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.

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."