taken over by Florine. Lucien is not yet well enough to work so he spends his time alternating with Bérénice in nursing Coraline. The household falls into dire poverty, although they have a kind physician in Bianchon -- the Cénacle having become reconciled with Lucien after learning that he had shown d'Arthez his review and that d'Arthez had collaborated in rewriting it before it was published.

Lucien is forced to go to Lousteau to ask for the thousand francs he is owed, but Lousteau is not much better off -- he is being sued for debt. Finally, Lucien resorts to forgery: he drafts three notes with a facsimile of David Séchard's signature for a thousand francs, and endorses them. A paper-merchant accepts them, so Lucien pays off his debts and Coralie's and gives the remaining three hundred francs to Bérénice, telling her not to let him have them, no matter how much he begs, because he's afraid he'll go lose them at gambling. Lucien returns to writing, but meets with no success. A publisher tells him he's lost his gift. And he's sued because of the forged bills, forcing him to go to Camusot for aid. Camusot directs him to a barrister named Desroches, who is a friend of Bixiou, Blondet and Des Lupeaulx.

Coralie dies, and Lucien has no money to bury her. He writes to Mademoiselle des Touches "one of those appalling letters in which men once elegant, but now reduced to beggary, throw their self-respect to the winds." And he goes to Barbet who agrees to pay him two hundred francs if he'll write some drinking songs for a collection of ribald verses he's putting together. He returns to the flat, where Bérénice is sewing a shroud for Coralie's body, and tells her "to go to the undertaker's and order a funeral costing no more than two hundred francs, inclusive of a service at the mean little church of Bonne-Nouvelle." And he sits down beside Coralie's body and writes ten songs "to be sung at smoking-parties." D'Arthez and Bianchon arrive just as he is finishing and are touched by

The sight of this beautiful corpse smiling on eternity, her lover paying for her funeral with indecent rhymes, Barbet paying for her coffin, the four tapers round an actress whose basque skirt and red stockings with green clocks had once put a whole auditorium into a flutter of excitement, and, at the door, the priest who had brought her back to God returning to the church to say mass for one who had loved so much!

Then Mademoiselle des Touches arrives and gives Lucien two thousand francs. And she joins the others at Coralie's funeral mass, after which the men go with the body to Père-Lachaise cemetery, where

Camusot, weeping hot tears, solemnly swore to Lucien that he would buy the burial plot in perpetuity and erect a tombstone with the inscription: CORALIE, and underneath this: Died August 1822, aged nineteen. 

The money from Mademoiselle des Touches settles all of Lucien's debts, but although he has decided to return to Angoulême, he has nothing left to pay for the journey. He contemplates suicide, but when he asks Bérénice for Coralie's scarf, she realizes that he intends to hang himself. She tells him to go for a walk and return at midnight, "But stay in the boulevards and keep away from the riverside." During the walk, he resolves not to give up until he has gone home and tried to make amends to David and his family. But when he sees Bérénice on the street, dressed in her best clothes, talking to a man, he realizes that she is prostituting herself to make money. She gives him twenty francs and quickly disappears.

Be it said in his favour, this money burned his fingers and he wanted to return it. But he was forced to keep it as the last stigma with which life in Paris was branding him.

17. Lost Illusions, by Honoré de Balzac, pp. 440-462

Part Two: A Great Man in Embryo, 37. Finot's finesses; 38. The fateful week

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Having burned his bridges, Lucien is left with friends only on the right. But even on that side, he attracts suspicion and jealousy, so he "clung to his one desire -- to get his ordinance, realizing that with his name restored he could make a fine marriage." Unfortunately, among his new enemies and former friends, Lousteau is aware of this ambition.

At the theater, Lucien runs into Finot, accompanied by Des Lupeaulx, who praises Lucien's ability to charm Mademoiselle des Touches ("who's already regarded as your future wife in social circles") as well as Mesdames d'Espard, de Bargeton and de Montcornet. But behind Lucien's back, Des Lupeaulx confides to Finot that the Marquise, Madame de Bargeton and Châtelet "have thrown him into the royalist party in order to eliminate him.... I'm in their confidence, and they detest the little fellow to an amazing extent." And Finot confides that his former friends are doing their part to demolish Lucien, who still has a contract with Lousteau and needs every penny he can earn, and that they "are engineering a flop for Coralie: he'll see his mistress hissed off the stage." Lucien doesn't suspect a thing.

And so comes what Balzac refers to as Lucien's "fateful week," his equivalent of Napoleon's retreat from Moscow. Coralie is going to work at a new theater, the Gymnase, her old one having gone bankrupt. And to make sure she's well received, he humbles himself and goes to Camusot with the remaining notes from Fendant and Cavalier. In order to protect Coralie from humiliation, Camusot agrees to give Lucien four thousand five hundred francs for the notes, endorsed "for value received in silk stuffs." Lucien then goes to the claqueur Braulard and pays to have them applaud Coralie.

The evening before Coralie's performance, d'Arthez's book is published, and Martainville, the editor of Le Réveil, orders Lucien to write a review denouncing it, largely to get back at another member of the Cénacle, Léon Giraud, whose new journal is becoming a serious rival to theirs. It doesn't matter that d'Arthez in fact shares their royalist opinions: He is simply the most convenient target. Lucien refuses to write the article, but Merlin and Martainville pressure him to do it by threatening to join in the attempt of the Liberal papers to mock Coralie's performance. Lucien has no choice: He reads d'Arthez's book and finds it "one of the finest in modern literature..., but in the end he wrote a mocking article of the kind at which he was so skillful and laid hold of the book as children lay hold of a beautiful bird to pluck its feathers and torture it."

Sickened by what he has written, he takes the article to d'Arthez and confesses what he has been forced to do. D'Arthez is moved by Lucien's dilemma and by his loyalty to Coralie, reads the article, and proposes to rewrite it himself: "I can make your article more honourable both to you and to me. Besides, I alone am thoroughly aware of my shortcomings." But he is also harshly critical of Lucien's moral weakness: "Repentance is a virginity which our souls owe to God: a man who twice repents is therefore a reprehensible sycophant. I'm afraid you only look on penitence as a prelude to absolution."

Coralie, terrified by the prospect of failure, fails. The claqueurs Lucien has hired are ineffective against their opponents, and the reviews are terrible. Coralie falls ill and withdraws from the play, to be replaced by Florine, "who took over her part and made her reputation in it, for she saved the play." Lucien vows to her, "I shall be the Comte de Rubempré. I shall make a fortune and marry you!" But Coralie knows he's only being foolish, which he proves by going out that evening and losing two thousand francs at the gambling tables.

Finot reports to Lucien that his attack on d'Arthez's novel, though revised by the attackee himself, is causing "scandal and uproar": "People are saying that Marat was a saint compared with you. They're getting ready to attack you, and your book won't survive it." (Lucien has been going over the last proofs of his novel before publication.)

Coralie is "in bed, pale and ill," and Bérénice warns Lucien that she will die if he doesn't find a new part for her. He goes to a soirée at Mademoiselle des Touches, where Madame de Bargeton gives him good news: He is to go tomorrow to the Chancellery, where the King has signed the decree making him Comte de Rubempré. Unfortunately, this is not only a hoax engineered by Madame d'Espard, but an article he has written making fun of the King and the Keeper of the Seals has just appeared in Lousteau's newspaper. So when he arrives at the Chancellery, he is denounced by the Secretary-General and shown the decree which the Lord Chancellor has torn to pieces. Des Lupeaulx, who has accompanied him, tells Lucien, "You've compromised me, Mesdames d'Espard and de Bargeton, and Madame de Montcornet, who had answered for you, must be furious."

Stunned, Lucien is walking past a bookstore when he sees that his novel has been published, "underneath a strange and to him unknown title." He hadn't been told of its publication, "and the newspapers were saying nothing about it." And then Michel Chrestien and Léon Giraud approach him on the street, and Michel spits in his face. Lucien slaps his face and challenges him to a duel.

13. Lost Illusions, by Honoré de Balzac, pp. 384-396

Part Two: A Great Man in Embryo, 29. The playwrights' banker; 30. A journalist's christening party

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Lucien and Lousteau go to see the claque leader Braulard, who turns out to be a gentleman (Lucien is shocked that Lousteau calls him "monsieur") of substance with a "fine-looking house" and an income of twenty thousand francs, although

To Lucien he looked like a working-class man grown rich: a coarse face, two very astute eyes, the hands of a professional claqueur, a complexion over which orgies had flowed like rain on the roof-tops, pepper-and-salt hair and a somewhat choked voice.

When he recognizes Lucien, Braulard thinks they have come about the claque for Coralie and tells him not to worry, but Lousteau informs him that it's really about his handling of the extra tickets Lucien is given for the theaters where he reviews. Braulard is happy to make a deal for scalping them, and in the conversation reveals some of the tricks he uses both as scalper and as claqueur for Coralie: "Listen: for her I'll have men posted in the gallery who'll make little hums of approval in order to start applause. That's a manoeuvre which gives an actress a send-off." As they leave Braulard's, they encounter "the evil-smelling squad of claqueurs and ticket-touts" waiting for him to give them their assignments.

"It's hard," answered Lucien as they returned to his rooms, "to keep one's illusions about anything in Paris. Everything is taxed, everything is sold, everything is manufactured, even success." 

Well, he should know. For he throws a large party celebrating his own manufactured success to which he not only invites the large company of journalists and publishers he has lately acquired, but also the sharers of his and Lousteau's mistresses, Matifat and Camusot, and "his friends of the Cénacle." Only three of the last show up: Michel Chrestien, Fulgence Ridal and Joseph Bridau. D'Arthez is "finishing his book" and Giraud is "attending to the publication of the first number of his Review. The Cénacle had sent along its three artisgts as being less likely than the rest to feel out of place in festivities of this kind."

Balzac gives us warning, however, that the extravagance of this celebration -- "an assembly of thirty persons: Coralie's dining-room could hold no more" -- may prove perilous because of "the foundation, slight as it was, on which the material well-being of the actress and her poet was based. Without committing himself, Camusot had instructed the furnishers to give Coralie credit for at least three months. Horses and servants and everything else were to be available as if by magic to these two children eager for enjoyment and enjoying everything blissfully."

Raoul Nathan is there, and he thanks Lucien effusively for the second article about his book, which causes Lucien to assume "a superior air as he looked at his three friends from the Cénacle." He is unconscious of the fact that they are judging him on his ability to write two articles that contradict each other, and when he tells them that he's in a position to give d'Arthez's book a laudatory review when it appears, Michel asks, "But have you a free hand?" Lucien answers, "with a poor pretense at modesty," "As free as one can have when one is indispensable." 

Then Dauriat reads the third article by Lucien on Nathan's book, to wild acclaim for the author.

"Gentlemen," said Lousteau. "We are the witnesses of a grave, inconceivable, unprecedented and truly surprising event. Don't you wonder at the rapidity with which our friend has changed from a provincial into a journalist?"

Lucien is crowned with artificial flowers by the drunken group. "At this juncture Lucien observed the saddened faces of Michel Chrestian, Joseph Bridau and Fulgence Ridal who took up their hats and left amid jeering hurrahs." Lucien tries to defend his former friends to his new ones, but they are hearing none of it.

Finot goes on to propose publishing a canard: an article "that will "accuse the Government of having certain intentions, and thus unleash public opinion against it." Vignon cynically observes, "It will always cause me the deepest astonishment to see a government giving up the guidance of ideas to scoundrels like us." (There were Matt Drudges and Rush Limbaughs two hundred years ago.)

As the dawn appears, Lucien and Coralie talk about the saddened members of the Cénacle:

"Your friends from the rue des Quatre-Vents were as gloomy as condemned criminals," said Coralie to her lover. 

"No," the poet answered. "It's they who were the judges."

"Judges are more fun," said Coralie.

11. Lost Illusions, by Honoré de Balzac, pp. 343-355

Part Two: A Great Man in Embryo, 23. The arcana of journalism; 24. Re-enter Dauriat

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Lucien signs a contract with the newspaper that is drafted by Finot and back-dated so that when Lousteau takes over the newspaper he can't change or back out of it. Giroudeau, who had previously blocked Lucien's efforts to get beyond the front door, is astonished: "You've never made such terms with anyone else," he tells Finot. But when he learns Lucien's name and realizes that he is the author of the much talked-about review, he proclaims, "You've got a gold-mine there." Finot tells Lucien, "You owe your position to Blondet and Vignon who see a future before you. And so don't blot your copy-book. Above all, don't trust your friends."

And so Lucien is admitted to the back rooms on the fifth floor of the building, where he sees Lousteau, Vernou, Merlin, and two other contributors he doesn't know yet. Lousteau tells him that they're planning more attacks on Châtelet who, after the first one appeared, had arrived at the offices demanding "satisfaction." Giroudeau handled him by saying the article had been written by Philippe Bridau, who was prepared to duel with him. Châtelet backed down. Vernou says, "We are busy drawing up an apology to the baron for tomorrow's number: every sentence in it is a dagger-thrust."

They proceed to plan out the editorial direction of the paper under its new editor, Lousteau. Among other things, they decide that if Dauriat doesn't accept Lucien's sonnets for publication, they'll mount an attack on his best writer, Nathan:  "We all like Nathan, but we're going to attack him," says Lousteau. They divvy up the theaters among themselves, and then plan other attacks, including some invented stories known as "canards." When Lucien is puzzled by the term, Merlin explains that a canard "is a story which looks as if it were true but which is invented to ginger up 'News in Brief' when it's a bit colourless." He attributes the use of canards to Benjamin Franklin, who fooled the Encyclopaedists with some made-up stories.

Riding in the carriage later with Coralie, Lucien praises his fellow contributors as "very decent fellows" and bathes in visions of success: "Here I am, a journalist sure of being able to earn six hundred francs a month if I work like a Trojan; also I shall get my two books accepted and write others, for my friends are going to organize a success for me!" Coralie advises him not to be too nice: "Be hard on people -- that's the way to get on." And once again they meet Madame d'Espard and Madame de Bargeton, this time accompanied by Châtelet, in the Bois de Boulogne. "Madame de Bargeton gave Lucien a seductive glance which could well be taken for a salutation."

Camusot is still smitten with Coralie, and proposes to buy her six thousand francs in Government stock if she would continue to be his mistress, and assures her he would ignore her relationship with Lucien. She turns him down, so "Camusot decided to wait for indigence to give him back the woman whom indigence had delivered over to him once before."

Lucien and Lousteau go to see Dauriat about his book, which Dauriat praises, but declines to publish. Instead, he wants Lucien to write articles for him: "you'll get more money from me in the next six months for the articles I shall ask from you than you would for your unsaleable poetry."

"But what about my reputation as a writer?" cried Lucien.

Dauriat and Lousteau burst out laughing. 

"God save us!" said Lousteau. "The man still has his illusions." 

When Lucien takes the manuscript from Dauriat, he checks the pen-mark under the string and sees that it is still aligned: Dauriat hasn't read his manuscript. When he asks Dauriat which sonnet he particularly liked, Dauriat lies to him. "The poet made an abrupt exit into the Galleries in order not to explode: he was furious."

10. Lost Illusions, by Honoré de Balzac, pp. 328-343

Part Two: A Great Man in Embryo, 20. Last visit to the Cénacle; 21. A variety of journalist; 22. Boots can change one's way of life

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Lucien can't help feeling a little guilty about betraying the ideals of the Cénacle, especially when he reads the masterly job they have done editing his novel:  "From chapter to chapter, the skilful and devoted pen of these great but as yet unknown men had changed dross into rich ore." The work they have done on the book "taught him more about literature and art than his four years of reading, comparison and study had done." So he faces them with dread, knowing, for example, "that, if Daniel had loved Coralie, he would have refused to share her with Camusot."

And sure enough, he is met with dismay when they learn that he's chosen journalism -- they already know it from having read his review in the newspaper. Léon Giraud tries to persuade him by saying that they "are going to bring out a journal in which neither truth nor justice will ever be outraged, in which we shall disseminate doctrines useful to humanity." But Lucien plays the skeptic: "'You won't have a single subscriber,' Lucien interjected with Machiavellian malice." In the end, he realizes "that he had been clasped to the heart of his true friends for the last time."

He returns to his room, where he finds Coralie in tears at the sight of his desolate living situation. The next day, he finds that the deal has gone through and Lousteau is now the editor of the newspaper. Florine congratulates Lucien on his good luck: "How many insignificant young people we see dragging along in Paris for years without getting an article into a paper!" He and Lousteau go to see Félicien Vernou, whom they find in a flat with his fat wife and noisy children, an explanation for Vernou's tendency to "resent other people's success and be discontented with everything while still remaining discontented with himself." And at one point Lucien makes a casual remark which turns Vernou into a "mortal enemy." When he tells Lousteau to drop him off at Coralie's, Lousteau mocks him:

"Ah! we're in love," said Lousteau. "It's a mistake! Do with Coralie what I do with Florine: treat her as a housekeeper, but be as free as a mountain goat!"

"You'd bring the saints to damnation!" said Lucien, laughing. 

"Demons are past being damned," Lousteau replied." 

He finds Camusot at Coralie's, both of them celebrating an extended engagement she has just received at the Gymnase theater. But then Camusot notices Lucien's boots, recognizing them as the ones Coralie claimed were hers. And Coralie announces defiantly that the boots Camusot had seen in her room were Lucien's, and that he had been hiding in her closet. Lucien decides to stand by her, and proclaims his love for Coralie, who tells Camusot that he can take back everything he has given her: "I prefer poverty with him to millions with you." Lucien, who has just seen the Vernou household, is not so sanguine: "A cold shudder ran down Lucien's back at the prospect of having a woman, an actress and a household on his hands." But fortunately Camusot gives in: "'Stay here and keep everything, Coralie,' said the merchant in a weak voice expressive of heart-felt grief." But he predicts that "it won't be long before you are living in penury. Whatever great talents this gentleman may possess, they won't be enough to provide for you."

When Camusot leaves, they take stock of their potential income, and although Lucien realizes it can't possibly be enough for the style of life Coralie has become accustomed to, he gives in:

He would have preferred to leave Coralie her freedom rather than to be pitch-forked into the obligations which such a union entails, but she was looking so beautiful, so shapely, so alluring that he was captivated by the picturesque aspects of this Bohemian life, and threw down the gauntlet to Fortune.

9. Lost Illusions, by Honoré de Balzac, pp. 294-328

Part Two: A Great Man in Embryo, 16. Coralie; 17. How a news-sheet is edited; 18. The supper; 19. An actress's apartments

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Coralie, smitten with Lucien, looks out at him from behind the curtain, as Camusot and his father-in-law, Cardot, who is keeping another actress, return to their box. As for Lucien, "the demon of lust whispered shocking thoughts in his ear." He quickly forgets any scruples he may have had about Lousteau's bedding Matifat's mistress. Lousteau, witnessing what's going on, eggs Lucien on: Coralie, Lousteau tells him, is 18, and her mother sold her to a man named de Marsay three years ago. She loathed de Marsay, and puts up with Camusot "because he doesn't pester her. So you are her first love." He also warns Lucien that the play will be a failure if he doesn't return Coralie's affections because, distracted by Lucien, she's blowing her lines.

Lucien, dazzled by the prospect of a fling with Coralie, tells Lousteau "more things are happening to me in one evening than ever did in the first eighteen years of my life." And he tells about his affair with Madame de Bargeton and how Châtelet helped break it up. Lousteau decides that he'll write some nasty gossip about Châtelet for the paper and that Lucien should review the play. The paper's short on copy and needs it. Lucien agrees.

Du Bruel comes to ask Lucien to tell Coralie he'll go to her place with her after supper. He agrees, and Coralie "from that moment acted with wonderful verve." At the curtain call, Coralie is wildly acclaimed and when Camusot throws a bouquet of flowers at her, she picks it up and holds it out toward Lucien.

Florine's apartment is beautifully furnished, which explains to Lucien why Lousteau can put up with the disorder of his own quarters. While they're gathering there, a dancer from the opera, Tullia, rushes in to tell Finot that the opera has agreed to provide a hundred subscriptions and the boxes he wants, which puts him in a bind because he had been planning to run a scathing piece on the company if it didn't meet his demands. So Lucien and Lousteau get to work and knock out their copy to replace it. Lucien's is a clever paean to the play, especially to Coralie and, to a slightly lesser degree, to Florine. Balzac tells us that the review "started a revolution in journalism by the revelation it gave of a new and original style." Meanwhile, Lousteau's attack on Châtelet compares him to a heron trying to swallow a cuttle-bone, i.e., Madame de Bargeton. The effect it had in the Faubourg Saint-Germain "was one of the thousand and one causes for further severity of the laws passed against the Press." Finot announces, after Lucien reads his piece to the others, that he's now a member of the staff of the newspaper.

At supper, Coralie instructs Florine to get Camusot so drunk that he'll have to spend the night in Florine's flat. And Lucien congratulates himself on having made friends with Lousteau, "without suspecting that Lousteau already feared him as a dangerous rival." And Claude Vignon, a guest at the supper, delivers a scathing attack on the press and its power:

Napoleon gave the explanation of this phenomenon -- moral or immoral, whichever you like -- in a superb aphorism...:  In corporate crimes no one is implicated. A newspaper can behave in the most atrocious manner and no one on the staff considers that his own hands are soiled.... We shall see the newspapers, which originally were run by men of honour, fall subsequently into the hands of the greatest mediocrities possession the patience and india-rubber faint-heartedness lacking in men of fine genius, or into the  hands of grocers with money enough to buy the products of the pen.... But we shall all write for them, like the people who work at a quicksilver mine knowing that they'll die of it. 

And he prophesies pointedly about Lucien that newspaper work will "dry up his brains, corrupt his soul" and "let him die of hunger if he's thirsty, and of thirst if he's hungry." To which Balzac comments, "Thus it happened, by the blessing of chance, that no information was lacking to Lucien about the precipice over which he was to fall." D'Arthez had warned him of the same thing, and even Lousteau had depicted "literature and journalism in their true light." But Lucien is intoxicated by the wit of the company and heedless of any warnings: "he felt a terrible itch to dominate this world of potentates and believed he had the power to overcome them."

With Florine's help, Camusot drinks himself literally under the table, and Lucien and Coralie escape together. But he has drunk too much himself and after being "disgustingly sick" in the stairwell of Coralie's house, is put to bed by Coralie and her housekeeper, Bérénice.  When he wakes about noon the next day, she gets in bed with him. He goes back to sleep about five o'clock in the afternoon, but is awakened by the arrival of Camusot. In a scene out of a French farce, he hides behind a curtain but leaves his boots behind. Coralie pretends that they are boots she's been trying on for a trouser role, and Camusot falls for it. When they go off to dinner, Bérénice releases Lucien from his hiding place.

Lucien admires Coralie's beautifully appointed apartment, and Bérénice brings him food. Then he naps until Coralie comes back from the theater and spends another night with her. The next day they go out in a carriage Camusot has bought for Coralie:

In one of the lanes of the Bois de Boulogne their coupé encountered the barouche of Mesdames d'Espard and de Bargeton who gazed at Lucien with astonishment: he darted at them the contemptuous glance of a poet who foresees the fame in store for him and intends to exploit his power. 

It is "one of the sweetest moments in his life, and perhaps decided his destiny." The desire for revenge makes him forsake the disciplined life prescribed by the Cénacle. At dinner with many of the same people who had been at the post-theater supper, Lucien displays a new self-confidence: "he sparkled with wit and became the Lucien de Rubempré who for a few months was to be a shining light in the literary and artistic world." But he also begins to make an enemy of Hector Merlin, "the most dangerous of all the journalists present at the dinner." And at the gaming table he loses all of his money, though Coralie replaces it.

8. Lost Illusions, by Honoré de Balzac, pp. 266-293

Part Two: A Great Man in Embryo, 12. A publisher's bookshop in the Wooden Galleries; 13. A fourth variety of publisher; 14. Behind the scenes; 15. A use for druggists

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Lousteau shows Lucien into Dauriat's shop in the Wooden Galleries, where he points out his editor, Finot, and "a talented young man, Félicien Vernou, a little rascal who's as nasty as an unmentionable disease." Lucien listens avidly to the quid pro quo transactions taking place there. They are joined by Emile Blondet, a journalist just making a name for himself, and Raoul Nathan, who has just published a novel "which had sold quickly and met with brilliant success."

Lucien is shocked to see Nathan kowtowing to the publisher and that he also defers to Blondet. Lucien "had admired Nathan's book, revered him as a god, and was stupefied at such a show of servility in front of this critic whose name and significance were unknown to him." He itches to tell Nathan, "You've written a fine book and the critic has merely written an article." He is won over by the power of "Money! That was the answer to every riddle," and begins to resent his friends of the Cénacle for advising him not to make his way into the more immediately lucrative world of journalism.

Dauriat waxes eloquent on the subject of the economics of publishing:

"I don't publish books for fun. I don't risk two thousand francs just to get two thousand francs back. I'm a speculator in literature.... I'm not here to be a springboard for future reputations, but to make money for myself and provide some for the celebrities.... Maybe I'm not quite a Maecenas, but literature owes me some gratitude: I've already more than doubled the price which manuscripts fetch.

And what he doesn't want is poetry, unless it's by one of four established poets: Béranger, Casimir Delavigne, Lamartine and Victor Hugo. As for Canalis, the socialite poet, "he's been made a poet by the reviews he's had!" -- which, as we've seen, implies that reviewers have been paid to praise him.

Lucien "felt a violent urge to leap at the publisher's throat." But with a little prodding from Lousteau, Dauriat agrees to read Lucien's manuscript. When they leave the shop, Lousteau says that it's "an excellent meeting-place, and gives one a chance to chat with the best minds of our time." But all Lucien can think of is "the insolence of the man!" And when he says "D'Arthez was right," Lousteau scoffs: "I know nothing more dangerous than those lone spirits who think, as that fellow does, they can bring the world to their feet." And in fact, Lucien has begun to "waver between the system of resigned poverty preached by the Cénacle and the militant doctrine put forward by Lousteau."

They reach the theater, the Panorama-Dramatique, where Lousteau's mistress, Florine, is about to perform in "a kind of comic melodrama by a young author, du Bruel." And Lucien's experiences at the theater are a mirror of the ones he has had during his brief association with high society. As a critic, Lousteau has an entree to the theater not unlike that of Madame d'Espard. He takes Lucien backstage to Florine's dressing room, where he also meets Nathan again and is properly introduced. Vernou is there as well, along with Finot and an actress in the play named Florville. In addition to Lousteau, Florine is also the mistress of a wealthy druggist named Matifat, whose jealousy is aroused by Lucien's beauty. Lucien is puzzled by the fact that Florine is being shared by Lousteau and Matifat, but Lousteau tells him, "you still know nothing about life in Paris.... It's as if you loved a married woman, that's all."

Lousteau and Lucien take their seats in the theater manager's box, along with Matifat and a silk-merchant named Camusot, whose mistress is another actress in the play, Coralie. Lucien learns a bit more about the way money solves problems in this milieu: The theater manager's rival has hired a claque to hiss the performance, but the manager has hired them too, with instructions to hiss in the wrong places and then to get thrown out by some others who have been bribed with tickets and a promise to meet Coralie and Florine. Lucien

could not help contrasting the clappings and hissings in the riotous pit with the scenes of calm and pure poetry he had enjoyed in David's printing-office and the vision they shared of the wonders of Art, the noble triumphs of genius and the shining wings of glory.

Then he witnesses some more dealings in which Finot plans to start another newspaper, and wants Lousteau to persuade Matifat (through Florine) to invest in it. He promises Lousteau the editorship at a salary of two hundred fifty francs a month. Rumor has it that the government is going to muzzle the press and only existing papers will continue to publish. "But in a year's time this newspaper will be worth two hundred thousand francs to sell to the Government if, as people make out, it has sense enough to buy up the periodicals." Finot also tells the manager about how he's putting the screws on the Opera-House to buy a hundred subscriptions and provide four boxes a month -- in exchange for favorable coverage.

Meanwhile, the manager has noticed that Coralie has become smitten with the good-looking Lucien and is blowing her lines in the play, so he tells him to hide in the corner of the box. Lousteau suggests that he tell her that Lucien is coming to supper afterward and she can "do what she likes with him then." Lucien continues to be shocked at Lousteau's ethics, including his use of Florine to extort investment money from Matifat. Where is his conscience? he asks. Lousteau replies: "Conscience, my dear, is a kind of stick that everyone picks up to thrash his neighbour with, but one he never uses against himself." And he tells Lucien if the deal goes through and he becomes editor, Lucien has a job covering the boulevard theaters from him at three francs a column, which at the rate of thirty a month is an income of ninety francs, plus free tickets he can sell on the side: "I can see you earning two hundred francs a month.... My dear fellow, there are men of talent, like that poor devil d'Arthez who dines at Flicoteaux's every day, who don't earn three hundred francs in ten years." Moreover, when he makes a name for himself he can sell his novel for up to four thousand francs.

The experience of going behind the scenes, not only of the theater but also of the publishing world, has its effect on Lucien: "it was as dazzling as a firework display after the profound darkness of his own laborious, inglorious, monotonous existence."